McGregor Coxall join Adjaye Associates and BVN with Steensen Varming, Barbara Flynn and Yvonne Koolmatrie in the Adelaide Contemporary Design competition. The new building will become a new landmark on Adelaide’s celebrated North Terrace boulevard combining a contemporary art gallery with a public sculpture park and meeting place which will integrate art, education, and nature.

The former Royal Adelaide Hospital site, close to the historic Adelaide Botanic Garden and the acclaimed Art Gallery of South Australia, will undergo a transformation into an innovative, mixed-use contemporary urban quarter, led by Renewal SA, the Government of South Australia’s regeneration agency. Adelaide Contemporary is a key element in the emerging vision.

The teams were selected by a panel comprised of representatives from the Art Gallery of South Australia, Arts South Australia, and the Office for Design and Architecture South Australia. The jury chair was Australian arts administer Michael Lynch, AO, CBE.

“The six teams all showed a strong connection with Adelaide—and understood that our aim is not to create an off-the-peg architectural icon but a piece of Adelaide, an entity that will be sustainable and polymathic in the way it enhances the social, cultural and architectural fabric of the city,” Nick Mitzevich, Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, said.

The jury is made up of nine eminent leaders from the arts, architecture, culture and business and includes:

- Michael Lynch AO CBE (Chair), Chair, Sydney Community Foundation and Chair, Circa

- Lee-Ann Tjunypa Buckskin, Deputy Chair, Australia Council for the Arts, Managing Director, L-AB & Associates and Executive, Aboriginal Strategy, South Australian Film Corporation

- Beatrice Galilee, Daniel Brodsky Associate Curator of Architecture and Design, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

- Walter Hood, Creative Director and Founder, Hood Design Studio

- David Knox, Deputy Chair, Economic Development Board of South Australia and Member, Adelaide Botanic Gardens Foundation Committee

- Nick Mitzevich, Director, Art Gallery of South Australia

- Toshiko Mori, Founder and Principal, Toshiko Mori Architect and Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design

- Sally Smart, Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne and renowned contemporary artist

- Tracey Whiting, Chair, Art Gallery of South Australia Board

The first stage of the competition attracted 107 teams made up of approximately 525 individual firms from five continents. The global call for interest was designed to encourage Australian as well as leading international practices—a condition of the competition is partnership with an Australian practice at stage two, which has already been fulfilled by the shortlisted teams. The finalists include:

- Adjaye Associates and BVN with Steensen Varming, McGregor Coxall, Barbara Flynn and Yvonne Koolmatrie

- BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group and JPE Design Studio with United Natures, Arketype and BuildSurv

- David Chipperfield Architects and SJB Architects with Jane Irwin Landscape Architecture and Arup

- Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot with Oculus, Pentagram, Katnich Dodd, Rider Levett Bucknall, Arup, WSP, Deloitte, Kaldor Public Art Projects, Klynton Wanganeen, James Sanders, Dustin Yellin, Right Angle Studio and Garry Stewart

- HASSELL and SO-IL with Fabio Ongarato Design, Mosbach Paysagistes and Fiona Hall

- Khai Liew, Office of Ryue Nishizawa and Durbach Block Jaggers with Masako Yamazaki, Mark Richardson, Arup and Irma Boom

Concept designs will be revealed to the public and stakeholders in an exhibition in April 2018 in Adelaide, and online, before the competition jury meets in May 2018.

(Image by Nat Rogers, January 2018)