Entries have closed, our judges have settled on their finalists, and leading the way is Flooded Gums, a one-bedroom cabin designed by Marker Architecture for a farming property at Millers Forest, north-west of Newcastle, which has reached the final round in three categories: Residential Class 1 New Building, Fitout Residential and Recycled Timber.
In all, 36 projects share 45 finalist places across the 11 categories judged by our panel, with the People’s Choice and the Grand Prix completing the 13 awards we will present in Sydney on Wednesday 21 October, and with less than four weeks to go, more than 85 per cent of tickets to the gala dinner have been sold.
Flooded Gums sits on what was once a horse dressage area, on a plain bounded by the Hunter and Williams rivers, and Marker raised it on stilts and a formed-earth and gabion embankment to withstand a 100-year flood, with a timber bridge back to the main house. Its structure is recycled hardwood, left exposed as a grid against thermally treated cladding outside and spotted gum ply linings inside, for owners who asked for a building their family would still be using generations from now.
Because our Grand Prix is drawn from the category winners, at least one project leaves the gala holding two awards every year, and Kylan Low, the Timber Development Association structural engineer who is organising this year’s program, says three would be a first in his memory.
“Someone always takes out two,” Low said, and asked whether any project had managed three, “Not that I can recall off the top of my head. I don’t think that’s ever happened.”‘
The People’s Choice adds one more award to the night, with more than 2,000 votes cast before the poll closed on 4 September and every project entered in the running, and its winner will be revealed alongside the category winners.
Seven more projects are finalists twice, with The Forest, the Hoskins Building and Tonsley Technical College each in contention for Public Building and Sustainability, Enclave House for Residential Class 1 New Building and Sustainability, Ora House for Australian Certified Timber and Sustainability, Wilsons Cottage for Alterations and Additions and Recycled Timber, and the Aesop Canberra Centre for Fitout Commercial and Public and Recycled Timber, which means eight projects share 17 of our 45 finalist places.
Nearly all of those doubles cross between the two halves of our program, Excellence in Timber Design, which judges the building, fit out or object itself, and Excellence in the Use of Timber Products, which looks at recycled timber, Australian certified timber and sustainability, and Low says the program and its judging panel are built to follow the timber well past the finished building.
“Whenever we’re talking about timber, we’re always telling a story about supply and about fabrication, and ultimately about forestry and then ultimately about land management,” Low said. “It’s quite a long bow to draw, and the goal of these awards is to try and draw that bow as long as we can.”
Second lives for old hardwood
Recycled Timber has five finalists, and three of them, Flooded Gums, Wilsons Cottage and the Aesop Canberra Centre, are also in the running for design awards, alongside Batten House and Birkenstock at the Maltstore. Wilsons Cottage, near Kiama, was built with timber that came from much closer to Low’s own home.
“It has taken recycled timber from near where I live in the inner west of Sydney, that was used for a few decades,” Low said. “Now it gets to breathe new life down in Kiama.”
The same thinking extends to Furniture and Joinery, where Canberra recycler Thor’s Hammer is a finalist for two concierge desks at Anzac Park East, made from blackbutt and blue gum salvaged from 1960s Canberra houses and shaped to match the facade of the heritage-listed building completed on the site in 1965. The same workshop’s recycled hardwood defines the Aesop store at the Canberra Centre, which puts one Canberra timber recycler behind three of our finalist places.
Sustainability is our largest shortlist this year, with six finalists, including Putty Passiv, alongside five projects that are also finalists in another category.
Joining them are some of the most celebrated timber projects of the past year, the Sydney Fish Market in Commercial Building, the Cutaway at Barangaroo in Fitout Commercial and Public, the West Gate Tunnel in Public Building and the Adelaide Aquatic Centre in Sports and Recreation, on a list that runs from a grain-matched record unit and a lamella chair to a harbourside market.
“It’s a snapshot of the best of what’s actually being executed in the real world, across so many different building classes and so many different categories,” Low said. “We all succeed when next year looks wildly different to this year.”
Tickets are $230, which includes dinner and wine, and fewer than 15 per cent of seats in the Harbourside Room remain for a night Low says brings together people from every part of the supply chain.
“There’s going to be a great spattering of people who don’t normally get together in the same room,” he said, “people who have been in the industry for a year or for 30 years.”
Flooded Gums is a finalist in the Residential Class 1 New Building, Fitout Residential and Recycled Timber categories of the 2026 Australian Timber Design Awards, and it will find out how it fared alongside 35 other finalists on Wednesday 21 October in the Harbourside Room at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, where we celebrate timber projects of every scale.
Flooded Gums. Architect: Marker Architecture and Design. Builder: Robert Plumb Build North. Structural engineer: Cantilever Consulting Engineers. Photography: Alex McIntyre.
The 2026 finalists
EXCELLENCE IN TIMBER DESIGN
Residential Class 1, New Building
Enclave House, Flooded Gums, Gingkin, Leura Tree Haven
Residential Class 1, Alterations and Additions
Wilsons Cottage, Not Firewood, Princes Hill House
Fitout, Residential
Flooded Gums, Babylonia, Bank Street House
Commercial Building
Sydney Fish Market, Gosford Central, Optus O Pavilion, Grace Village ELC
Public Building
Hoskins Building, The Forest, Tonsley Technical College, West Gate Tunnel
Fitout, Commercial and Public
The Cutaway Barangaroo, 500 Bourke St, Aesop Canberra Centre, Bunjil Wellbeing Place
Furniture and Joinery
Curved Grainmatched Record Unit, ANZAC Park East Concierge Desks, Reclaim Mosaico, The Lamella Chair
Sports and Recreation
Dendy Beach Pavilion and Brighton SLC, Adelaide Aquatic Centre, John Paul College, Roleystone Community College
EXCELLENCE IN THE USE OF TIMBER PRODUCTS
Recycled Timber
Wilsons Cottage, Batten House, Aesop Canberra Centre, Birkenstock at the Maltstore, Flooded Gums
Australian Certified Timber
Ora House, Swift Walk Arcade, CIT Woden, The Foundation Tree
Sustainability
Hoskins Building, Ora House, Tonsley Technical College, The Forest, Enclave House, Putty Passiv
