23 November 2015
The East Village urban community marketplace in Sydney’s southern suburb of Zetland has taken out the major award in the Retail category of this year’s national Interior Design Excellence Awards for Excellence. The award winners were announced at the annual IDEA Gala Party in Melbourne last week (Nov 20).
The East Village project was submitted by Sydney-based property investment and development group PAYCE in association with Koichi Takada Architects and Turner.
The East Village residential, retail and commercial development has now won four significant industry awards this year, including Development of the Year at the Urban Taskforce Awards, Best Retail and Commercial Development in NSW and ACT at the Urban Development Institute of Australia Awards and best in the Architecture-Residential-Constructed category at the Sydney Design Awards.
PAYCE Managing Director Brian Boyd said this latest award was well-deserved and acknowledged the outstanding creative work of Koichi Takada, Nick Turner and their design teams.
“We are very proud of what we have created with East Village and pleased we had some of the country’s leading architectural teams on board with a clear understanding of what was required to make the project a success,” he said.
“Importantly for PAYCE, the project had to reflect the premium quality that is our trademark and we wanted shoppers and diners to have a memorable experience each time they visited.
“This has been a stellar first year for East Village and the shopping centre has been great for the people who live and work locally, and with the area still developing as a residential precinct, the marketplace will no doubt continue to thrive in the future,” Boyd said.
PAYCE General Manager Dominic Sullivan also congratulated the design teams on receiving the best retail design award.
“The brief was to design a marketplace that was original and world-class – something new to the retail market in Australia and with a friendly, village ambiance – and they delivered on all fronts,”.
“We have had amazing support for the marketplace all through the year – from the in-house residents, shoppers, the diners to the retailers and we were pleased to have the opportunity to share a major milestone with everyone last month when we celebrated Firstival – our first birthday.
“As part of the celebrations, there were all kinds of fun-filled festivities and lots of gifts and prizes were given out, along with free eats and drinks.”
Koichi Takada thanked the IDEA organisers and judges and said he was proud to accept the award on behalf of the team.
“It’s wonderful to receive this latest accolade from our peers and to have had the opportunity to be involved in such an outstanding and vibrant development.
“East Village was a great collaborative effort by a very enthusiastic group of people who were inspired by the great marketplaces around the globe to create an exciting place to shop, dine and meet with friends in a warm, cosy atmosphere.
“We set out to challenge the common perception of retail shopping by introducing down-to-earth materials to express organic beauty and to enhance the public space.
“From the outset, we worked closely with Nick Turner from Turner to ensure the design elements flowed seamlessly between the residential and retail precincts,” he said.
“I also thank the PAYCE team for their passion and confidence that we could achieve something very special and unique on the site.
“The ‘Forests’ theme came from the decision to make the columns within the public areas an architectural feature, hence the spectacular ‘tree’ canopies that introduce raw elements and add to the shopper and dining experience.
“We were also conscious of the environmentally sustainable credentials required of the project and the need to carefully select materials that would contribute to its 5 star green rating,” Takada said.
The Interior Design Excellence Awards is Australia’s largest and most successful independent design awards program. Launched by Inside magazine in 1993, the program celebrates the best of Australian interior and product design across 11 categories and five special awards.
