Melbourne practice Kavellaris Urban Design has won a KUD Good Design Award for 161 Eastern, a South Melbourne apartment building led by Greek Australian architect Billy Kavellaris.
The project received a 2026 Australian Good Design Award Winner title in the Built Environment Architectural Design category. Organisers presented the awards at a ceremony at ICC Sydney on Friday 9 October 2026.
Inside the KUD Good Design Award win
KUD said the KUD Good Design Award recognises 161 Eastern for excellence in design, innovation and impact. Good Design Australia runs the program, which is the country’s longest-running international design awards, according to KUD and the organisers.
During 2026, the awards ran under the theme “Design that Leads”. The theme celebrates the role of design in navigating complexity, driving innovation and creating positive change, KUD said.
Entries spanned 13 design disciplines and more than 30 categories, ArchitectureAu reported. Judges also assess each entry against three criteria: Good Design, Design Innovation and Design Impact.
At the top of the field, Melbourne-based Allume Energy took the 2026 Australian Good Design Award of the Year for SolShare. Even so, the KUD Good Design Award gives a second Melbourne name a place among this year’s winners.
What the jury said
Specifically, the judging panel singled out the building’s balconies, its materials and its interiors. In particular, the jurors praised how the design handles a tight urban site.
As a result, their full comment on 161 Eastern reads as follows.
“The Jury recognises 161 Eastern as a carefully resolved residential building that transforms a constrained urban site through disciplined massing, material consistency and generous internal amenity. The project demonstrates thoughtful integration of environmental performance, public art and everyday liveability within a refined medium-density housing model. The Jury commends the distinctive use of offset cantilevered balconies as elements of shape, mass and pattern that create varying volume and depth while lending strong identity to the building. This contrasts effectively with the restrained colour palette and materiality across the remainder of the exterior and within interiors, where refined detailing provides a sense of luxury.”
Australian Good Design Awards jury
Fortenum commissioned the project, while Kapitol Group built it, according to the practice’s project page. The KUD Good Design Award team lists Billy Kavellaris, Alex Morse, Mitch Stewart and Tien Nguyen as key personnel.
A South Melbourne site near Albert Park Lake
Located on Eastern Road, 161 Eastern sits between several midrise residential buildings and Albert Park Lake. According to KUD, the site is also about 20 minutes from the Melbourne CBD.
The practice said it set out to prove that apartments can offer amenity “on par with your typical freestanding home”. To do this, it offset textured cantilevered balconies from each other, creating double-height spaces along Eastern Road. Before the KUD Good Design Award, the same design won Gold at the 2025 Better Future Melbourne Design Awards.
As Greek City Times reported in July 2025, the building carries a 6.7-star NatHERS rating. In addition, its public art includes ballerina sculptures by local artist Isabelle Menin and Billy Kavellaris.
Inside, KUD also used quality materials and planned the internal spaces with care, the practice said. At the same time, it encouraged buyers to customise their own apartments.
Billy Kavellaris and a Greek Australian practice
Billy Kavellaris is the director of KUD, which works from a studio in the inner-city suburb of Cremorne. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture, and the KUD Good Design Award adds to a long list of honours for the practice.
Hailing from Melbourne, he received his first drawing board at 15, Greek City Times wrote in a 2025 profile. Later, he taught architecture at the University of Melbourne.
Over the years, Kavellaris has worked for Greek institutions such as Alphington Grammar School, the Hellenic Museum and the Greek Archdiocese. He has also described his Hellenic background as a strong driving force for the practice.
Overall, with the KUD Good Design Award, 161 Eastern now holds national recognition as well as its Melbourne honour from 2025.
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