Accommodation New Zealand introduces
The winners of the Australian Institute of Architects' annual Super Studio student design competition have been revealed today, with a Tasmanian team claiming the overarching national award.
United under the team name "Effort," Luke Pendergast, Zachary Tregenza and Jacob Tripp were named as the national Super Studio winners for their project False Idols, which envisions architecture as both a product and shaper of collective belief in response to the competition's theme, "Where nothing moves, everything begins."
The team claimed the prize following their presentation to the jury, alongside the other state winners, earlier today, following the conceptual design competition which was held over the course of a week earlier this month. This year, the competition theme was shaped by Joel Alcorn and Chloe Middleton from Brisbane-based architecture practice Alcorn Middleton, alongside SONA vice president Senlina Mayer.
According to the creative directors, "The brief this year challenged participants to design for a future where seven black monoliths have appeared - one on each continent. In their presence, new economies, rituals, political systems and psychological behaviours begin to form. These silent masses have irrevocably disrupted the idea of public space. Students must now consider: what new types of civic rituals, services or responses could emerge?"
In the eyes of the jury, the national-award-winning scheme, False Idols, "delivers a dystopically original take on the monolith condition, [and] draws us into its world with immediate clarity and conviction. Its concept is imaginative yet grounded, exploring every aspect of the monolith's spatial and systemic influence across both Sydney and Hobart. This proposal positions architecture not merely as a product of culture, but as an active participant in shaping it."
Adopting a dual-city design approach, the project speculates on how divergent cultural and spatial behaviours might arise in response to the monolith's presence. "Thoughtfully considered across scales, it challenges us to see the monolith not just as an object, but as a catalyst for transformation, narrative and critical reflection within diverse urban contexts," the jury noted.
The Super Studio competition is run by the Institute's student body, the Student Organised Network for Architecture (SONA), and is open to SONA members from all year levels across Australia.
The state winners were:
Fear and Intuition by Barton Taylor - a network of underground labs known as "Hives," designed around systems of fear, curiosity and intuition.
Eucalyptus Phenomenon by Kien Bui, Edwina Tu and Yen Nhi Nguyen (team name: Radical Frugal) - a public space designed around collective sanctuary for grieving, praying and remembering.
Anchored In Time by Michelle Weir, Lujaine Hussain and Reis Azlan (team name: Kinetic) - a response that reimagines the brief, prompting societies to confront and reinterpret their histories in a way that reveals how each culture's relationship with the past shapes its future.
Urbs Aeterna - The Eternal City by Chuyao (Talia) Liu (team name: Arabesque) - a concept that explores the inevitability of societal collapse, framing Rome's fall as a metaphor for humanity's cyclical return from constructed order to primordial chaos.
Beneath the Weight of Progress by Adalina Galliamova, Pryde Sciascia and Sarah Chen - a reimagining of Manila Bay as a vertical city grown through improvised, parasitic architecture, transforming from a symbol of untapped power into a dense, chaotic and communal structure.
The New Swan River Colony by Bec Mangano - a scheme that uses the monolith's arrival in Perth as an allegory for colonisation, subverting settler permanence attached to the city's heritage Federation homes by reimagining them as spaces of collective, improvised living.
For more information visit the Australian Institute of Architects' website.
