The BVN-designed Monash Student Housing: Education Building at Monash University has received a RIBA International Award.
Through these awards, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) showcases the best architecturally designed built works outside the UK. The winners automatically become finalists in the RIBA Lubetkin Prize, which is awarded to the best international building and which is announced later in the year.
Monash Student Housing: Education Building provides affordable and environmentally and socially sustainable accommodation for students at the Clayton campus. The project comprises two five-storey buildings, each housing three hundred students and characterized by an exterior facade of timber detailing and floor-to-ceiling windows.
BVN principal Ninotschka Titchkosky said the project responded to the need for higher-end facilities for students by moving away from dormitory accommodation towards providing self-contained bedroom/study space.
“We kept the design focused on the experience of the residents,” Titchkosky said, “rather than just the pragmatic fulfilment of the spatial brief.”
Monash Student Housing was the first university project completed under the National Rental Affordability Scheme, which was established as part of the federal government’s Nation-building Funds, a response to the Global Financial Crisis.
The building, which recently received a Victorian Architecture Award for Multiple Housing, was among twelve buildings, including the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, to receive RIBA International Awards.
