A consummate Brisbane home is the winner of the People’s Choice Award, part of the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2014 National Architecture Awards.

Oxlade Drive House by James Russell Architect was selected by voters from the 13 houses shortlisted in the National Awards’ Residential Architecture categories.

The simple, practical design appealed to voters for its indoor/outdoor layout and its clever response to local insect life – a full shade cloth screen encasing the courtyard spaces, allowing views out and only light in.

In awarding Oxlade Drive House at the Queensland Architecture Awards earlier in the year, the state jury noted it was ‘an intelligent, appropriate reinterpretation of the possibilities of inner city living. A robust and unexpected series of devices and palette of materials engage the senses and heighten the connection between the inside and out. A provocative, poetic but practical outcome, testament to James’s discourse of living in the sub-tropics’.

More than 4000 votes were received for the inaugural People’s Choice Award, which provided the public with an opportunity to engage with the National Awards and the work of Australian architects.

Voters also had the opportunity to give the reasons for their selection (in 25 words or less) for a chance to win some great prizes including a Dulux Colour Consultancy and Paint Package.

Winners of the prizes will be announced in the coming weeks, with entries spanning the 13 projects and many emphasising their appreciation of the value of good design in the home.

The winners of the National Awards will be announced at a ceremony in Darwin on Thursday 6 November.