From the jury

From the jury —

It sounds like the beginning of an overly complex joke: an architect, an editor, a restaurateur, a food critic and a designer walk into a room, and barely come out for two days. What happens when five highly opinionated people from markedly different professions and backgrounds spend hours and hours poring over thousands of photos? We braced for diverging opinions and heated debates, but remarkably, there were few. In almost every case, the winners of this year’s Eat Drink Design Awards were unanimous and clear.

There was one word that arose over and over during our deliberations at the Artichoke offices in South Melbourne: restraint. The winners of this year’s awards are exceptionally diverse, in their locations and aesthetics and functionality. But the principle of restraint marked every single winner, as well as many commendations, though it was expressed in myriad ways. Sometimes it was a project’s defining principle, as with Best Restaurant Design winner Di Stasio Citta’s radical blankness. In some cases it was the restraint of allowing the building to reveal its best features, as with the lovely simplicity of Best Retail Design winner Piccolina’s Collingwood outpost.

These awards always mirror certain realities of the hospitality industry, both positive and negative. This year saw a marked increase in entries from regional locations and that increase is reflected in the class of award winners. That Australia and New Zealand have more projects in far-flung locations – projects that are investing in serious design – is a thrilling development. But we also saw a decrease in entries for certain categories, most notably for Best Cafe Design. It seems as though the growth of the cafe sector is finally slowing – a consequence of market saturation and rising costs.

But the cafe entries we did see were exceptional, as were the restaurant and hotel ones – so much so that we were not able to pick just one winner in the Best Hotel Design category. There are a number of exciting projects that look firmly forward rather than drawing on the past for inspiration; these designs shift the needle on modernism and are unique enough to have an international impact.

We also saw a focus on interactivity between the best designs and their immediate surroundings – whether that be the hotel in Brisbane with ambitions of enhancing the civic life of the city, or the bar in Mulwala, New South Wales, which aims to fit into the aesthetic of its mid-century town, while also providing residents with something that feels vital and modern.

And isn’t that what the best design is about, really? It fosters community and drives conversation. It changes cities and towns and lives.