A building at Camperdown in Sydney has won a significant architecture prize at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona.

BVN Architecture won the Health Category award for the Youth Mental Health Building at the Brain and Mind Research Institute.

The Institute is part of the Faculty of Medicine of The University of Sydney and is focused on research into mental health and clinical issues relating to the brain.

The Youth Mental Health Building has two floors of consulting and patient interaction and two floors of research laboratories.

The National Director of BVN James Grose said the building was designed to take into account many diverse requirements and constraints.

"It had to provide a human scaled and tactile environment for mental health patients on one hand and address an inner-city streetscape that combines residences and the remnants of the industrial character of Camperdown on the other," he said.

The jury recognised the sophisticated intervention that addresses these various requirements, by giving it the Health award over other entrants from around the world, including a hospital in the UK by Norman Foster and Partners.

"This World Architecture Festival award is a tremendous confidence booster for Australian architects," Mr Grose said.

The Executive Director of the Brain and Mind Institute, Professor Ian Hickie, says the architects were very interested in working with the clients and the Institute to make the space work effectively.

"They came up with a design where we had basic research and services for patients in the one building, that's pretty unusual in medical research," he said.

"People often try and keep them in separate buildings and separate places, but to have everyone using the same spaces, it's got great light and great people centres, is pretty unusual".