Student successes at the international Re-Utility architecture design competition

Four teams of postgraduate design students from architecture, urban, planning and landscape design disciplines entered the competition. Students approached this competition by considering community activism, circular economy and material flows.

Earn & Learn by Emmanuel Akintayo, Jade Chia, Oran McDevitt and Olivia Riley was the winner. Olivia Riley commented on their behalf and said,

“The Re-Utility competition was a great learning experience. We utilised our different skills as a team to create a building proposal we were proud of. The proposal, Earn and Learn, aimed to train and create jobs as a response to the lack of job opportunities and higher education for young people creating a connection between the city and local farmers.”

Open Source, Open Minds by Olanrewaju Awotunde, Andy Clarke, Andrew English and Lew Rogers was awarded an editor’s choice award.

Andy Clarke, from their team said,

“It was great getting the opportunity to work as part of a team on this exciting competition in an unfamiliar context: Kansas, USA, using unfamiliar materials: steel grain bins.

Our proposal, Open-Source, Open Minds, aimed to help tackle the mental health crisis in the farming community through creation of an inviting Community Wellness Hub, promoting positive mental health and social interaction. The scheme promoted sustainable design principles with an emphasis on recycling and sourcing of all materials and labour locally. To highlight the benefit of pooling resources and knowledge sharing, our scheme is designed as an open-source blueprint for others to use for similar projects.

Each team member contributed varying skillsets which helped us greatly to develop a proposal with a strong design concept, high quality architectural detailing, and attractive visuals. We are delighted to have received the Editor’s Choice Award for our submission.” 

Other entries by Matthew Howard, Myles Petcher and Eoin Rogers called Waste to Warmth and Osage Voices by Jeremy Leclercq, Thom Morgan, Nisarg Patel and Andrew Stanway were both shortlisted.

Dr Simon Warren, BA (Hons) Architecture Senior Lecturer said,

“Learning how to create successful entries for ideas competitions is a very useful skill for design students to take into practice, as some commissions are likely to come from this process. Students work in teams, again reflecting acquisition of practice-ready skills.

This project, set in a small town in Kansas, USA, displaces students into a remote context and tests their understanding and how they might create appropriate design responses.”

The successful entries can be viewed at https://uni.xyz/competitions/re-utility/entries.