Winners emerge for students’ architecture competition

Lagos-based firm of architectural, planning, urban and interior design professionals – Design Genre Consultants has announced winners of its yearly design competition for student studying architecture.The team comprises Odunrombi Bambi and Makinde Emmanuel both MSC level student of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) emerged overall winner with a cash prize of N100, 000.

Team Adeniran Timileyin, Babalola Tolulope and Kunlere Adetunji all 300 level students of the same school came second with a cash prize of seventy thousand naira while the trio of Adejumo Andrew, Soetan Phillips and Oderinde Adeola also 300 level students of OAU who emerged third position carting away cash prize of N50, 000 as prize money.

The grand finale, which held at the OAU’s Architecture Department Ile-Ife, Osun State witnessed the 11 shortlisted groups making presentations on a project brief titled: sustainable design of a mixed use complex in downtown Lagos. The contestants were asked to come up with ingenious building design that will combine both residential, commercial and office structures using sustainable and environment friendly materials among others.

A four–man panel of judges of architects – Goke Omigbodun, Osun state chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Architects, Moses Ajah, Student Affairs chairman, Osun state NIA, Adetokunbo Ilesanmi, Head of Department, Architecture, OAU, and Architect Onabanjo a lecturer from the Department came out with the list of the three winning team.

The Managing Director, Design Genre Consultants, Mr. Anthony Okoye, sponsor of the competition said the main driving force in its sponsorship is the desire to deepen the talent base of students by exposing them to real life architectural projects.

“We believe in deepening their knowledge by allowing these emerging architects the opportunity to gain exposure on real world architectural projects to enrich the quality of education they receive and which will in turn enhance the continuous sustainable improvement of the Architecture profession,” he disclosed.

“We had well over 20 entries. We also observed the progress made by the contestants/ students in their power point and 3D presentations and their sustained interest in the competition this no doubt goes to confirm that our commitment to adding value to the practice of Architecture in Nigeria is yielding positive results, he stated.

On his part, Osun State chairman, Nigeria Institute of Architects, Goke Omigbodun commended the level of improvement in the contestants’ presentations but urged them to do more research to advance and maintain the high ranking the OAU Architecture department is noted for. He also emphasized the need for the student to embrace student membership of the institute as this remains a prerequisite to enjoying a blissful professional career in architecture.

While pledging the company continued support of the competition, the business development manager, Mr. Dayo Oduleye disclosed that the competition, which is the third in the series is a Give-back- to—society initiative.“We hope to also make the competition more interesting next year by including as part of the price – a visit to some interesting architectural sites in Dubai, Europe and South Africa,” he added.