Australian Design and Architecture students have made their mark in this year’s Cosentino Design Challenge, a competition for design, architecture and interior architecture students from across Europe, America and Australia.

Matthew Sikora, a student at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) was named one of four winners in the Architecture category, with the announcement being made by The Cosentino Group during the 7^th International Cosentino Design Challenge this month in Almeria, Spain.

The winners of the Architecture competition were tasked with designing an outdoor kitchen from an innovative conceptual approach using Cosentino materials. Sikora’s work, ‘the Reinvention of the Barbeque Bench’, won one of the top architecture prizes.

“This is the first year UTS has been a partner school for the Cosentino Design Challenge, and to have a student take out one of the top architecture category is a fantastic result and something the university, and Cosentino Australia is incredibly proud of,” says Country Manager for Cosentino Australia Gary Isherwood.

In addition to Sikora, two other projects from UTS – F.A.K by Benjamin Belson, Nuttaporn Pornvarojanabun and Simon Shien, and P.I.V.O.T by Luke Fernandes, Altaf Khan and Jonathan Tolentinowere – were among the 20 shortlisted projects in the Architecture category.

In the design category, students had to present an idea for "Cosentino and the office", delivering a proposal completely open to interpretation and featuring Cosentino materials. Shortlisted among the top 20 works in this category was UTS Integrated Product Design student, Nicholas Sadowsky, for his work 'Winged Stool’

"Having one winner and three finalists from UTS, out of 285 international entries is an outstanding result,” says William Feuerman, a senior lecturer at UTS School of Architecture and Cosentino Design Challenge juror.

A total of twelve design institutions, schools and international universities participated in the 2013 Cosentino Design Challenge, which aims to foster young talents and promote research into the different conceptual approaches to the layout of spaces, materials and the construction systems that define them.

Image: Matthew Sikora

Geraldine Chua

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