Maitland Riverlink by Chrofi with McGregor Coxall

Built on the land of the Wonnarua people

Maitland, New South Wales

Jury citation Maitland Riverlink is an exacting work, civically generous and courageous. Beyond the realization of an appropriate form for communal amenity, the design revitalizes and fortifies the communal consciousness.

The project offers the people of Maitland a public place that is both carefully scaled to the grain of its urban context and highly transformational. It is a public living room, an outdoor cinema, an urban stage, a covered plaza, a forecourt to a restaurant and cafe, a gallery for urban art and a threshold to a new riverside promenade.

The reintroduction of the Hunter River to the context of the main street has turned an economic and cultural tide. Shops and businesses are extending their frontages and reorienting to an expansive riverside network of public walkways and promenades.

Maitland Riverlink elevates a prosaic brief to a larger vision for the public good. The materiality of the project is uncompromising, with a robustness and hand-finished quality that bespeaks a deeper attitude of civic pride and care.

— Maitland Riverlink was reviewed by Kerry Clare and SueAnne Ware in Architecture Australia Jan/Feb 2019. See architectureau.com/articles/ ebbs-and-flows-maitland-riverlink

Architects Chrofi with McGregor Coxall; Project team Tai Ropiha (project director), Susanne Pollmann, Joshua Zoeller (project architects), Adrian McGregor (landscape architect); Engineer SDA; Heritage consultant City Plan; Town planner Ethos Urban; Builder Graph Building; Services consultant Northrop; Hydraulic consultant

Whipps Wood Consulting; BCA consultant Steve Watson and Partners; Accessibility BCA Access Solutions; AV consultant Marshall Day Entertech; Quantity surveyor

Rider Levett Bucknall; Fire engineer MCD Fire Engineering; Public art Braddon Snape; Graphic design Deuce Design; Kitchen consultant Frost