Bates Smart’s new Embassy of Australia in Washington D.C. named the 2024 Australian Timber Design Award winner

Bates Smart’s new Embassy of Australia building in Washington D.C. has been announced as the winner of this year’s Australian Timber Design Award. The annual prize, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, highlights superlative timber designs and building products as a means of advocating for their various applications within a well-defined "ethos."

The winner, which was joined by four Merit honorees, presents a complex and "delicate balance between cultural representation, iconic civic presence and practical security considerations," according to the jury. The inspiration for its design came from the native Australian landscape, elevating a level of transparency that's intended as a metaphor for Australian values of welcomeness and trust.

The building's more than 215,000-square-foot interior, which appeared on the shortlist for the 2024 Inside World Festival of Interiors, repeats the landscape motif while orienting around a large, cathedral-like atrium space that displays a powerful connection between the ground plane and sky before establishing an immersive North-South axial layout of representational spaces.

Beyond that, the jury says: "The main representational spaces are defined by strong materiality with Australian timber wall panels, that provide both air reticulation and sound absorption, organised around a series of textured horizontal bands that transition from rough to smooth. This mirrors the protective qualities of the bark during the eucalypt forest's cycle of growth, burn and regrowth. Intricate metallic filigree screens have been sensitively deployed to mediate the interplay of light and shadow in social breakout and office spaces."

The project was completed in 2023 at a cost of nearly $150 million USD ($236.9 million AUD). The other Merit winners are:

• People’s Choice: Michael Kirby Building (Macquarie University Law School) by Hassell Studio and FDC Construction (NSW)
• Sustainability:  Berninneit Cultural and Community Centre by Jackson Clements Burrows
• International Project: Embassy of Australia, Washington D.C. by Bates Smart
• Rising Star: Sarah Shearman from Brother Nature Design for River House

The 2024 Excellence in Timber Applications winners are:

• Residential Class 1: New Building: Taroona House by Archier
• Residential Class 1: Alteration or Addition: Verandah Terraces by Phorm architecture + design
• Fit Out: Residential: Northcote House by LLDS and Power to Make
• Standalone Structure: Fernery at Ballarat Botanic Gardens by BALANCE Architecture & Interior Design
• Commercial Building: T3 Collingwood by Hines, AECOM, JCB and Icon
• Public Building: Michael Kirby Building (Macquarie University Law School) by Hassell Studio and FDC Construction (NSW)
• Fit Out: Commercial and Public: Embassy of Australia, Washington D.C. by Bates Smart
• Furniture & Joinery: Holocene House by CplusC Architects + Builders

The 2024 Excellence in Timber Products winners are:

• Australian Certified Timber: Irrawaddy by Incidental Architecture 
• Recycled Timber: First Steps Count Child and Community Centre by Austin McFarland Architects