We are thrilled to announce that PHIVE Parramatta is the recipient of the inaugural Holdmark Innovation Award!
This award recognises an Australian project that demonstrates excellence and innovation in architecture or engineering in the built environment, and aims to raise the profile of Australian design and architecture practitioners around the world. We would like to thank Holdmark Property Group, the Powerhouse and Sydney Design Week for this incredible accolade.
Designed by DesignInc, Lacoste + Stevenson and Manuelle Gautrand, PHIVE delivers much needed community space for Parramatta. It is the new cultural and civic heart, providing world-class community and cultural experiences, state-of-the-art library and council chambers. Engaging and connecting with Parramatta Square, it is an urban living room – a place to meet, exhibit and explore. The design has a social and sustainability agenda at its core. Its distinctive playful shape is sculpted within a shadow plane, protecting solar access to the public square. The building’s envelope opens to views and light; a sustainable three-dimensional skin protecting the interior from heat and glare by self-shading its windows.
Selection Committee
— Kevin Nassif, Chief Operating Officer, Holdmark Property Group
— Marni Reti, Associate, Kaunitz Yeung Architecture
— Hannah Slater, NSW/ACT Planning and Design Lead, Arup
— Ninotschka Titchkosky, Co-chief Executive Officer, BVN
— Butler, Senior Curator – Design and Architecture, Powerhouse
The selection committee agreed that PHIVE by DesignInc Sydney with Lacoste+Stevenson and Manuelle Gautrand Architecture has created a vital civic hub for Parramatta, which the local communities have actively embraced as their own. Its ingenious rooftop design and passive climate strategies make it a worthy recipient of the inaugural Holdmark Innovation Award.
Keinton Butler, Senior Curator – Design and Architecture, Powerhouse
The building features facilities for local First Nations communities, managed by the local Traditional Custodians. The Dharug community manages the ‘Dharug Room’, ‘Keeping Place’ and research laboratory. The laboratory is humidity controlled for storing artefacts.
Construction of PHIVE followed the Waste Minimisation and Management Act 1995 to manage waste at the site during excavation and construction works. The design used strategies to improve resilience and adaption to climate change events through the Climate Adaptation Plan (CAP), which was created by LCI Engineers to address climate context, projections and the relevant risks to the building (flood, drought, fire).
The project includes strategies to protect, support and regenerate the site’s ecology including internal and external planting areas irrigated with harvested rainwater and using WSUD strategies.
PHIVE cantilevers into the square, providing protected areas which fulfill the Parramatta Square masterplan and pedestrian strategy to provide all-weather circulation areas through the Square.
PHIVE has been designed for passive thermal comfort with the use of small spaces, study pods, natural ventilation, blinds, actuated louvres. Renewable energy technology has been used to reduce the operational carbon footprint of PHIVE resulting in a low reliance on traditional heating and cooling methods.
The distinctive roof form optimises natural ventilation and disperses daylight throughout the building’s interior. Louvres screen the west facing façade and shield the building against solar gain in summer.
The selection of materials and processes considered a wide range of environmental impacts, including but not limited to environmental degradation, embodied carbon and supply chain slavery. PHIVE was subject to a BCA JV3 Report and was designed to qualify for a six-star Green Star rating.
Powerhouse is delighted to partner with Holdmark to celebrate the future-focused Australian practitioners responsible for the structures and spaces that frame our everyday interactions – from large-scale civic places to intimate personal domains. We are looking for ambitious, inventive, outstanding projects that showcase the best-in-class within the industry.
Lisa Havilah, Chief Executive Officer, Powerhouse
We are thrilled to announce that PHIVE Parramatta has received multiple awards and commendations across a range of industry organisations for exemplary architectural design, sustainability, urban design and library design.
PHIVE is a new landmark public building in Parramatta. We talked with Richard Does—who lead the DesignInc team from competition stage in 2016 right through to project completion in 2022—about the design concept, the process, the challenges and delightful moments along the way.
PHIVE Parramatta is featured in the Jan/Feb 2023 issue of Architecture Australia.
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