Gothic fernery wins national timber award

ARCHITECT Andrew Fedorowicz has won first prize in the Standalone Structure Category of the National Timber Design Awards for the Ballarat Botanical Gardens’ gothic fernery.

The structure made of durable Cumaru timber, with hidden metal reinforcements, was rebuilt in recent years after the gardens’ original 1887 fernery was demolished in the 1920s.

Having worked on the project for the City of Ballarat for five years between 2018 and 2023 – with only one page of crude original design images as reference material – Mr Fedorowicz said the outcome has been thrilling.

“I’ve seen buildings all over the world, and never seen anything as magnificent as this,” he said.

Based in Maldon, Mr Fedorowicz’s professional focus in architecture is heritage.

“If we keep trying to demolish our heritage buildings, we’re going to look like any city in the world, but at the moment we’ve got Ballarat, Geelong, Melbourne, Bendigo with all the historical buildings, and they’ve got to be kept and reinforced to be here,” he said.

Mr Fedorowicz praised Heritage Victoria officers for their support and encouragement throughout the gothic fernery’s design and development. The National Timber Design Awards were held in Sydney in October.