On track: The train line winning prizes and transforming Perth

The Age

5 days ago

When we think of major architectural prizes what usually pops up are spectacular public buildings — City of Perth Library, Optus Stadium, WA Museum Boola Bardip — or dazzling commercial structures such as the Westin Hotel or pleasingly tasteful restorations, such as Adrian Fini's makeover of the State Buildings.
What we would never imagine is our big state architecture prize going to a train line.
That's right — a train line. On Friday night the design team behind the Metronet Morley-Ellenbrook line project — Woods Bagot with Taylor Robinson Chaney Broderick, TCL and UDLA — stepped up to collect four gongs at the WA Architecture Awards, including the major prize, the George Temple Poole Award.
The 21 kilometres of new railway track and five new stations and precincts at Morley, Noranda, Ballajura, Whiteman Park and Ellenbrook were praised by the judges for 'its outstanding contribution to the social and public infrastructure of a major developing area of Perth and for its setting of new sustainability benchmarks for infrastructure development.'
In showering the Morley-Ellenbrook train line with so many prizes the state's design gurus sent a clear message to our sprawling car-dependent metropolis that there's a more sustainable, human-scaled and aesthetically pleasing way of laying out, organising and inhabiting our city.
'This is a generational change for Perth,' said Pippa Hurst, founder and creative director of DesignFreo and Fremantle Design Week, and one of the design community's most persuasive advocates.
'If you look at how cities grow you will see that transport has been a major shaping force. Stations don't just allow for people to get on and off trains. They become urban hubs.
Communities evolve around stations because of the cost-saving and the convenience.