Professor of Practice in the School of Architecture, Gerard Reinmuth and his practice TERROIR have been awarded the Best Completed House Category at the 2019 World Architecture Festival in Amsterdam. The Castle Cove House was shortlisted from a large international field into a shortlist of 14, all of whom presented their projects to an international jury.
Prof Reinmuth, who founded TERROIR in 1999, first designed the house in 2007, after which it was put on hold for 4 years due to the financial crisis. Starting again in 2011, the completion of the house took six years during which the diagram remained but was elaborated in line with the evolving interests of a practice which had grown in the decade it required to realise the house. TERROIR commenced as a challenge to prevailing approaches in Australian architecture to the “house in the landscape” and the jury noted that that “what initially seems to be a simple integration of house into landscape is so much more”. For this core interest in a formal and spatial intertwining with site had now evolved into a multi-dimensional approach, which according to the jury, resulted in “a visual shattering of boundaries between inside and out. The use of well-tested ‘architectural instruments and tools’ define and punctuate the concept. A rigorous process of thought and organically responsive design enriches the functionality with the poetic”. “The moments of joy just keep coming.”
This award adds to Prof Reinmuth’s wins in September at the Chicago Athenaeum Awards, which is the other major international architecture award programs, for the Philip Island Penguin Parade Visitor Centre and Koondrook Wharf.