Winner - 2025 Victorian Architecture Awards

We are thrilled and hon­oured to share that the New­burgh Light House has been award­ed a 2025 Archi­tec­ture Award for Res­i­den­tial Archi­tec­ture – Mul­ti­ple Hous­ing at the Vic­to­ri­an Archi­tec­ture Awards.

The award was announced at the annu­al gala event held this past weekend.

Thank you to our client WAF Con­struc­tions for entrust­ing us once again to design a res­i­den­tial offer­ing on this tricky site.

Thanks to our team at Splin­ter Soci­ety Archi­tec­ture and of course the jury for their time and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the process.

Jury Cita­tion:
Locat­ed to the rear of a retail strip, adja­cent to Vic Track land and the his­tor­i­cal Auburn Train Sta­tion, the land-locked 150 m² site ris­es 10 lev­els, with every mil­lime­tre of the site utilised and mould­ed to pro­vide light-filled and cross-ven­ti­lat­ed homes occu­py­ing one lev­el each.

Each con­straint or hur­dle is vis­i­ble yet invis­i­ble in this project’s mate­ri­al­i­ty and archi­tec­tur­al response. In-situ con­crete through the base, required to with­stand the impact from a derailed train, man­i­fests in the cre­ation of façade and seat­ing for the small café ten­an­cy on the ground floor. The intri­cate, inter­con­nect­ed, pre­fab­ri­cat­ed glass block façade pan­els pro­vide pri­va­cy and bound­ary fire sep­a­ra­tion whilst max­i­miz­ing light pen­e­tra­tion into the apart­ments and achiev­ing views.

This project chal­lenges the more tra­di­tion­al respons­es to site and con­text, result­ing in a build­ing that is absolute­ly of its place and rel­e­vant as we look to solu­tions to utilise our avail­able build­ing plots to fur­ther infill and den­si­fy our sub­urbs.

Claire Humphreys RAIA| Jury Chair
John McIl­dowie Part­ners RAIA | Juror
Oliv­er Mayger RAIA | Juror
Mea­gan Velle­man RAIA | Grad Juror

Prac­tice: Splin­ter Soci­ety Archi­tec­ture
Pho­tog­ra­ph­er: Tim­o­thy Kaye
Builder: WAF Con­struc­tions
Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers: Wurund­jeri

Cat­e­go­ry Spon­sor: Siniat