Asylum turned arts precinct scoops top architecture award
Dark rain clouds hover overhead and a gust of wind blows around the old brick buildings clustered atop Jacksons Hill on the outskirts of Melbourne.
The former Women’s Refractory Ward at Sunbury Asylum once housed 50 women in small cells, some padded, but has since been transformed into a community arts precinct that has been awarded Victoria’s top prize for heritage architecture.
The Sunbury Community Arts and Culture Precinct by Architecture Associates with Openwork won the John George Knight Heritage Award at the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2026 Victorian Architecture Awards on Friday night.
Carina Doolan, the region’s project manager, said that starting in 1890, “irrational, outspoken women” who were neurologically different, suffering from problems such as postpartum depression and menopause, or women who wanted to be independent and did not want to marry or have children, were sent to mental hospitals.
“If they fought back and felt like they were being unfairly placed in a mental hospital, sometimes they would react and be seen as someone who didn’t follow the rules, then they would move in,” he said. “There was no electricity in the cells, there was no toilet. The weather was very cold, there was little light, there was no heating. There was a bathroom with five bathtubs and the women were bathing in ice cold water.”
Doolan said Architecture Associates and Openwork had a challenging task to transform a building with such a traumatic history.
“The building was built to imprison people and keep them away from society, and it was very closed, very isolated, very cold and very restrictive,” he said. “The challenge for us was to make this beautiful community space vibrant and enjoyable, thus trying to change the landscape without losing the history.”
Architects Samuel Hunter and Danielle Peck carefully preserved many of the building’s original features, such as wrought-iron fences and heavy metal cell doors around the “ventilation courtyard” where women could go outside, while creating space for a theatre, art gallery, pottery studio and woodworking room.
“It’s got a very dark, mysterious, troubled past and that now sends a positive message that this has suddenly become a community project and supporting the creative arts in the community outside of metropolitan Melbourne,” Hunter said. “Supporting arts outside the metropolis is very rare.”
Large planters in the courtyard echo the chimneys around the space, and the architects sought to add a sense of playfulness to the woodworking studio with tool motifs, inspired by “big rabbits.”
“It’s such a heavy burden when you come here that it’s important to find time for some lightness,” Hunter said.
Community involvement included the woodworking group creating columns for the new building and potters creating handmade tiles.
“We didn’t abandon the design until construction was completed because every week a new development was coming out,” Hunter said. “There would have been a new door, there would have been a new step, or we discovered all the original bluestone flooring where the bathhouse was located.”
Peck said it was refreshing to have a client who didn’t want to clean up the building’s past.
“They left some things out or left some things very open,” he said. “I think that’s part of the recovery and success of this site; everyone really is aware of what’s going on here and positive futures are starting to emerge.”
The Sunbury Community Arts and Culture District was one of 64 winners and accolades in the awards, which cover residential, community and commercial projects.
Award jury chairman Simon Knott said the winners included beloved landmarks that served as infrastructure.
“We have seen a lot of community projects where community-centered design is at the forefront, taking ordinary pieces of existing architecture and turning them into a recreation area, delightful spaces where people come together,” he said. “Also areas with a brutal past have been completely transformed by skillful hands and given new life as public centers with a wealth of amenities.”
Other winners include 65 Dover Street, Cremorne, home to the Commons Health Club, where Fieldwork won the award for best commercial architecture; The new Footscray Hospital, which won the public architecture award by COX Architecture and Billard Leece Partnership; and the redevelopment of St Kilda Pier, which earned Jackson Clements Burrows, Site Office and AW Maritime the top award for urban design.
The former Toorak laundromat, converted into a one-bedroom flat by Studio Hill, took the top award for interior architecture, while Robert Simeoni Architects’ Palmerston Street House won the best residential architecture award for house alterations and additions, celebrating Carlton’s cultural and architectural heritage.
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