Melbourne School of Design student James Urlini has won the Robin Boyd Foundation’s residential design competition.
Open to students from around Australia, the Walls Around Us competition challenged entrants to reimagine the site of Robin Boyd’s Walsh Street House by exploring Boyd’s ideas and interests through a contemporary lens.
“Robin Boyd’s book ‘The Walls Around Us’ gives this student competition its name but also sets the atmosphere,” said Patrick Kennedy, director of the Robin Boyd Foundation and Kennedy Nolan.
Students were asked to design a minimum of two houses on the site and consider contemporary issues of sustainability, housing security, and caring for Country.
“House in a Grassy Plain” by James Urlini.
Image:
James Urlini
Urlini’s design, “House in a Grassy Plain,” was lauded for its “understanding of the Walsh Street site – its limits and opportunities,” said jury chair Philip Goad. “Walsh Street’s ground plane and its materials have been retained and integrated with an entirely new ten-room linear duplex featuring a planting and water collection system. This innovative, understated and elegant design includes bricks, new and old, as part of its compelling message.”
Urlini’s prize is a trip to the Venice Architecture Biennale courtesy of competition sponsor Brickworks Building Products.
The competition received entries from undergraduate and masters students from 11 universities around Australia.
Three other students were highly commended for their submissions: “Ordinary Inside and In-between” by University of Western Australia student Fynn Turley proposed that future homeowners live with less and experience the elements of nature; “Walsh Street Terrace” by RMIT University student Jonas Nutter proposed generously planned townhouses; and “Weelam-ik” by University of Melbourne student Rebecca Andre proposed placing the living spaces underground and introducing a garden of Indigenous and productive plants.
The competition was judged by Philip Goad, chair of architecture at the University of Melbourne and a board member of the Robin Boyd Foundation; Eve Castle, Brickworks business development manager; and architect Simon Pendal.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
