Port Adelaide's Yitpi Yartapuultiku wins three honours at the 2026 National Architecture Awards

The Australian Institute of Architects announced the winners of its 2026 National Architecture Awards at a gala in Brisbane on 29 October. The Institute describes the program as Australia's highest honour for built design. This year's list spans all six states and the ACT, and runs from an office tower and a major rail station to a hospital, a school and homes.

No project won more than Yitpi Yartapuultiku (The Soul of Port Adelaide), an Aboriginal-led cultural centre on the Port River. It took the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture, the David Oppenheim Award for Sustainable Architecture and the COLORBOND Award for Steel Architecture.

"This year's winning buildings are optimistic, with bright outlooks onto the future," said jury chair Adam Haddow. He also pointed to smaller, more efficient homes, lower-carbon design and growing engagement with First Nations cultures. The five-member jury visited every Australian project in person.

Top honours at a glance

Most categories are headed by a named award, followed by National Awards and National Commendations.

Public: Yitpi Yartapuultiku, South Australia

Built by Sarah Constructions on Kaurna land, the centre grew from a close partnership between the design team, Traditional Owners and Elders. Together they turned about 4.9 hectares of degraded coastal land into a cultural landscape with a restored water's edge and a ceremonial dance circle. It runs entirely on electricity, uses rooftop solar and batteries, and holds a 6-Star Green Star rating.

Commercial: 205 North Quay, Queensland

Hassell, REX and Richards & Spence took the Queensland shade house as their cue for this Cbus Property office tower, built by Hutchinson Builders. Raising the building above the street creates a covered public space, with a 20-metre-high lobby open to everyone. Higher up are tree-planted balconies every three storeys and a wellness floor with an outdoor 25-metre pool.

Residential: Eric Street, Western Australia

Officer Woods Architects fitted two dwellings into the form of one house in Cottesloe, built by Insideout Building. It can work as a single home, two separate homes or a mix of both as a family's needs change. On the ground level, the kitchen and dining room look towards the ocean while the sitting room and bedrooms look onto a north-facing courtyard, and native planting has replaced asphalt on the street verge.

Heritage and reconciliation: Wybalenna, Tasmania

The Institute's project entry describes Wybalenna, on Flinders Island, as a profoundly sacred place for Tasmanian Aboriginal people, "recognised internationally as a place of genocide". Aboriginal Tasmanians were interned there from 1833 to 1847, and after prolonged activism it was returned to Aboriginal ownership and care in 1999. Working with the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, Taylor and Hinds Architects stripped back the colonial layers of the old homestead and added a Corten steel ablutions pavilion, the first new structure there in over a century. The pavilion was prefabricated and built pro bono, using donated steel. The two works share the Special Jury Prize, and the pavilion also won a National Award for Small Project Architecture.

Around the country

Other National Awards include these, with builders in brackets:

• NSW: Central Station by Woods Bagot in collaboration with John McAslan + Partners (Laing O'Rourke), New Sydney Fish Market by 3XN in association with BVN and ASPECT Studios (Multiplex).
• Victoria: New Footscray Hospital by COX Architecture and Billard Leece Partnership (Multiplex), Merri Northcote by Six Degrees Architects (Brady Constructions), with 250 homes including 99 social housing dwellings.
• Queensland: 443 Queen St by WOHA with Architectus and Kris Kowalski Architects (Hutchinson Builders).
• Western Australia: ECU City in the Perth CBD by Lyons with Silver Thomas Hanley and Haworth Tompkins (Multiplex).
• Tasmania: The Forest, the University of Tasmania's flagship Hobart campus by Woods Bagot (Hansen Yuncken), for both educational and sustainable architecture.

In the ACT, Gugan Gulwan by COX Architecture with ck architecture Australia (Projex Building) received a National Commendation for interior architecture.

Where to see them

The Institute's release has the full list, including every National Commendation, and its awards gallery has project details.

Published 5 November 2026 · Updated 3 November 2026