Congratulations to architecture student, Samson Chengyuan HU, who has been shortlisted for the ‘27 Smith St – The Home of Tomorrow’ competition.

From the Hyde Park Barracks to the Californian bungalow of the 1920s and on to the landmark UTS Business School building, bricks are fundamental to how Sydney architecture has developed. With a prize pool of $10 000, the competition called on student and professional architects to design the home of tomorrow - to ‘make the brick the new black’.

The brief for the competition required students to incorporate the use of brick, an innovative, flexible and functional layout of space, and the sustainable plan for a home design with a family of 2 adults, a 10 year old boy and a 14 year old girl.

Samson's design comes from a Chinese character which in English means 'going back', 'return' or 'regress'. Samson says the shape shows a small space armed by a large enclosure. “This potentially suggests feelings of safety, protection, warmth, gathering and harmony are needed for a residential building design.”

The concept is translated from the most classic and representative traditional Chinese architectural form called the BeiJing Quadrangle Courtyard, which is a kind of brick residential building built by traditional Chinese black brick.

“Being shortlisted means a lot. I feel now I am on the right track for doing design... It is really a big gift for my graduation, what an incredible finishing stroke of my college life. Thanks very much (to) those who helped me."

Sampson’s studio group was taught by Rob Brown and Carly Martin and the course coordinated by Dijana Alic. The studio project titled ‘New Directions for the Australian Dream’ was one of the first year Master of Architecture courses in Session One this year.

The public is now able to vote for Sampson on the competition website.

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