Australia's best interior designers named at IDEA awards ceremony

For the 450 entrants who contested one of Australia’s most prestigious interior design awards in a year when the extraordinary townhouse Indigo Slam was revealed, it must have been like being on the world tennis circuit when Roger Federer was peaking.

No matter how good the game others brought to court – and in interior design terms, this year’s entries were outstanding – Federer would win just about everything.

For Indigo Slam, created by Sydney’s Smart Design Studio, not the least of the titles it has claimed, and only two weeks ago, was the National AIA’s “residential new” gong.

And so, when the 2016 IDEA Awards were announced on Friday, Smart Design got yet another prize for Indigo Slam with the residential single award.

But wait, there’s more … William Smart’s practise also received IDEA’s residential multi award for the interiors of the elegant brick and concrete apartment block, Sydney 385.

Multiple mentions for winning or for being commended in IDEA categories were not rare this year.

Melbourne’s Fiona Lynch had three projects in and got one of the major awards, designer of the year, in recognition of her “high calibre output across a variety of typologies”. SJB Interiors had four mentions at the top with four different projects and took out the residential decoration prize for their empathetic refurbishment of the mid-century Melbourne Peninsula house.

Woods Bagot won both the public space award with the lobby of the International Towers Sydney Tower 2, and the workplace over 1000 square metre award for their own Melbourne office.

Run by Niche Media for 13 years and with this being the biggest field ever, 2016 was acknowledged by publisher Chris Rennie as “extraordinary for remarkable diversity”. The contest is judged by an august panel of peers from the represented realms of architecture, interior and product design.

Mel Bright, principal of Make Architecture, was one of the seven jurists and she cites a “really refreshing move away from white plasterboard and chrome fittings”.

“What excited me was a story of less polish and more authenticity in materiality in some time-worn interiors. It was all very gutsy but still very beautiful,” she says.

For such attributes she picked out emerging designer winner Karen Abernethy’s Humming Puppy yoga studio in Sydney as “pretty quirky, pretty gutsy and playful”. Like very many projects, “it celebrated the expressed details and structure of the building’s frame, adding an almost visual tactility”.

Although it didn’t win, nor was named in any commendations, Bright says because she remembers it – “and felt jealous I hadn’t thought of doing it first”, she loved Adriana Hanna’s Hues Hair Salon in Melbourne’s Richmond, “also for its playful whimsy”.

The only generality Bright could draw across such a huge field was how well everyone had responded to the site conditions – .the buildings –  that their interiors were fitting into.

The peak award, tantamount to an Oscar for lifetime achievement, went to Melbourne’s Kerry Phelan, of K.P.D.O, who had been at the top of her profession for decades, and whose office now works internationally out of New York and Hong Kong.

Phelan says being named gold medal designer of the year, “came right out of the blue”. And as much as it rewards her never-relenting battle “to keep a very high benchmark of quality, and to be an eternal observer of our own work”, she says the ultimate award acknowledges “that great clients are a great part of the formula. I’ve been very lucky to have had so many great clients”.    

And the winners are …

Overall Winner & Residential single
Indigo Slam, Smart Design Studio

Indigo Slam by Smart Design Studio. Photo: Sharrin Rees

Gold Medal winner
Kerry Phelan. K.P.D.O

Kerry Phelan of K.P.D.O.
Photo: Anson Smart

Designer of the Year
Fiona Lynch

Balwyn Residence by Fiona Lynch
Photo: Sharyn Cairns

Emerging Designer
Karen Abernethy Architects

Sustainability
Westpac Barangaroo, Geyer

Hospitality
Antica Pizzeria e Cucina, Genesin Studio

Residential Multi
Sydney 385, Smart Design Studio

Object, Furniture and Lighting Professional
Ora Design Lamp, Ross Gardam

Object, Furniture and Lighting Rising
Flex barstool and table, Ash Allen in collaboration with Harry Zanios

Workplace over 1000 square metres
Melbourne office, Woods Bagot

Workplace under 1000 square metres
Humming Puppy Sydney, Karen Abernethey Architects with Louisa Macleod

Residential Decoration
Peninsula House, SJB Interior

Editor’s Medal
Bates Smart

Event
Work with me Here, Sibling

International
Aesop KLCC, Russell & George