Best retirement housing design for Global Awards shortlisted
MELBOURNE: The shortlist for the best retirement housing design has been declared.
Over 250 designs have been considered by the awards secretariat. One of the finalists in this category is shown above.
A renovation of a small and dark 1960s “catalogue home” in St Ives that added a small loft to capture magnificent views of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is one of 20 Australian projects shortlisted for the world’s largest international architecture award.
Known as Reaching to the Sun, the renovated home transformed by Sydney architect Edward Szewczyk was one of 416 shortlisted buildings selected from 630 entries in the 2026 World Architecture Festival (WAF) to compete in the final round of this mega-contest.
The international shortlist includes convention centres, government offices, parks, memorials, sporting arenas, recreation centres, a traffic control centre in China, and skyscrapers like the 64-storey WASI Tower in Dubai and 270 Park Avenue in New York.
It includes works by some of the world’s biggest architecture practices and the smallest, ranging from small homes like Reaching to the Sun to the new Sydney Fish Market, the retrofit of Sydney’s AMP at 33 Alfred by JPW, a clubhouse in Vietnam and a 4800-square-metre oceanfront park in Florida.
Szewczyk, the principal of Edward Szewczyk & Associates Architects, said the addition of a 35-square-metre elevated loft transformed an existing, dated building into a joyful space full of light.
Glass doors stretching 12 metres opened the home to sun and bush looking north.
The renovation added a new stainless-steel kitchen and storage for cookbooks including a curved bookshelf – known as the “wave” – that followed the staircase.
The Global Award winner will be announced in December in London. (Globals)