NMU architectural student bags award for sewage facility
NELSON Mandela University (NMU) master’s architectural student Matthew Morris has scooped top honours in the regional finals of the coveted annual Corobrik Architectural Student of the Year award.
He has earned a cash prize and the right to represent his university in the finals of the competition in May.
The design concept behind Morris’s winning entry – entitled “The design of a decentralised sewage treatment facility for a settlement within Bethelsdorp, Port Elizabeth” – was directed at achieving the two broader aims of environmental protection and improved social cohesion.
“It came as a bit of a surprise,” 24-year-old Morris said of his victory in the annual competition.
“It was really great that the design was selected and I am now looking forward to the final, in which I am hoping for a good result.”
The young architect, who will be taking up a job in his home city of Durban next month, said he had come up with the decentralised sewage treatment facility concept after becoming aware of the pollution in the Swartkops River.
“It was both the pollution and that there is much ailing infrastructure in the northern areas,” Morris said.
“Decentralising sewage treatment works will have a positive impact on the Swartkops River while reducing the strain on the treatment facility currently serving the area.
“In addition, the establishment of new public infrastructure in the area will support social cohesion and employment there.”
Morris said that with his concept, the majority of the water treatment would be done in tanks and would therefore have no adverse effect on the community.
Corobrik area sales manager Mike Willard said winners like Morris would shape the future in a transforming world.
“In South Africa, the architects of tomorrow will be tasked with taking an already challenging past into a mindboggling future,” he said.
“They will be the pathfinders who map out a built environment that uses sophisticated technologies of the future to address the challenges of today that have been compounded by the shortcomings of the past.”
Morris received a cheque for R8 500, while fellow architects Rust van der Merwe, Chelcie Akom and Simone Joubert were runners-up.
A R4 500 prize for the best use of clay masonry was presented to Ian Woolard for his thesis entitled “The design of additions to community facilities for the Shri Shiva Subramaniar Aulayam Hindu Temple”.