Disconnected from the wider campus by a waterway, Woods Bagot designed the Law School as a lighthouse and pivot point for the wider campus. It is a striking building that houses a wide variety of modern learning spaces while also serving as a wayfinding landmark, offering a point of orientation, encouraging visitors across a link bridge, and uniting the campus. The law school does away with the traditional lecture theatre and offers five levels of flexible, multimedia learning environments that range from the formal to the informal.

The WAN judges praised Woods Bagot for, “a ‘wayfinding’ learning place that creates a series of spiralling dynamic versions of the spatial atmosphere for learning and communication and seems to echo the school’s quest for diverse pedagogical approaches”.

Winning the Silver trophy in the Commercial – Offices and Studios category, 405 Bourke Street is a luminous addition to an iconic Melbourne Street and a bustling part of this Australian city. The edges of the monolithic building are softened by a facade that features repetitive laminations to refract and absorb light, creating perpetual reflections and catching the sun throughout the day to create a constantly changing expression.

The WAN judges noted: “The building is horizontally aligned with its historic neighbours while new through lanes provide access to and across the site, connecting the offices to the surrounding streetscape.

Alongside this recognition for Woods Bagot’s Australian projects, from China, AI Plaza was a finalist in the Façade category and Sunshine Financial Center was a finalist in the Commercial – Offices and Studios.

In the sister award program, the Word Interior News Awards, Woods Bagot’s Zhenmeihui Clinic won the Gold trophy in the Health and Wellbeing – Hospital and Clinic category.