443 Queen St Wins Big at the 2026 Queensland Architecture Awards
443 Queen St has been recognised across four categories at the 2026 Queensland Architecture Awards, presented by the Australian Institute of Architects. The Brisbane riverside tower was designed by WOHA with Architectus and Kris Kowalski Architects, and the recognition confirms the project as a benchmark for climate-responsive apartment living in the subtropics.
At chapter level, the project received the Job & Froud Award for Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing and the Award for Sustainable Architecture. It was also honoured in the Brisbane regional awards with the Buildings That Breathe Award and a Commendation for Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing, alongside shortlistings in both the Sustainability and Art and Architecture categories.
The project stands on the land of the Turrbal and Yuggera people of Meanjin.
A Queenslander, reimagined as a tower
The design takes the qualities Queenslanders have valued in their houses for generations — breeze, shade, deep verandahs, an easy relationship with the garden — and asks whether a 264-apartment tower can offer the same thing. The jury’s view was that it can.
Every apartment in the building achieves full cross-ventilation, delivered through operable windows in all rooms and a separated floor plate that maximises perimeter and orientation. The Institute’s Queensland jury described the outcome as a genuine precedent for subtropical high-density living, noting that the result was widely considered unachievable in a tower of this scale. Residents control their own comfort rather than defaulting to mechanical cooling.
Australia’s first 6 Star Green Star residential tower
443 Queen St is the first residential tower in Australia to secure a 6 Star Green Star rating for both design and as-built performance.
The sustainability strategy runs through the whole building rather than sitting on top of it:
- Naturally ventilated circulation. Lobbies on every level are open to the air and planted, functioning as sheltered garden pavilions instead of conditioned corridors.
- An open-air carpark. Elevating and naturally ventilating the carpark removes the substantial energy load that common areas typically carry in towers of this type.
- 4,400sqm of landscape. Gardens, sky terraces and vertical greenery deliver a green plot ratio of 204 per cent, supporting biodiversity and cooling.
- Rainwater harvesting and low-impact materials. Natural finishes, low-VOC products and locally manufactured fittings improve indoor air quality while reducing embodied carbon.
Giving the city back its river
At street level, the building reopens connections that had been closed off for more than a century. A porous podium and a new cross-block link restore pedestrian movement and historic view corridors between Queen Street and the Brisbane River, with an elevated urban verandah addressing the Riverwalk. Terraces, food outlets and tropical gardens have brought activity back to a stretch of the CBD that had long been overlooked.
The jury noted that the project’s influence already extends past the site itself, having helped shape and demonstrate Brisbane City Council’s Buildings that Breathe policy — a contribution the Institute expects to be felt across Queensland for decades.
