The 2022 Barry McNeill Graduate Prize was announced at the ADAPT exhibition, showcasing the work of shortlisted graduating students from the University of Tasmania’s Master of Architecture program, on Friday 25 November.
This year, the panel awarded Samuel Hodgens with the Barry McNeill Graduate Prize, and gave a commendation to Hayley Kingshott.
The jury commented that “the panel was faced with a hard decision as always, presented with six outstanding candidates with professional projects demonstrating the breadth and depth of their talent.”
The citations from the jury are as follows:
Samuel Hodgens – Barry McNeill Graduate Prize winner
Samuel is a highly accomplished designer and thinker, with a passion for writing and research. It is this focus on the design principles of his projects which makes his drawn work highly experiential.
Set on Sarah Island in Tasmania’s rugged south-west, his professional project presents landscape as the protagonist, creating a scenario where both our colonial past and present civilization are subsumed by growing environmental forces. Samuel’s depiction of our dystopian future presents indigenous knowledge as society’s only hope to mediate the effects of climate change.
His beautifully presented proposal for a Biodiversity Laboratory, layered with a strong sense of meaning in every detail creates a highly poetic response, itself doomed to succumb to its inevitable end. Samuel has a great future ahead of him and is a worthy winner of this year’s prize.
Hayley Kingshott – commendation
Hayley’s passion for software programming belies her talent as a skilful designer. Her conceptualised ‘site-less’ design for an E-waste recycling plant as part of her professional project creates a new typology and program, both well-conceived and executed. The physical model of an oscillating spiral tower presented an ingenious design element which wonderfully complements her abstract illustrations.
The shortlisted students also included Banruo Han, Jing Li, Kim Khanh Tran Nguyen and Danchun Yao.
The annually awarded prize is made possible by prize sponsors, JAWS Architects and VOS Construction and Joinery, and the jury, who this year consisted of Neal Mackintosh and Catherine Williams, of JAWS Architects, Mark Millhouse, Construction Manager, Southern Tasmania and Business Development Manager, Tasmania, from VOS Construction and Leigh Woolley, of Leigh Woolley Architect.
