Architecture and Design Students Make Their Mark in Venice

Three students from RMIT University in Melbourne have returned from a trip of a lifetime to the Venice Biennale, where they made their mark with the winning design from the recent Australian Institute of Architects Super Studio competition.

Fifth-year landscape architecture students Ben Kazacos and Brock Hogan, and fourth-year interior design student Phoebe Baker-Gabb exhibited modules of their winning design - an interactive wall of pencils embedded in flexible frameworks called 'Mark' - outside several Biennale pavilions where visitors could interact with them.

The winning trio travelled to Venice courtesy of BlueScope Steel, their prize for being chosen from amongst 450 architecture students entered in the 2012 Super Studio competition.

Held simultaneously in seven locations around Australia over a 24-hour period, the competition asked students to create a manifesto describing the future of architecture as an artistic and professional pursuit.

Competing under the name MUTT Architecture, the winners created a grid formation of pencils with their rubber ends facing outward, so that someone touching them created a record of the motion by drawing on backing paper.

In Venice small modules of the design created considerable interest amongst Venetians and visitors alike.

"Initially we didn't have a dedicated space at the Biennale so we walked around Venice asking people to interact with the modules," said Ben Kazacos.

"Later some of the Biennale pavilion organisers, including those at the Australian pavilion, allowed us to place the modules outside their display spaces so that visitors could play with them.

"We actually had a couple of Austrian guys offer to buy them off us!"

Kazacos says that with Mark, MUTT Architecture is highlighting the need to break down the hierarchy that decides how buildings are designed and how the architecture industry operates.

According to the team's manifesto, "Mark seeks to create architecture that is personal and collective, specific and general".

BlueScope Steel market manager commercial and industrial, Manu Siitonen, said that BlueScope is proud to support the creativity of tomorrow's designers and architects.

"We view challenges such as this as a meaningful way in which we can be involved in nurturing the potential of design students, and providing them with scope to extend their creativity and find further inspiration," he said.

The Super Studio competition is run annually by the Student Organised Network for Architecture in Australia (SONA) which is the student group of the Australian Institute of Architects.