Last October, Tomek Archer walked off the stage holding the Grand Prix. This year he is one of the people deciding who takes it.
The Archer Office founder, whose Boot Factory in Bondi Junction took the top prize in 2025, leads the judging panel for the 27th Australian Timber Design Awards. He has picked a difficult year to switch sides.
“Our judges really had their work cut out for them,” said Kylan Low, who is organising this year’s program. “There are many entrants this year that could have been overall winners in years gone by. It is going to be a very tight race.”
Archer is joined on the 2026 panel by four judges, each brought in for a different lens on the same projects:
Jan Frampton, senior associate at HASSELL, a practice with decades of timber design behind it and past category wins in these awards.
Victoria Judge, senior associate interior designer at SJB Architects, leading on interiors.
Amy Smith of Arup, judging sustainability.
Nick Hewson of Arboralis, judging structural engineering.
That spread is deliberate. Most design juries are dominated by architects. Ours is not, because these awards have never judged a building solely on how it looks.
“The Timber Design Awards have always been focused on design, but it is a platform that looks beyond just capital-D design,” Low said. “Whenever we are talking about timber, we are telling a story about supply, about fabrication, ultimately about forestry and land management. There is a lot of ground to cover, and the goal of these awards is to cover as much of it as we can. That is why the judging panel is that broad.”
It is the same reasoning behind the three-year rule. Entries must have been completed since 1 July 2023, because a supply chain that has changed as fast as this one deserves to be judged on what it is doing now, not a decade ago.
The panel’s work is nearly done, with shortlists rolling out in the lead-up to the gala. One award, though, stays entirely out of their hands. The People’s Choice is decided by the public, and it is open until 7pm on Friday 4 September.
Every category winner, and the project that follows the Boot Factory as Grand Prix, will be announced at the gala dinner on Wednesday 21 October at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art in The Rocks. Tickets are $230 and include dinner and drinks in the Harbourside Room, with views over the bridge and the Opera House.
