Sydney’s Campbelltown has paved paradise and put up a parking lot. And the brave jury at the Australian Urban Design awards has declared it heavenly.

The winners of the 2026 awards, announced on Tuesday at Parliament House in Canberra, suggest the era of the star architect’s singular, sculptural spectacle is being traded, at least this year, for something more pragmatic: an unassuming revolution where the most significant breakthroughs are found in natural, open-mesh ventilation, a splash of colour and a heart of soothing greenery.

The Campbelltown station commuter car park designed by Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects, is more than mere infrastructure for cars, the Australian Institute of Architects’ judges concluded. The project, winner of one of three awards in the built outcomes category, is a generous, resilient, and unexpectedly uplifting example of civic design. A little bit of paradise regained.

It’s as if the architects decided that the Campbelltown project was a chance to inject a dose of civic dignity into a structure that, in the usual hierarchy of urban needs, sits somewhere just above a sewage treatment plant.

“This year’s winners reflect a gentler approach to urban transformation,” said Katherine Sundermann, chair of the awards steering committee.

“These projects reinforce a simple idea: urban transformation works best when it involves diverse people, responds to the specifics of place, and improves places over time.”

On Melbourne’s shoreline, another utilitarian project has been elevated above the prosaic.

The St Kilda pier redevelopment – a collaboration between Jackson Clements Burrows Architects, Site Office Landscape Architecture, and AW Maritime – has added a whimsical extension to the Port Philip Bay landmark that began its life as a simple timber jetty in the 1850s and converted into a functional concrete pier in the 1970s.

The ageing infrastructure is replaced with a wider, curved design that balances heavy-duty engineering with the site’s role as a major tourist draw.

The jury praised the project for its “layered embrace” of the bay, noting that technical requirements have been turned into public assets.

A feature wave wall, built to stop the sea breaking over the pier, doubles as a sculptural concrete seat.

It is a rare example, the judges said, of how to balance coastal protection with recreation, and protecting the habitat for a colony of fairy penguins that have called the breakwater home for the past 50 years.

Named for the Woi-wurrung word for butterfly, Balam Balam Place in the heart of Brunswick is a living metaphor for transformation, shedding the cocoon of its colonial past to re-emerge as a vibrant cultural landscape.

The judges praised its “deliberate sense of incompleteness” and its function as a bridge between the deep time of the traditional owners and the formal 19th-century architecture that once sought to define it.

The Victorian era schoolhouse still anchors the site but the renewal honours the multi-layered history of the inner-city Melbourne suburb.

The Australian urban design awards are co-convened by the Planning Institute of Australia, the Australian Institute of Architects and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects.

The 2026 awards program attracted more than 80 entries spanning four categories – built outcomes, research and advocacy, strategic design and policy, and recognition of the work of individual urban designers and architects.

The New South Wales government was recognised in the strategic design and policy category for its groundbreaking housing pattern book, which the judges said set an ambitious agenda for modest, flexible and affordable urban living while ensuring design quality isn’t sacrificed in the name of streamlined planning pathways to accelerate completion.

It is an “openly democratic” initiative, they said, shaped by local and international designers and accessible to individual landowners, small builders and major developers.

While not a total cure for the housing crisis, the judges conceded, the pattern book is a significant step towards housing communities with dignity as Australian cities transition to denser and more sustainable ways of living.

Pressure is mounting on the Albanese government to help households struggling with fuel prices, with working from home and free public transport posited as possible solutions.

Nearly 150,000 New Zealand families will soon receive a weekly cash payment to help them afford petrol, believed to be the world’s first fuel relief package that directly pays citizens since the Israel-US war on Iran began.

Expectations are increasing on the federal government to act similarly in a bid to ease the spiralling cost-of-living crisis worsened by the conflict in the lead-up to its May budget.

On Tuesday, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, again ruled out any cut to the fuel excise, which adds more than 52 cents per litre to the price of petrol – but doesn’t increase or decrease when the fuel price changes.

Tax rate cuts coming into effect from next financial year are the main area of focus, he said.

On Monday, the minister for social services, Tanya Plibersek, said working from home would be “helpful” for those struggling to afford petrol, but did not call for a directive.

“We’re not telling people that they must work from home,” she told Sunrise.

“The most helpful thing people could do is just buy the fuel they need and no more.”

The shadow employment minister, Jane Hume, who was behind the failed opposition policy to end the public service’s working from home arrangements, said it was “terrific” for people to work from home if they could, but it “wouldn’t touch the sides” of fuel supply issues.

The Nationals, the Greens and the crossbench voted for a motion against the federal government on Tuesday afternoon urging Labor to deliver “accessible, free or affordable nationwide public transport” during the fuel crisis. The Liberals ultimately abstained.

In NSW, the opposition called for an upper limit on fuel prices every 24 hours and free public transport across Easter, but the premier, Chris Minns, said transport was already subsidised heavily.

The independent ACT senator, David Pocock, proposed a flat 25% export levy on gas producers to redirect “wartime profits” to support struggling Australians. On Tuesday, he said that revenue could also be used to lift welfare payments.

“People on fixed incomes, like pensioners or those reliant on safety net payments, are hurting the most from increased petrol, groceries and other essentials while benefiting the least from things like electric vehicles and rooftop solar,” he said.

“If the Albanese government had the guts to get the big gas companies to pay a fair share of tax for the export of the gas resources that all Australians own we could fund things like free public transport, food pantries and desperately needed increases to safety net payments.”

In a letter written to Chalmers on Tuesday, the Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne urged the government to pause requirements on welfare recipients in order to keep their payments, known as mutual obligations

“People forced to survive on these poverty payments have been smashed by the cost of living crisis,” she said.

“With fuel prices going through the roof, many people will simply not be able to afford to go to appointments or travel to work for the dole sites to do unpaid labour.”

If almost 1 million Australians on the welfare compliance regime do not fulfil activities – such as completing job applications or attending meetings with job providers – their payments can be suspended.

Allman-Payne’s letter follows another request last week by poverty experts, the Antipoverty Centre, to the employment minister, Amanda Rishworth.

Jay Coonan, the centre’s spokesperson, said “privatised welfare compliance should not have the power or discretion to force people to travel”.

A government spokesperson encouraged participants to contact their employment services provider if they were struggling to attend appointments or look for work.

“A range of supports, including flexibility in attending face-to-face appointments and assistance with transport for employment-related activities, may be available.”

Economic Justice Australia (EJA) say mutual obligations are often paused in natural disasters and when there are “major personal disruptions to home”. EJA’s chief executive Kate Allingham said she had spoken to women in regional, rural, remote and very remote Australia.

“The testimonies we have received as part of this research make it clear, in particular, that compulsory activities in remote parts of Australia can require travelling huge distances, without access to public transport, to reach employment service providers,” she said.

“The cost of petrol required to take such a trip would be astonishing at the best of times.”

Australia’s diesel standards have been temporarily lowered as the federal government rushes to shore up fuel supply, with hundreds of service stations running empty and warnings deliveries from key Asian suppliers could slow as soon as early April.

The energy minister, Chris Bowen, said on Tuesday the government had lowered the technical threshold for diesel, known as the flashpoint, in order to access supply from imports from markets with marginally lower burning temperatures, including the US, Canada and Europe.

This six-month adjustment will reduce the flashpoint from 61.5 degrees Celsius to 60.5 degrees Celsius.

The change comes after the government lowered petrol standards for 60 days, a move expected to add an extra 100m additional litres to the local market.

But Bowen told question time on Tuesday at least 164 service stations in New South Wales were already out of diesel, as well as 289 that were missing at least one type of fuel. There are 2,417 service stations in the state.

In Queensland, 55 have no diesel and 35 have no regular unleaded. In Victoria, 162 were missing some fuel, as well as 46 in South Australia, and six in Western Australia. In Tasmania, one station is without diesel and six have no unleaded.

Analysts warned Australia has just three weeks of certain fuel imports left as Asian suppliers begin cutting petrol production, predicting more shipments are likely to be delayed or cancelled.

At least two major refineries in Singapore and Taiwan that supply Australia have dropped production by more than a tenth since war broke out, said Tom Woodlock, a senior analyst at Argus Media. So far, six shipments have been cancelled.

“There is a high chance more [shipments] will be cancelled in the coming weeks or months,” Woodlock said.

Sushant Gupta, research director with Wood Mackenzie, said Asian production of fuel could fall by a fifth or more in coming weeks if refiners did not get access to oil from the Middle East.

“Loss of supply is already happening now,” Gupta said.

“Many of the refiners will have to cut their runs by more than 20% or some may have to shut down … in the next few weeks. Their refinery stocks will only last them for, say, 10 to 15 days.”

“Australia will have to find alternative sources and they will probably be longer-haul, so that planning has to start now,” Gupta said, pointing to the US and Europe as options.

Woodlock said Australian importers had also ordered more expensive fuel from the US.

“Australia is in a stronger position to ‘out-bid’ other countries for these cargoes because the country can afford to pay the premiums required to replace the cancelled cargoes,” he said.

Some state premiers on Tuesday called on the federal government to take a stronger role coordinating supply.

“If demand management procedures are required – that might be rationing, that might be working from home, it might be other programs or remedies that we can introduce into the marketplace – we’re firmly of the belief that it should be a nationally consistent approach,” the NSW premier, Chris Minns, said.

Queensland’s deputy premier, Jarrod Bleijie, said managing the crisis was “a Labor issue, federally. They should have dealt with it”.

The Victorian opposition leader, Jess Wilson, suggested a cut to the federal fuel excise, a proposal backed by federal crossbench MP Rebekha Sharkie. Treasurer Jim Chalmers ruled out such a move.

The shadow energy minister, Dan Tehan, accused Bowen and the government of sowing “confusion” about petrol supplies, and demanded Labor do more to coordinate fuel distribution.

The NRMA said it had experienced a 15% increase in callouts for motorists running out of fuel this month, to about 306 so far in March in New South Wales alone.

Good morning. The world is at war. From the trenches of eastern Ukraine to the missile-streaked skies of the Gulf, a growing proportion of humanity is living under the horror of conflict. For some observers, there are gnawing fears that the worst is yet to come. The apparent collapse of the rules-based international order, the irrelevance of institutions designed to uphold it, and the interconnectedness of the fighting have sparked warnings that we could be at the beginning of a third world war. Indeed, half of Britons polled in a recent YouGov survey thought world war three was likely in the next five to 10 years.

On Monday, Donald Trump stepped back from deepening the US and Israel’s war with Iran, announcing that he would postpone military strikes on Iranian power plants for a five-day period after “very good and productive conversations” about the end to the fighting. Iran denied this version of events, claiming Trump had been scared off by their threats of attacks on water infrastructure in the Gulf. But, despite calmer stock markets and a sharp drop in the oil price, there is little sign that the fighting is near an end.

For this morning’s First Edition, I asked the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, about the credibility of the claims that we are sliding into a third major global conflict in a little over a century. First, the headlines.

Five big stories

1. Middle East | The Israeli military said it had launched a new wave of strikes on Tehran, after Donald Trump signalled a pause in US attacks against energy infrastructure after what he said were productive talks with Iran.

2. UK Politics | Ministers are looking at providing support for household bills next winter, Keir Starmer said, as he suggested the energy price shock unleashed by the Iran conflict could continue for months to come.

3. London | Security agencies are investigating whether a group linked to Iran is behind an arson attack on four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in north London.

4. Climate crisis | More countries will face critical food insecurity if world heats up by 2C, analysis shows.

5. New York | The pilot and co-pilot of an Air Canada Express regional jet have been killed after it collided with a fire truck while landing at New York’s LaGuardia airport.

In depth: ‘The conflicts are inextricably linked’

It is a horrifying question to contemplate: are we in the foothills of a third world war? President Trump’s former Russia adviser, Fiona Hill, is among the loudest voices arguing that we are, says Patrick Wintour. She points to the scale and interconnectedness of current conflicts, imploring us all to recognise the severity of the situation.

“So many parts of the globe are in conflict. The Middle East, Europe and China are all locked in conflict, not necessarily all military. Sometimes it’s diplomatic, sometimes it’s sort of a shadow war, sometimes it’s cyber. We are, I think, in a linked set of conflicts now,” says Patrick. “Take one example, which is illustrative. The Russians have offered to stop giving Iran intelligence or military help if, in return, the Americans force Ukraine into concessions about land. The conflicts are inextricably linked there.”

A major driver of global instability, says Patrick, is the collapse of Pax Americana, the term given to the prolonged post-second world war period of reduced large-scale conflict maintained by US might. Under Trump, the US has given up on its position of maintaining a rules-based international order through alliances and organisations such as the UN, prompting a rapid global realignment. In many parts of the world, the consequences of the American pullback from this system – however flawed – have been brutal.

“No one can quite understand what America is, due to the lack of stability and predictability which was the basis of Pax Americana. There was an alliance of nations, and they had a shared view of how the world should be led. Now that’s gone, and America acts alone,” says Patrick. “The US is also struggling to come to terms with the fact that when it used to say jump, Europe would jump. Now they are not because there is a battle going on inside Europe to try to become more independent from America.”

For the global south, western hypocrisy – perceived or otherwise – is a major diplomatic issue when trying to build common positions to stop fighting, Patrick tells me. There is a sense that the west has not been able to apply the same moral standards to conflicts, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in Israel and Palestine.

“For the global south, the argument will be that they’re expected to show undying support for Ukraine against Russia. Yet Europe is very silent about what Israel is doing in Palestine, which obviously the global south feels very strongly about. This bleeds into the kind of relationship the global south has with Europe,” he adds.

A ‘multidimensional war scenario’

For Patrick, the threshold for a third major global war has not yet been met. An opportunistic Chinese invasion of Taiwan would change that. But that appears unlikely, at least in the short term, he says.

“What everyone’s looking at is whether China sees an opportunity with America [being] so distracted, and goes for Taiwan. The Chinese insist that’s not the case, and they certainly won’t do it for a year or two, but it must be tempting for people in the Chinese government if they are intent on recapturing Taiwan. This would be a good moment to do it because America is massively overstretched and also led by an incredibly unpopular leader,” he says. “That would be how we got to a world war, but I don’t think that’s what China is actually going to do. I think we’re in this multidimensional war scenario, and we are going to be like that for quite a long time.”

Military readiness v reality

I end by asking Patrick whether the UK would even be ready for such a conflict. At Davos earlier this year, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, urged middle powers to form alliances that could operate together in a world where US and China are increasingly in competition, warning: “If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

It depends on what kind of war we are talking about, says Patrick. “We are moving very slowly to try to re-establish our military strength. Reputationally, we are still strong. We still have a very good military officer class. But the actual weaponry and the number of people to fight are limited.

“In Europe, there has been a belief that we could spend more on welfare and less on defence. And now that’s got to change, I’m afraid. That’s going to be very painful, but I think it’s going to be a requirement. And then it is also going to require the UK to think more about its relations with Europe. You don’t have to reverse Brexit, but you’re going to have to recognise that Europe is our future and not America.”

What else we’ve been reading

• This week’s pet I’ll never forget – a series that never disappoints – is Harriet the hedgehog, who took to living in Roger Leitch’s airing cupboard. Martin Belam

• Chinamaxxing (pictured above) has been one of the biggest social media trends of the last year, with influencers celebrating Chinese customs by drinking hot water, wearing slippers around the house, using chopsticks and eating Chinese food. Read Isabella Lee’s piece about what she hopes remains from the social media fad. Patrick

• Fotohane Darkroom is a space for the children of Mardin – a Turkish city that borders Syria and Iraq – to learn how to shoot, develop and print their own analogue photographs, giving them the chance to tell their stories themselves, Flora Medina reports for i-D magazine. Martin

• While immigration enforcement raids have made international headlines in the US, a recent crackdown in the UK has gone largely unnoticed. Sammy Gecsoyler investigates the huge spike in immigration raids on businesses since Labour came to power. Patrick

• Hartlepool hit the headlines for saying it had too many, but here Anne Karpf argues, with the aid of a lovely anecdote about children dancing, that memorial benches keep the dead part of the flow of everyday life. Martin

Sport

Cricket | The England Wales Cricket Board has said it will stand by director of cricket Rob Key and multi-format head coach Brendon McCullum despite the men’s team’s humiliating Ashes tour.

Football | Ben White has been recalled by Thomas Tuchel for England men’s friendlies against Uruguay and Japan, ending his partly self-imposed exile. Tuchel also called up Harvey Barnes, whom Scotland had been hoping to lure for their World Cup squad.

Football | Uefa has rejected requests from English clubs to increase the size of Champions League squads to 28 next season, after a backlash led by their counterparts in Spain.

The front pages

“Trump stalls strikes amid claims of ‘productive’ talks with Tehran” is the Guardian splash. “Trump: I’ll run the Strait with ayatollah” is top story at the Telegraph, the FT has “Trump touts diplomatic end to war” and the Mirror says “It’s not over”. The Mail headlines on “Trump blinks first” and the Times runs “Trump: I’d bet on a deal with Iran”. The i Paper splashes on “UK investigates possible Iran link to arson attacks on Jewish ambulances”, while the Sun says “Barmy Beeb bans Bob”, in reference to Bob Monkhouse.

Today in Focus

Israel’s second front: on the ground in Lebanon

The conflict in the Middle East is being fought from the air – except in southern Lebanon where Israel and Hezbollah are fighting a bitter ground war. Will Christou reports.

Cartoon of the day | Pete Songi

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Deep in Cambodia’s limestone caves, scientists have revealed a hidden world of life – including species never seen before. Surveying more than 60 caves across 10 hills in Battambang, a team led by international wildlife conservation charity Fauna & Flora found “a vast array of wildlife” thriving in karst landscapes of sinkholes, springs and caverns. Among the discoveries: a “spectacular new species of pit viper” (pictured above) and multiple new geckos, including a “night wanderer” spotted only in this habitat. The findings suggest many more species may yet be uncovered. In one of the planet’s most fragile ecosystems, the work is a reminder that there are still extraordinary new discoveries waiting in the dark.

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Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.