Moxy Sydney Airport was the big winner at the 2024 Australasia-Pacific Hotel Design Awards, as Maed Collective with Group GSA took the awards for both New-Build Hotel of the Year, and the 2024 Paul Davis Award for the Australasia-Pacific Hotel of the Year.
The Australasia-Pacific Hotel Design Awards, held at the 2024 Design Inn Symposium in Adelaide, celebrate design-focused hospitality projects from across Australasia and the Pacific (including Hawaii) that demonstrate innovations and provide exceptional guest experiences completed and opened during 2023.
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The four awards – for new-build properties, conversions, refurbishments and an overall winner, the Paul Davis Award – recognise exceptional projects that demonstrate design innovation, a commitment to sustainability design practices and deliver exceptional guest experience.
According to Ruth Hogan, Design Inn Content Chair, “There have been so many incredible new hotels, conversions and refurbishment projects introduced to the Australasia-Pacific market in recent years. The quality of submissions this year reached a new high.”
Regarding the Moxy Sydney Airport build, the judges said: “The design team, led by Maed, have created a hotel which is activated and dynamic – a unique accomplishment in an airport precinct.
“They have provided a welcoming and comfortable environment where every touch point across the common areas and guest rooms have been carefully considered. It balances playfulness and nostalgia perfectly to create a design outcome that shows that limited service does not equal limited design. The design team, along with the client have delivered a passion project, filled with character and soul. It is an exemplar lifestyle hotel in Australia.”
Highly Commended in the New-Build category was the Vibe Hotel Adelaide, designed by Loucas Zahos Architects.
The judges said: “This is a beautiful contemporary design seamlessly blended between interior and exterior architectural expression. A masterful balance and interplay between space, materials and architectural features.
“A great example is the serpentine chandelier delicately set against the raw horizontal concrete slab and the vertical zig zag perforated curtain skin. A restraint but masterful use of natural material colours skilfully offset and layered against each other. The position and function of the sky pool as a link between two buildings is a stroke of genius. A very well-deserved commendation.”
The winner of Hotel of the Year – Refurbishment was Rydges Melbourne, designed by Luchetti Krelle and EVT Design and Development.
The judges recognised “the challenges in breathing life into a mid-level hotel brand with design that elevates and innovates while catering for its established market”.
The judges felt that “Luchetti Krelle’s scheme was both brave enough and restrained enough to achieve both goals. It started with imaginative planning and ended with beautiful lighting, with everything in between combining to create a contemporary but accessible design that will entice both the corporate and leisure markets,” the judges said.
“The consistency of palette, the use of materials and the FF&E detailing were all admired. And the judges were also pleased to see that so much of that FF&E was procured locally, minimising the carbon footprint of the fit-out.”
Highly Commended in the Refurbishment category was Hotel Morris Sydney, designed by Tom Mark Henry.
The winner of Hotel of The Year – Conversion was Adina Pentridge and The Interlude, designed by Chada.
The judges said: “A beautiful and sensitive transformation from a 170-year-old correctional facility to a much loved and sophisticated hospitality venue – from an old bluestone prison that confined prolific criminals such as Ned Kelly and Copper Read to a desirable new lifestyle precinct.
“Two polar opposite use cases blended seamlessly and masterfully into a rich tapestry of old and new with the historic canvas still proudly visible through the overlayers of delicately placed new design brush strokes. Not too much. Just enough to hold each dialog in place.
“There could have been a temptation to mask the prior build fabric and its story a little more perceptibly so as to ensure the new project feasibility. However, here the new and old are respectfully and very deliberately celebrated in a rich new dialog with a comfortable tension between old and new. A very deserving winner.”
Highly commended in the Hotel Conversion category was Capella Sydney, designed by Make Architects and BAR Studio.
Sarah is a freelance journalist with experience across print, digital and audio. After working for Multimedia Publishing as a contributing writer, she has recently joined the team in a part-time capacity for School News AU and AccomNews.