Unitec’s School of Architecture gets national recognition with key awards

Myint San Aung

Master of Architecture Professional graduate Myint San Aung has won a coveted Golden Pin award at the national Best Design Awards 2022 staged by the Designers’ Institute of New Zealand, while Associate Professor Matthew Bradbury, and former lecturer Jacqueline Paul were recognised with  President’s Awards at the recent NZ Institute of Landscape Architects annual conference.

Myint San Aung grew up in Thailand as a Myanmar refugee and from a young age had a strong desire to be creative. In April this year, he graduated with a Master of Architecture Professional from the School of Architecture after arriving in New Zealand in 2011 as a refugee.

San has won some highly regarded awards during his studies, including the 2021 Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZIA Resene Student Design Awards and the 2020 Studio 2 Architects Award for the top student in technology. He was awarded Distinction in Architecture Design on completion of his studies.

Twenty-three-year-old San won this year’s Best Design Award with his project Pyit-Taing-Htaung, Every time you toss it, it stands up, based on a traditional Myanmar toy which continues to bounce back up every time it’s pushed over.  These are essential characteristics of Myanmar people, according to San.

The multimedia design project looks at how the design and layout of structures in a community-based camp can help address alienation and build cultural resilience, drawing on San’s personal experience of growing up in a Thai-Myanmar refugee camp.

“The project has been approached with the mindset of refugees’ involvement and allows them to create their own set of rules and use their own skill sets,” says San.

“The project takes full advantage of the limited natural resources available in their environment, ensuring their connectedness to the building and creating a sense of pride and ownership amongst the refugee community.

San says it’s important that a project like this is carried out with love, care and sensitivity if it’s to be successful.

“I want architecture that provides a safe space and a place where one feels a sense of belonging to motivate, express, educate and prepare themselves for the upcoming future.”

San says he hopes his award win might provide motivation for young refugees to follow a similar path, as well as students and designers from other backgrounds to explore the issue of refugee crisis in connection to architecture.

San says he owes his award to the support of his refugee community, as well as his colleagues and tutors at the School of Architecture.

“This accomplishment will be my motivation and enable me to fulfil my achievements in the future,” he says.

Annabel Pretty, one of his supervisors added, “San is one of those rare students who, despite spending 12 years being raised in a refugee camp and arriving in New Zealand as a refugee, is highly committed to the scholarship of Architecture both in terms of design and architectural representation.

“He’s extremely motivated but most of all, he’s dedicated and committed to humanitarian causes and bettering the lives of others.”

Dr Bradbury receiving his award

 Trailblazing landscape architecture staff recognised for their contributions to climate change and Māori communities

Associate professor Dr Matthew Bradbury was recognised for his work on climate action advocacy with a 2022 President’s Award at the recent NZ Institute of Landscape Architects’ (NZILA) annual conference.

In addition, Unitec landscape architecture graduate and former lecturer Jacqueline Paul was recognised as an emerging leader in landscape architecture.

The awards recognise those members of the profession who have engaged with a wide range of issues and have worked diligently to provide benefits for the development and promotion of landscape architecture.

Dr Bradbury is a passionate advocate of identifying solutions to the environmental problems that will be intensified by climate change. In 2019, he established the NZILA climate change group, looking at ways to redefine urban landscapes and develop practical skills to build resilience to climate change’s effects on our lives.

He has also investigated new landscape models and urban design practices to accommodate the challenges of climate change will change in developing a new urban model.

In December 2020, Dr Bradbury published Water City, Practical solutions to Climate change. The book describes the environmental challenges facing 21st-century cities due to climate change, along with the adaptation strategies that will help design practitioners in the urban landscape tackle these issues and make our cities better places to live.

Jacqueline Paul (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) has dedicated her career to addressing housing deprivation for Māori.  Her extensive knowledge has contributed to the WAI2750 Housing Policy and Services Inquiry, and she is currently the technical advisor for the housing inquiry at the Human Rights Commission.

As an independent specialist with Kāinga Ora and researcher of National Science Challenge: Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities, Jacqueline advocates for solutions and approaches that give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and support Māori communities.

Jacqueline recently completed her Masters’ degree at the University of Cambridge in the UK. She has recently taken up a place in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a PhD researcher, after being awarded a full, five-year scholarship.

“The awards are a tremendous acknowledgement for Matthew’s work on climate advocacy, as well as Jacqueline’s emergence as a leader in landscape architecture,“ said Peter McPherson, head of the School of Architecture.