A marriage of might - husband and wife win top architecture prize.

Kerry and Lindsay Clare have won the 2010 Gold Medal at the Australian Achievement in Architecture Awards (AAAA).

Joining the likes of Jorn Utzon, Harry Seidler and Ken Woolley – over the past 50 years the award has honoured some of the most distinguished architects in the world.

With careers spanning three decades, the husband and wife team have forged a name for themselves with their large range of projects in Queensland and New South Wales.

“Since starting practice in 1979, Kerry and Lindsay were key to pioneering the regional style associated with the Sunshine Coast,” said the 2010 jury.

The Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) in Brisbane’s cultural precinct is one of their most iconic projects to date, which Queensland premier Anna Bligh lauded as a building that “welcomes, enlightens, shelters and nurtures the diverse cross section of society that comes to see the modern and contemporary art on display.”

Though noted for their large-scale projects, the couple is widely recognised for their achievements in sub-tropical, low impact and sustainable residential projects across regional Queensland.

Such groundbreaking works include the Goetz House and Thrupp and Summers House, which received national acclaim in the mid-80s for their avant-garde environmental design.

Typifying their residential style, these Queensland houses are modest in size, elegant, lightweight structures bathed in natural light and cooled by natural ventilation.

President of the AIA, Melinda Dodson, said the Gold Medal jury firmly believed Kerry and Lindsay “had made an enormous contribution to the advancement of architecture, and particularly sustainable architecture”.

Their projects have won numerous prestigious awards, including the 2008 Queensland Public Architecture Award for the University of Sunshine Coast Chancellery and a 2007 RAIA National Public Architecture Award for GoMA.

AIA
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