People flocking to the St Kilda pier on a warm day. Picture: Ian Currie.
The $53m St Kilda Pier redevelopment designed to protect and celebrate the area’s fairy penguin colony has won three major architecture gongs.
Other projects recognised among the 2026 Victorian Architecture Award winners’s 64 winners and commendations, announced yesterday, include conservation works at the Victorian Trades Hall in Carlton and the new $1.5bn Footscray Hospital.
The new St Kilda Pier featuring a 450m-long curved boardwalk, penguin viewing platform, tiered seating and increased public open space took home gongs including the Victorian Architecture Medal, an urban design award and The Dimity Reed Melbourne Prize which recognises projects that have made a significant contribution to the city of Melbourne.
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The pier revamp was a collaboration between Jackson Clements Burrows Architects (JCB), Site Office Landscape Architecture, and port and coastal engineers AW Maritime.
Parks Victoria commissioned the works due to the ageing infrastructure at the pier where visitors gather to see the 1400-strong penguin colony return to their burrows at sunset.
JCB principal Veryan Curnow, who served as the St Kilda Pier project director, said the tourist attraction had received more than 1 million visitors in its first year of operation.
Ms Curnow said her team had surveyed the penguin’s burrows to help inform the pier’s design, alongside Parks Victoria and environmental and conservation group Earthcare St Kilda.
JCB principal Veryan Curnow says the St Kilda Pier redevelopment’s build was carefully timetabled to protect the local penguins. Picture: Peter Clarke.
An average of 95,000 people visit the St Kilda Pier every month. Picture: Peter Clarke.
The St Kilda penguin colony is made up of little penguins, also known as fairy penguins. Picture: Phillip Island Nature Parks.
“The new penguin platform is set back from the breakwater whilst still affording close views, a significant change from the previous platform which directly abutted the breakwater,” she said.
Curved shapes in the pier including the balustrades and shade pavilion next to the heritage-listed St Kilda Pier Kiosk echo the kiosk’s ornamental arches and nearby Luna Park.
“The new pier will help reduce the impacts of climate change over the next 50 years,” Ms Curnow said.
“It imperceptibly rises in height as you travel its length, making it more resilient to rising sea levels, while the wave wall is designed to respond to wave and climate change modelling and seeks to protect visitors.”
The new Footscray Hospital officially opened to patients in February 2026. Picture: Peter Clarke.
Detailing from the The Trades Hall conservation works. The building is one of the world’s oldest trade union buildings. Picture: Peter Glenane.
Brunswick’s Balam Balam Place is a Merri-bek Council-operated creative, cultural and community hub. Picture: Peter Bennetts.
The new Footscray Hospital by COX Architecture and multidisciplinary design firm Billard Leece Partnership won the William Wardell Award for Public Architecture, plus received an urban design commendation.
And conservation works at the circa-1874 Victorian Trades Hall, spearheaded by Melbourne-based architectural practice and heritage consultancy Lovell Chen, were commended in the awards’ heritage category.
Other award winners included the Port Phillip EcoCentre, Balam Balam Place in Brunswick and the extensive retrofit of a 1970s’ brutalist office tower at 500 Bourke St.
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