UNSW Built Environment: NSW Architects Registration Board 2011 Awards and Scholarships

The NSW Architects Registration Board is offering a variety of awards and scholarships to students and graduates of NSW universities.

The Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship offers recipients the chance to undertake a course of study, research, or other activity which has been approved by the Board. Recent graduates and current students enrolled in an architecture program at a NSW university are invited to apply. There are three scholarships in the student category ranging in value between $10,000 and $15,000, and three available in the graduate category ranging from $15,000 to $20,000.
In 2011, to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of these scholarships the Board have added an extra three scholarships available to emerging Architects and graduates who wish to participate in an exchange program offered by The Architecture Foundation in London. This program aims to promote the best architects and practitioners from each country through developing networks, dialogue and cultural exchange that allow for the sharing of ideas and new practices

Applications close on 29 July 2011.

The 2011 Architects Medallion will be awarded to a Master of Architecture graduate who has achieved a variety of distinction throughout the final two years of their course.  This award will comprise of a medallion, certificate and $5,000. Each school of Architecture in NSW nominates one candidate, and final selection is made by a committee.

This year the Board will also be offering each NSW university architectural school up to $5,000 support for their end of year graduation exhibitions. To be eligible for this support, each school must provide the Board with a statement of benefits to the Board linked to the Board’s objectives and information regarding the event details.

Please click here for more information on any of the aforementioned awards and scholarships.

UNSW Built Environment: Awards Ceremony

On Friday 3 June the UNSW Built Environment Awards Ceremony celebrated and acknowledged the faculty’s highest achievers. Over 200 family, friends, benefactors and faculty staff were present to celebrate the academic excellence of these talented students.

The night was officially opened by the Faculty Dean, Professor Alec Tzannes, and was hosted by Professor Alan Peters, Head of Discipline for Urban Planning, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Construction Management and Property, who noted that “the ceremony was a wonderful opportunity for our students to have their hard work recognised, and to meet the beneficiaries whose generous donations are assisting them with their education at UNSW.”

This year the faculty awarded 49 prizes to 56 students for their outstanding academic accomplishments. This year The Dean’s Award, which honours students who received the highest mark this semester was shared by two Architecture students, Matthew O’Brien and Yun Fu.

Other awards were: The Program Director Awards (acknowledging students who achieve the highest marks within a specific degree or subject) and a variety of other awards and prizes which were funded and presented by a wide variety of Built Environment benefactors.

The awards ceremony provides an opportunity for benefactors to meet the students they are supporting and to foster better relationships between industry members, students and built environment professionals.

Santiago Villa Moreno (Master of Construction Project Management) received two awards at Friday’s ceremony and noted in a thank you letter to Professor Alec Tzannes “My journey at UNSW would not have been possible without the support provided by your organisation.”

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the award recipients for the dedication and determination and to encourage them to keep up the good work.

2010 Built Environment Prizes

Image: Faculty Dean, Professor Alec Tzannes with students Lillian Chung and Santiago Villa Moreno.

UNSW Built Environment: Simon Chan Graduation Project 2010

Staging the Public: Reconception of a Train Station

As part of their final year studio, students from the graduating year of UNSW Master of Architecture 2010 explored different aspects of architectural investigation. Simon Chan was part of a group that worked on visualising infrastructure as architecture through the re-conception of a train station. He reflects below on his project titled “The University of Sydney Station – a proposal to resolve the congestion problem at the existing Redfern Train station”.

Written by Simon Chan:

The location of the existing Redfern Station is a traffic knot, caused by the conflagration of pedestrian, vehicle, commuters and cyclists traffic, this troublesome situation is compelling for a major change, with the consideration of both Sydney University expansion into North Eveleigh in 2020 and the future development of Australian Technology Park. A new station is proposed to resolve these flows.

The new station is inserted at the heart of the future university site and ATP,aligning with Codrington Street which belongs to the university, with the other end pointing directly to the Channel 7 office, an office which house up to 2000 staff members. As the result McDonalds Town Station is demolished allowing a more even coverage of station that currently does not exist. 

The project consists of two bridge buildings linked by an open pedestrian bridge; each bridge contains its own program. The first bridge contains the train station and an accessible roof, with gallery space and a nightclub, access via a ramp that is open before and after the train operates. The choice of program is a protest against the current timetable system of train operation, and the mixing of activities that have previously been perceived as incompatible. The second bridge is the University Learning hub, containing small collections of books and digital media, reading rooms, classrooms and lecture theatre, allowing both individual and collective uses. 

The new University of Sydney Station becomes a place to stop, to contemplate, to listen and  see, to rest and refresh, to talk and exchange, with the presence of movements and unpredictable events. 

For a full explanation of Simon’s project including images, please click here.

UNSW Built Environment: 2010 Graduand Catalogues

Our 2010 UNSW Built Environment Graduand Catalogues have been released for viewing. These catalogues showcase the achievements of our 2010 of our graduating students – congratulations to all those involved.

If you would like to view the various graduand catalogues, please click the links below.

Architectural Computing

Architecture (BArch)

Industrial Design

Landscape Architecture

Master of Architecture (MArch)

UNSW Built Environment: BE Visionary Architectural Computing Graduation Project 2010

The Architectural Computing Graduation Project Exhibition titled “BE Visionary” will be held in the RC Gallery from 6pm on Wednesday 17 November. It is sure to be a fantastic night, so come along and support our 2010 Architectural Computing graduates.

When: Wednesday 17 November

Where: RC Gallery

Time: 6pm

Click here for futher details.

UNSW Built Environment Event: 2010 Awards Night

Last week the faculty hosted an evening to award all undergraduate students who received awards in their degree programs.  The following are some of the images from the night.

Art Dejmanee (ArchStudies) received the Frank Fox Memorial Prize from Michael Fox (and family)

James Barclay (MArch) received the Margot and Neville Gruzman Award for Urban Design in Architecture from Ann Quinlan

David O'Sullivan (ArchStudies) received the Castle Memorial Prize from Peter Graham

Boris To (ArchStudies) recieved the J M Freeland Prize from Robert Irving

Tracey Lim (ArchStudies) recived the Lisa Ettridge Prize from Don Ettridge

Max Hu (ArchStudies) received the Woodhead Prize in Architectural Communications from Angelo Dimarco

Griffen Manan (BIA) received the Mary Broinowski Prize in Interior Architectre from Emeritus Professor John Ballinger

Trent Schatzmannn (BIA) recieved the Davenport Campbell Prize from Russell Rodrigo

Thomas Baker (BID) received the Industrial Design Program Directors' Award for academic excellence from Miles Park

Simon Rischmiller (BCMP) received the Multiplex Constructions Prize from Don Aroney

Genevieve Walsh (LArch) received the First Year Envrionment Award from Graham Fletcher

Shawna Ng (LArch) received the Dean's Award from Professor Alec Tzannes

Richard Shepard (BPlan) received the John Shaw Memorial Prize from Nancy Marshall

2009 BE PhD Graduates: Barbara Louise Buchanan, Shirley Hazel Daborn and Dijana Alic

We would like to extend a special thanks to all the generous donors who attended the event to personally present the students with their awards.  A complete list of awards will follow shortly.

UNSW Built Environment Architectural Studies: Patrick Griffen

Over the summer break I participated in an elective design studio called ‘Project X3‘, which was basically a multidisciplinary design workshop. It was an intensive 2 week course where I was working in a team of students from various degrees, from UNSW Built Environment, COFA, and Engineering. We worked together to design an accommodation facility for a rock climbing company in China; ‘China Climb’ in groups of 5 or 6. I found the experience of working with interior architects, engineers and industrial designers interesting, challenging and a great way to get some experience in collaborative design. Out of the 7 designs presented to the client, ours was chosen to be carried to the next stage of design fabrication and construction. Hopefully the project will be built sometime in the next year or two.

Project X3

With a little break between my summer courses and Semester 1, I began the 3rd year of my degree. This session my subjects include a design studio, an environment course and modelling visualisation course. The design studio this session involves designing an apartment/restaurant complex on a site in North Bondi beach. I’ve spent the first few weeks analysing the site and considering the factors that will influence the outcome of the design process such as views, solar access etc. The work load is quite demanding and there is also a much higher expectation of quality in our work.  At this stage I’ve made a series of design models outlining my current progress.

Another subject I’ve been working hard at is ‘Design Modelling and Visualisation‘  which focuses on of communicating designs through mediums such as computer rendered images. I’ve been learning how to use the software ‘3Ds Max’ to render photo-realistic scenes, which includes modelling objects or buildings then calibrating colour, texture, materials and lighting. The result is a visually impressive looking image which can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from a photograph (if it is a good render). I plan to use the skills I’ve gained in this course in my design courses to present my ideas.

Between huge assignments, I’ve been going surfing and continuing to enjoy the lifestyle of living on campus. There’s a lot more work to come, 3rd year is really interesting so far, but also really intense.

UNSW Built Environment Architectural Computing: David Butterworth

So my final year is off to a hectic start, it’s week three already and the work is piling up as expected. I’m currently 3rd Year Architectural Computing so the excitement of graduating is gradually growing, I’m definitely keen to start looking for employment especially with our final grad project next semester.

The summer went very quick as I completed 3 summer courses to get ahead and free up some time this year.  I also moved out of college and into a 5 bedroom place in Randwick.

Third Year really only has one core subject which is Digital Collaboration Studio, so I don’t get to see as many familiar faces as we are all doing electives. I chose a 3d object and space elective at COFA where we are using formZ to model and print in 3d. I’m also doing Multimedia in Design Presentation with Dean Utian from BE (Built Environment) and we are currently learning Director which should be interesting.

Probably the most interesting part of this year will be that I’m starting to tutor Experimental Modelling for Jeremy Harkins.  It’s a bit daunting at first but I definitely feel comfortable standing up in the labs and running the tutes. It’s a weird change going from student to teacher but I could see myself tutoring in years to come, hopefully I can tutor more subjects next year.

Here is an image i created at the end of last year in Design Information Modelling, we were using Autodesk Revit to create a BIM (building information model) and upload to a model server! exciting stuff 🙂

UNSW Built Environment Architectural Computing: Nikolina Borak

Hi!

My name is Nikolina and I am in my 3rd and final year of architectural computing and really glad to be finishing but also feeling a bit down having to leave the Built Environment. During my long summer break that consisted of sleeping, beach, going out with friends, designing visuals for my family, and a little bit of studying and an interesting summer course, I was eager to get back to my studies and start my final year.

This year my classes consist of mostly electives that allow me to broaden my knowledge, not just about architectural computing. I am doing very unusual courses (Property assessment to textiles to multimedia) that do not relate to one another but will be very helpful once I am in the field and give me a competitive advantage against others. I am really enjoying my first weeks of the semester and looking forward to developing my skills further and understanding what is needed once I finish. Once I finish I would like to go into visualisations and am currently looking for work experience for this year.

I hope that this year will be interesting and different and hopefully not too difficult.
Wishing everyone luck for the year.

UNSW Built Environment Event: Pure Digital – Architectural Computing Graduation Exhibition

After what seemed like a long and enduring period, graduating students of Architectural Computing 2009 had finally accomplished their goals and dreams.

We held our Graduation Project exhibition on 12th of November. Overall the night was very successful with a huge turn out of people and delicious catering which ran through the whole evening.

The evening was organised by the graduating students, displaying our final graduation projects. Each student had chosen their subject of interest within the specialised field of Architectural Visualisation. Projects were based on real world clients and real world building and architectural projects this allowed students to present their compatibility with working in the current industry.

Displays ranged from interactive real-time projects to 3D still visualisation and 3D animation.

A huge applause goes to all the students involved in preparation to the event and the hours they had put in to make the exhibition evening a success. Also many thanks to the program head Stephen Peter.