MPavilion 8: MAP studio (Venice) has just won the International Architecture Award for Public Space. Celebrating two decades in 2023, the global building, landscape architecture and urbanism awards program is organised by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture & Design and European Centre for Architecture Art Design & Urban Studies.

Slated for 2020, MAP studio’s MPavilion 8 was delayed due to COVID-19. ‘We had followed the deeply site-responsive work of MAP studio for some time and were thrilled to see their pavilion spring to life,’ said Naomi Milgrom AC, commissioner of MPavilion. ‘MPavilion 8 helped re-establish and strengthen dialogue between Melbourne and the world post-pandemic and remains an enormous source of pride.’

On their ‘The Lightcatcher’ design, MAP studio’s Francesco Magnani and Traudy Pelzel said: ‘It has a double meaning – it’s an urban lighthouse to gather people around, to express new hope and glitter minds into appreciating new horizons, but it’s also a warning. It’s not a shelter but an amplifier of human activities in nature, a metaphor for man’s current condition, to inspire a new awareness of our fragility.’

MPavilion 9: all(zone) was also shortlisted for Best Use of Colour at the World Architecture Festival and Place in the Designers Australia Awards 2023 this week, with that pavilion’s Chair Commission: ‘Re-pete’ by Canberra Design Lab nominated for Use in the DAAs. Congratulations to MAP studio (Venice), all(zone), Canberra Design Lab and all involved in activating these pavilions in Melbourne’s heart. View our full awards listing here.

MPavilion 8: MAP studio (Venice), photograph by Anthony Richardson.