Architecture Graduates Award Success in Sydney and Italy

SYDNEY

At the Australian Institute of Architects NSW Chapter Graduate and Student Awards event recent graduate Mitchell Thompson was announced the winner of the jury decided Structural Innovation in Architecture Award

Sponsored by Harry Partridge Partners, the award aims to raise the awareness of structure in architecture and to foster closer engineer and architect collaboration. It is awarded to the design project which best demonstrates a harmonious dialogue between structure, and the form and function of the architecture. Mitchell’s Lane Cove Boatshed project with its innovative and creative reinterpretation of a vierendeel truss system illustrates a sophisticated understanding of the mutuality of architecture and structure. Mitchell’s project was guided by Architecture Program course convener John Carrick with tutorial assistance from Christian Grennan.

At the Awards event Anna Field was awarded the prestigious AIA fjmt UNSW Master of Architecture Graduate of the Year award as well as the Master of Architecture History and Theory Prize. Chin Zhen Xun received the AIA fjmt UNSW Bachelor of Architectural Studies Graduate of the Year award.  Joseph Lombardo received the Master of Architecture Practice and Construction prize.

ITALY

Mitchell Thompson and Jemima Retallack’s  Master of Architecture Graduation Design Project titled Lessons from Nauru was recently judged the joint gold medal winner of the degree thesis category of the 2012 International Sustainability Architecture Fassa Bortolo competition hosted by the Faculty of Architecture at the Universita di Ferrara, Italy.

The jury for the prize was:

• Thomas Herzog – Herozg & Partner (Italy)
• Peter Rich – Peter Rich Architects (South Africa)
• LI Xiaodong – School of Architecture, Tsinghua University of Beijing (China)
• Nicola Marzot – Ferrara Faculty of Architecture (Italy)
• Gianluca Minguzzi – Prize' Secretary (Italy)

The intent of the competition is to ‘’contribute to the research of a system of development in the building sector, which represents one of the fields of human activity with the greatest impact on the environment, that is more sustainable than our current model, which has lead to a state of deterioration and pollution, bringing us to the verge of a global crisis of the Earth’s entire ecological system’’.

Mitchell and Jemima’s year long design research led graduation project was guided by Rob Brown of Casey Brown Architecture.  As well as euro prize money Mitchell and Jemima received return airline tickets and an accommodation allowance to attend the awards ceremony in Ferrara.