Artichoke Magazine Prize
Awarded annually, the Artichoke Magazine Prize for design communication is presented to interior design/ interior architecture students who demonstrate excellence in the visual and written presentation of an interior design proposition.
The Artichoke Magazine Prize for design communication is awarded to one graduating student from each of the institutions in Australia and New Zealand that offers interior design/interior architecture degree courses, and which are members of the Interior Design/ Interior Architecture Educators Association (IDEA). Each institution’s prize-winning student is selected by its school head. IDEA — idea-edu.com
1 — Nicholas Robson of University of New South Wales
Immerse is a sensory dining experience within Common Thread, a proposal for the revitalization of White Bay Power Station, Sydney. The design explores the balance of social intimacy and monumental architectural scale, shrouding the space in darkness and promoting the social connection of shared dining. Celebrating the fluid dynamic between the individual and their greater community, the space repurposes an existing coal hopper to allow a unique and immersive dining experience which distils the intimate core of human social interactions.
2 — Xiaowei Liu of RMIT University
This project is conceived as an underground memorial in Flagstaff Gardens in Melbourne. It challenges conventional notions of the cemetery by proposing a community place for both commemoration and everyday living. People’s activities and movements occurring above ground were tranformed into spatial sensory notations to create a series of interactive installations and unique structural forms underground. This allows behaviours and programs that ordinarily occur within the gardens to transpire within the memorial while also including commemoration in the daily rituals of the city.
3 — Georgina Nefiodovas of University of South Australia
The Greek dessert Mosaiko was the inspiration for this hotel lobby “forest,” which is influenced by the organization of a traditional stage production and performance. The lobby is scattered with wildflowers, and rays of light are projected into the foliage of the trees. The floor changes to represent the terrane and density of a forest. As visitors move through the space they are greeted with a sense of wonder, mystique and humour inspired by the set design for 1972’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
4 — Liam Gnaden of Curtin University
Immersive technology has shifted our understanding of everyday physical environments, specifically public spaces that centre around socialisation – we have become disconnected from physical spaces and immersed in the cyber realm. In response, Spagyria: The Mound is a conceptual proposition speculating on reconnecting us to physical public space. Located in the centre of Western Australia’s historic Fremantle, the design comprises a series of atmospheres driven by the spagyric concept of “drawing out” and “gathering.” The aim is to seduce, immerse and gather occupants through the construction of multisensory experiences.
5 — Laura Sanchez of Victoria University of Wellington
As a nod to George Orwell’s 1984 future speculations, this project is a counterpoint that offers an optimistic, open and free speculation tool. By using the narrative of social media, it allows designers to explore a new kind of design approach, an approach more relevant to our digitized lives. The city of Los Angeles is the testing ground to anticipate what a series of sites within the city could feel like in 2084. This project suggests future designs that also highlight the urban interior by superimposing the two disparate conditions in a propositional manner.
6 — Cherrileigh Van Der Mescht of University of Tasmania
The design aims to develop a dispersed hotel combining five separate sites in Launceston, using the five Taoist elements earth, fire, water, metal and wood. Each site and space within the hotel represents an element and each element has its own characteristics. Each element is different from the other but together they create a connection, linking to form one, and they are brought together in the main reception building. These principles enhance wellbeing, enjoyment and health through the balance of energy. The earth’s energy affects places, and in turn affects people. It aims to bring a space into harmony by creating a balance with its surroundings.
7 — Roseanna Funnell of Queensland University of Technology
This project brings to life a dilapidated heritage building by proposing a laneway of restaurants and bars for the surrounding Brisbane community. Built 115 years ago, the existing building was a retail empire favoured among many and often referred to as “The House of the People.” The interior aims to respond to the original classical architecture by placing emphasis on symmetry, proportion and pure geometry both in plan and built form. A reinterpretation of a vaulted dome ceiling features throughout, creating a grand experience.
8 — Joe Norman of Massey University
Tautoko proposes the natural reclamation of dilapidated urban wastelands through the reintroduction of native biodiversity, investigating an abandoned factory as the site for a public park. Aspiring to diffuse the gap between the natural and built environments, the park examines each layer of the space as a component of what defines a complex local ecosystem. The painterly visualizations capture a uniquely Aotearoa New Zealand atmosphere, incorporating figures by artist Rita Angus, birds by Niels Meyer-westfeld and plants by Audrey Eagle.
9 — Nancy Luo of Monash University
This speculative research project focuses on the current social phenomenon of the yaramiso man [late-in-life virgin]. Created from Japan’s sexualized pop culture and abundance of artificial sex objects and technology stimulating the masturbatory experience, this project explores what the future of sex and intimacy entails for the yaramiso man. It is set in a dystopian reality where masturbatory sex is a normalized ritual within Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station, facilitated by the ultimate amalgamation of artificial sex stimulants and radically advancing robot technology.
10 — Jewel Yan of AUT University
Intuitively, we play. Play is more than just a frivolous activity or playgrounds – when placed in the ordered structure of a hospital, play becomes a means to engage with our environment as well as offering an escape, familiarity and comfort. So, how can an enquiry into play activate therapeutic hospital environments through empathy, imagination and re-enchantment? Narratives created through user engagement and a site analysis are woven together into a design proposal for the atrium space in Starship Children’s Health. Explorations in colour and drawing create variations of scale, intimacy and publicity to engage children of diverse personalities, ages and abilities.
11 — Vera Marcuta of University of Technology Sydney
The contemporary stock exchange constellates goods and services represented by their relative economic value in an abstract and continuous virtual marketplace. The interface affords en masse investment, while the real world consequences of these actions remain invisible. Located on Cockatoo Island, Invisible Gold proposes a new form of stock exchange in which resource extractions, wool and cattle industries are presented to the public eye; a marketplace in which the product, and its production, is as visible as the final price.