Fleetwood Challenge Cup 2021 Winners Announced!
FLEETWOOD CHALLENGE CUP 2021 AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED WITH FIRST PRIZE AWARDED TO CURTIN UNIVERSITY’S FREMANTLE SPRINGS TEAM CAPTURING THE PORT HERITAGE OF ICONIC FREMANTLE
Perth, Western Australia. The 2021 Fleetwood Challenge Cup winners were announced last night with Curtin University’s Fremantle Springs Project taking out the top award. The Fleetwood Challenge Cup is the national design competition for Architectural, Engineering and Construction Management (AEC) students with cash prizes to the value of $15,000 awarded to the winning teams.
Fremantle Springs – 2021 Fleetwood Challenge Cup 1st place prize-winning project from Curtin University Students
In second place was Deakin University’s Think Tank Project and in third place was Curtin University’s Asian Persuasion team. The Industry Award was awarded to yet another Curtin University Team for their project Shipping House.
The finalists were announced last month with Western Australia’s Curtin University taking out three of the top four finalists places – an outstanding achievement as over 100 students participated in this year’s Challenge and testament to the strength of Curtin University’s AEC curriculum.
The 2021 Challenge Cup explored the use of prefabrication in adaptive re-use within the built environment.
A glut of empty commercial premises exists in inner city areas thanks to the pandemic induced mandate of working from home. The volume of empty properties has triggered an unprecedented need for vast numbers of commercial buildings to be redesigned and reconfigured to meet a mix of residential and commercial needs using adaptive re-use.
The Fleetwood Challenge Cup was developed by Fleetwood Australia in partnership with the peak body for Australia’s prefabricated building industry, prefabAUS, to address some of Australia’s most significant modular construction challenges.
Fleetwood Australia CEO, Bruce Nicholson commented, “We wish to extend our congratulations to all involved in this year’s challenge. We were inspired by the calibre of submissions with over 100 students participating in this year’s Challenge Cup.
“The 2021 competitors, who are the industry’s next generation of change makers, drew great inspiration from the challenge set and delivered some outstanding solutions. It has been exciting to see great use of innovation, design knowledge and creativity to deliver cutting edge designs to support adaptable re-use of vacant building stocks.
Think Tank – 2021 Fleetwood Challenge Cup second place prize-winning project from Deakin university students
“I wish to offer a heartfelt congratulations to this year’s winning project from Curtin University, Fremantle Springs.”
The Fremantle Springs project focused on the neglected abandonment of Western Australia’s Fremantle heritage by proposing a small-scale mixed-use development that established a connective core between Fremantle’s industrial port heritage and nature. The three storey –mixed use development named Fremantle Springs adapts to a flexible modular design.
As most modularity typologies come in forms of linearity, Fremantle Springs aimed to challenge design norms. The modular design approach in connecting the core through heritage and organic ideologies is self-sustainable and adapts to future styles of design by gaining flexibility in term of attachment and detachment of lightweight cladding and structural steel framework.
prefabAUS Executive Chair Damien Crough commented, “As the peak body for Australia’s offsite construction industry, we are proud to partner with Fleetwood Australia to deliver the Challenge Cup and showcase ingenuity in action.
“With the highest building vacancy rates world-wide following the COVID-19 peak, the need to find sustainable ways to adapt, extend and reconfigure existing buildings with prefabrication and offsite manufacturing is a critical part of the solution.
“We assembled a diverse Fleetwood Challenge Cup judging panel that includes a leading Architect, Mechanical Engineer, Structural Engineer and a Physicist who determined the finalist teams. The variation in approach of the top four finalists was quite vast and each was very strong in their design. They were all well thought out concepts and very deserving finalists, who demonstrated great innovation and novelty.”
For further information please contact:
Susie Pantall
National Marketing & Communications Manager
E: susiep@fleetwood.com.au
M: 0403 330 020