RAIA Partridge Partners Prize for Structure in Architecture
Contents
Background
This prize was initiated by Partridge Partners, structural engineers, in order to help lead to greater co-operation between structural engineers and architects in real projects.
It is an annual prize to be given each year for a student in the fourth year of their architecture course, a year in which all of the schools integrate construction subjects including Structures with design. It is to be awarded to the design which best demonstrates the intimate relationship between structural engineering and architecture.
Some examples include Bordeaux Law Courts (Rogers); Olympic Archery Building, Sydney (Stutchbury); Berman House (Seidler); Great Court, British Museum (Foster); Peckham Library, UK (Alsop).
Judging
The judging is to be done in two stages.
Stage 1
5 projects selected jointly by design and construction staff from each university for a design project done in fourth year.
The best of these selected by one design staff member, one construction staff member from the university and Harry Partridge from Partridge Partners or his nominee and an RAIA Member.
Stage 2
The four best projects, one from each of the universities, to be exhibited in Tusculum at the same time as the Design Medal and HPA Mirvac awards.
The best of these four projects to be selected by Jury to include Partridge Partners.
Criteria
The award is intended to raise the awareness of structure in building design and to foster closer engineer/architect collaboration, and will be awarded to the design which best:
Illustrates how the structure has helped influence the architecture and vice versa.
Indicates a strong collaborative effort between architectural student and engineer.
Shows how the usual structural “constraints” have been addressed/overcome.
Demonstrates creative innovation in the use of materials.
Submission
Maximum of 2 x A1 boards, a report and a model to be submitted to the universities for the initial judging by the above panel; and the selected project from each university to be delivered to the RAIA, 3 Manning Street, Potts Point.
Prize
The remuneration for this award is to be provided by Partridge Partners and is to be $2,000 for the winning entry and $500 for second prize.
Past Winners
2008
WINNER : Katherine Daunt, University of Newcastle
Katherine's design showed an understanding of the relationship between structural engineering and architecture in her multi storey tower building formed with an expressed steel frame hung from a traditional service core. This building proudly displays its fine steel external frame where the engineering structure is the architecture. The building has a 'quirky' lighting system which canvases and displays the mood of the building's inhabitants.
2007
WINNER : James Buskin, University of Newcastle
James created a multi-storey building design which incorporated a reinforced concrete service core capable of supporting all lateral loads on the structure offset from the main office tower which housed the functional spaces. This design, without a traditional centre core allowed these spaces to be more open, and also meant the floors could be supported on finer vertical elements located within the external glazing.
COMMENDATION : Mark Girgis, University Of Technology, Sydney
2006
WIINER : Lucy Humphrey, University of Sydney
Lucy's design for a centre for Dialogue in Canberra was based on the idea of progressing through various levels of conversation/dialogue along a rising ramp, entering below ground ‘in darkness’ and finishing at the top, with a conclusion, 'in the light'. Here the structure is the architecture and the architecture is the structure. One combines seamlessly with the other. There is no fat. A simple structural form is repeated in varying scales to express the architecture and fully support gravity loads. Sloping columns are judiciously inserted to resist lateral loads. The integration of structure and architecture work effortlessly together: as a tree in all its various forms.
COMMENDATION : Greg Knight, University of Newcastle