WINNER: Pop Architecture and Hotham Street Ladies - 'Chaos and Fertility'

SECOND PRIZE: Arturo Muela, Paola Ibarra + Daniela Gutiérrez - 'Colliding Universes in Saint Peter’s Four Meter Woollen Eye'

THIRD PRIZE: Kevin Liu - 'After Turrell, Backside of the Moon'

The Tapestry Design Prize for Architects 2018 attracted a record number of 142 design submissions from 98 national and international entrants. The judging panel selected 15 finalists including: 3RDRM, Aaron Fein, Arturo Muela, Paola Ibarra and Daniela Gutiérrez, Conrad Gargett, Grimshaw, Kenneth Wong, Kevin Liu, Nicholas Miller, Pop Architecture with Hotham Street Ladies, Qing Ye, Retallack Thompson, SAA. Studio Adrian Aguirre, Sebastian Gatz, Thingsmatter, Toby Beale and Stephen Brameld, Sally Farrah and Tasmin Vivian-Williams.

First prize was awarded to Pop Architecture and Hotham Street Ladies. Emeritus Professor Kay Lawrence AM, TDPA 2018 Judging Panel Chair remarked that "their tapestry design 'Chaos and Fertility', rejects the absence of ornament in Boullée's practice as well as his ideals of enlightenment and 'male reason'. Their design playfully responds to Walsh's brief through their subversion of the western canon, with a focus on transgressive textiles, female history and subjectivity." The winning design and prize recipients were selected on the basis of artistic merit; ability to engage to a high degree with the unique qualities of tapestry; ability to design a major artwork that responds to a contemporary architectural space; and capacity to celebrate tapestry in architecture, through understanding of materials form, design and collaborative interpretation.

The hypothetical site for the 2018 Tapestry Design Prize for Architects is Boullée’s mooted building that was inspiration for the Pharos Wing, MONA, Tasmania, Australia. MONA was designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects to house David Walsh’s extraordinary collection of old and new art.

Judges included: Emeritus Professor Kay Lawrence AM, (Emeritus Professor School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia), Peter Elliott (2017 Australian Institute of Architects Gold Medallist), Timothy Hill (director, Partners Hill), Andrew Burges (principal, Andrew Burges Architects), Alice Hampson (architect, Alice Hampson Architects and contributing editor, Architecture Australia) and Dimity Walker (architect, Spaceagency).