UNSW Built Environment: UNSW Industrial Design Student Joseph Louis Tan Named one of 50 Finalists for VIVID Awards

The VIVID – Vibrant Visions In Design Awards is a furniture design competition held in Australia, as part of the Furnitex exhibition event, running in tandem with the State of Design Festival in Melbourne. It features the 50 most inspiring and talented designers in Australia for the year with their unique product designs. There are four different categories to participate in: Commercial, Concept, Student and Green.

This year UNSW Industrial Design student Joseph Louis Tan has been named as one of the finalists in the student category with his design MEW Modular Coffee Table. When asked about his reasons for entering the competition Joseph said “ VIVID presented to designers and design students like me an opportunity to showcase and share our designs in Australia’s largest furniture and furnishing trade fair to over 17,000 trade visitors. I hope that by entering VIVID, not only will I be gauging myself against Australia’s talented designers, but also be given a chance to meet and network with them, exhibitors and trade visitors. I was always curious about the underlying process of participating in a huge exhibition like Furnitex and hope to use it as a platform to learn and experience valuable lessons that cannot be taught in university lectures and tutorials. I am also interested in the potential of possibly commercializing my design and VIVID will be an ideal stepping stone in that direction.”

Joseph’s design of the MEW Modular Coffee Table was inspired by traditional Japanese wood joinery and modern cutting technology capabilities. The design is a simple, versatile and interactive modular coffee table that can be rearranged to suit different individuals needs with its three smaller separate tables. Made from water-jet cut locally sourced Hoop Pine plywood, it uses various types of unique slotted connections that allow it to be easily assembled without fixtures or fittings and comes flat-packed for easier transport and storage.

We would like to congratulate Joseph on his achievement.

Click here to find out more about the VIVID Awards.

UNSW Built Environment: Saturday In Design

Saturday in Design is an annual trade event for the design community, which began in Sydney in 2003, and now alternates each year between Sydney and Melbourne. This year will see Sydney showcased on 19 – 20 August 2011.

This event is an opportunity to see what Sydney has to offer in the field of furniture and design. It involves Australia’s premier designer furniture, finishes, fixtures and lighting showrooms opening their doors on a Saturday to allow architects, designers, students and design-savvy members of the public to enjoy these companies’ products in an ‘open house’ environment.

Saturday in Design has traditionally been an opportunity for local and international products from hundreds of reputable brands to be launched to thousands of members of the design community in one day.

To enable hassle-free travel in between showroom venues around the city, a number of complimentary shuttle buses run on pre-arranged routes for the entire day.

Click here to find out more about Saturday in Design.

UNSW Built Environment: Electrolux Design Lab 2011 Semi-Finalists Announced

Modern day living means that time constraints and changing lifestyles are altering consumers needs for household products. Innovative designs are required to cater to these changing needs. This year the Electrolux Design Lab has asked industrial design students and recent graduates worldwide to create home appliances that consider intelligent mobility; their designs need to show a combination of lateral thinking and ingenuity.

There were 1300 entrants and from that 25 semi-finalists have been chosen from all over the world. Three of the semi finalists are from Australia and of those three, two are Industrial Design students from UNSW!

We would like to congratulate Alfred Ching and Saba Zara on their creative and innovative designs. Alfred Ching’s design ‘Honeycomb Modular Induction Tiles’ (pictured above) looks at creating different sized and shaped movable heating surfaces which can be stacked for easy storage. Saba Zara’s design ‘Mywash’ is a communal washing machine with individual barrels which can be controlled via a smart phone.

The 25 semi-finalists will be whittled down to a final eight. The finalists will present their designs to a jury who will consider the entries based on intuitive design, innovation and consumer insight. The winning designer will receive €5,000 ($6,786AUD) and a 6 month paid internship at an Electrolux global design centre.

Click here to visit the website and checkout all the semi-finalists designs.

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: BE Student Andrea Wechsler Wins Best Paper

UNSW Built Environment Master of Research student Andrea Wechsler recently presented a paper at The First International Postgraduate Conference on Engineering, Designing and Developing the Built Environment for Sustainable Wellbeing, which was held in April at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.

This is a peer reviewed conference and Andrea’s paper titled Sustainable Furniture panel composites from forestry and food industry by-products in Australia, presented in the theme Energy, Environment and Sustainability, won the best paper in the theme.

Andrea’s paper was based on part of her research which compared polypropylene based materials and different fillers: macadamia shells, pine cones and eucalyptus capsules with traditional wood plastic composites with pine wood fillers.

We would like to congratulate Andrea on this achievement

Click here for more information on the eddBE 2011 Conference.

UNSW Built Environment: The Good Design Q & A Session

The 2011 Australian International Design Awards are currently underway. For a rare opportunity to meet this year’s judges and view more than 200 innovative products vying for an Australian International Design Award, register to attend The Good Design Q & A session.

The session will be held at the UNSW Roundhouse on Thursday 19 May from 6 to 9pm. Tickets are $50 for corporate and $25 for students.

The evening will be hosted by Michele Elliot, Co Founder of What If! and Director of Inspirate. It will feature a thought provoking and stimulating Q & A session with select members of this year’s Judging Panel including design experts from Mercedes-Benz, Samsung, Designworks USA and more.

Click here to register for this event.

UNSW Built Environment: New Scholarship Opportunities

Two new prestigious scholarships are now open for application. The 2011 AustCham Scholarship information booklet aims to foster the next generation of Sino-Australian business leaders. While the Prime Minister’s Australia Asia Awards Student Information are available to students who are interested in a unique opportunity to undertake international study and research related to their Australian degree, and gain international work experience through an internship which will build their professional network in Asia.

Click on the scholarship you are interested in to find out more.

UNSW Built Environment: Win an Apple IPAD!

We are giving all BE students the chance to win an Apple IPad simply by taking part in an online CATEI survey! All you have to do is log into CATEI via your myUNSW portal and tell us your opinion about things. All those who complete the survey will go into a draw to win an Apple IPad.

We want to hear what you think! If positive, please take the time to say so,  affirm what is happening and provide this feedback to the  lecturers. If you would like to see change let us know so things can change.

It is understandable that this is a hectic time of the year and your time to provide this very important feedback  is really appreciated. It will only take about 15 – 20 minutes! 

Did you know because you complete CATEI;

• Lecturers have changed course content and teaching  as a result  of your feedback.
• If you complete the survey you can view lecturer feedback on comments and course data after the results are finalised.
• If you complete the survey you are then given access to see the completed results for  Form A evaluation and so find out what your peers thought.
• By completing the survey you boost the overall response rate for FBE compared to other Faculties at UNSW which is very important. You also boost your own  program’s response rate compared to other programs within FBE too! Yes, they are all measured which indicates the importance of this survey.

So log in to myUNSW portal today today for your chance to win!

UNSW Built Environment: Sydney Open 2010

Sydney Open 2010

Weekend 6 & 7 November

Go behind the scenes of your own city and explore over 50 buildings and sites normally off limits as they open their doors for this exclusive biennial event.

From architectural icons to secret and hidden places, award-winning contemporary designs to much-loved heritage buildings, industrial shells to creative adaptations and state-of-the-art sustainable living projects, Sydney Open will open your eyes to the past, present and future of Sydney’s built environment.

Tickets sell fast. Book now at tickets.hht.net.au  or T 02 8239 2211

More information visit www.hht.net.au/sydneyopen

UNSW Built Environment: Live IP camera views of campus construction

These links could prove interesting over the coming months as they linked to IP cameras that look down on the 2 main construction sites we have on campus at the moment. You may enjoy seeing the buildings evolve live from this vantage point – it is pretty cool! Click here for view of the Solar Industrial Research Facility