2022 Super Studio National Winner

During the week of 2 to 9 July SONA members across the country participated in Super Studio, a national conceptual design competition. 

This year 120 students formed 62 teams to respond to a national brief with a theme of sustainability and regenerative design.  

After 62 submissions were made, followed by presentations to local juries in each state and territory, a shortlist of teams progressed to the national judging to be considered for the overall prize of $3000 – thanks to the Super Studio partner Your Home.   

We are pleased to announce the national winner of Super Studio 2022, is Caleb Lee and Nithya Ranasinghe (Masters students, RMIT), for their proposal The Rinse Cycle.  

Jury Citation excerpt:

The Rinse Cycle is an exemplary response to this year’s SuperStudio Brief. The approach to the challenge is subtle, subversive, and powerful. Providing not only a clever integration of Regenerative Design principles, but also a commentary on our social rituals, and current and future living arrangements. 

The Rinse Cycle | Caleb Lee and Nithya Ranasinghe | Super Studio National Winner and VIC Winner

This year’s creative team who formulated the brief and selected the national winner, Matthew Alfred RAIA Grad, Christopher Pongrac RAIA, Yaara Plaves RAIA, Graham Hunt RAIA and Reem Daou SONA, wanted students to think about architecture in a different light in the hope they would leave with a greater sense, not only of the architect’s societal responsibility, but also the capacity and opportunity for our projects to instigate wider change. 

The geopolitical, social, and environmental climate we are a part of provides a charged context for students to test their ideas. The platform of Super Studio can help students find a sense of power in engagement. I hope students take that empowerment with them and apply it broadly beyond the scope of the competition! 

– Chrisopher Pangrac, 2022 Super Studio Creative Director  

 

Now in its 17th year, Super Studio is a long running and much-loved SONA program. The competition cannot go ahead without volunteers from the architectural community that contribute their time and expertise to help deliver this program for our SONA members.   

A special thank you to these volunteers, our creative directors, mentors, members of the jury in each state, presentation day venue hosts and design day speakers as well as our wonderful SONA representatives and SONA executive team who together made this competition possible. 

A full list of Super Studio contributors can be found here.

From the winning team

This proposition takes advantage of a dissolving icon: the service station, and subverts its inherent characteristics in service of the community. In doing so, it acknowledges the layers of narratives embedded not only within its silhouette, but also within place. From a simple anecdote, an everyday ritual becomes a communal contribution towards the regeneration of place, suburb and ultimately prospective neighbourhoods on our suburban fringe. Ultimately this is a proposition which hopes to achieve something greater than the sum of its parts. 

– Caleb Lee and Nithya Ranasinghe (Masters students at RMIT).  

2022 Super Studio VIC Winners Caleb Lee and Nithya Ranasinghe with Jury Members Claire Ward, Daniel Moore, Sophanara Sok, Paul Haar, Timothy Rodgers and Dolly Daou

Super studio partner

your home

Your Home – Australia’s Guide to Environmentally Sustainable Homes – Australian Government.

The new Your Home has the latest on emerging energy efficiency technologies, sustainable design practices and construction systems for the residential building sector.

Your Home is available free online and as an affordable book. To read online or buy the book visit yourhome.gov.au.

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