Dezeen School Shows: a proposal for a creative community centre in Canterbury, Australia, is among the projects from Monash University.

Also featured is a feminist critique of architecture and a proposal for a new housing system in Melbourne.

Monash University

Institution: Monash University
School: Architecture
Courses: Bachelor of Architectural Design and Master of Architecture
Tutors: Tom Morgan and Laura Harper

School statement:

"Architecture at Monash focuses on the bigger picture. We see architecture, urban design and urban planning as an integrated whole.

"We understand buildings within their larger urban or regional environment and consider cities in the context of a changing planet.

"Architects imagine the new environments of the future. In shaping where we live, work and play, our graduates contribute to the common good of society and a sustainable and equitable world.

"Great design is the key to outstanding architecture. However, architecture goes beyond just buildings to contribute to other industries and other kinds of spatial thinking.

"At Monash, we understand the unique contribution an architectural thinker can bring to industries and disciplines beyond the built environment."

Wood Marsh Architecture Prize, Annabelle Shaw

"Creating Comfort is situated in the low-density suburb of Canterbury, with a desperate need for more housing to meet Council and Victorian requirements for housing density.

"The design focuses on the need for not only on social housing in today's housing crisis but for its residents to feel comfortable and have agency over their homes.

"The design integrates a modular steel frame system around the exterior, allowing for ideal balcony space to occupy and the comfort for residents to personalise and make the space their own.

"Courtyards and shared community spaces such as gardens, space for children to play and a central library and cafe adapted from an existing church encourage accidental social interaction.

"These design strategies aim to help de-stigmatise social housing within Melbourne and the broader Australian context and build strong communities amongst residents."

Student: Annabelle Shaw
Award: Wood Marsh Architecture Prize
Course: Bachelor of Architectural Design
Tutors: Jack Lee, Tom Morgan, Charity Edwards and Tina Atic
Email: shawannabelle2[at]gmail.com

The Peter Elliott Architecture and Urban Design prize: most accomplished drawings of architecture, from traditional through to new frontiers, Chloe-Gabrielle Fuller

"The abuses of those with money have us convinced that it is solely they who should control the execution of architecture.

"All educational praxis, all creative impulse must be reigned in by the myopic and breakneck tempo of the holy 'final outcome' at the expense of all else.

"This seems like a synecdoche of what is happening with the rapid integration of AI into image reproduction.

"In this historic juncture, it isn't difficult to sense a need to assert new ideas and strategies to help us stop navel-gazing our way to extinction.

"My work is simultaneously a critique of our relationship with technology and a transcription of my student life; when pressured for productivity, I gave process; when demanded coherence, I gave contradiction.

"Every line is a refusal, every form defined through struggle. Against resolution, my only ambition for this 'final' drawing is to keep its potential alive."

Student: Chloe-Gabrielle Fuller
Award: The Peter Elliott Architecture and Urban Design Prize
Course: Master of Architecture
Tutors: Jacqui Alexander and Laura Harper
Email: chloegabriel95[at]gmail.com

Architects' Registration Board of Victoria – Professional Practice Award, Chelsea Kate Fisher

"Australia's housing shortage, shaped by years of insufficient construction and restrictive planning, is something I feel the effects of in my 20s.

"This has fuelled my fascination with community-focused design, a theme I explored through Intersect House.

"Intersect House is a multi-dwelling project in Preston that transforms a 1920s single-family weatherboard home into housing for four households.

"The goal was to increase density without eroding neighbourhood character or affordability. I focused on creating spaces that balance connection and privacy, giving residents the freedom to choose between interaction and seclusion.

"I critically assessed the existing house, refurbishing areas that improved functionality while avoiding unnecessary costs.

"In adapting the structure, I sought to highlight, rather than conceal, the thresholds where old meets new. The new architecture nestles around the original building, using materials that reinterpret the textures and tones of its surrounding context."

Student: Chelsea Kate Fisher
Award: Architects' Registration Board of Victoria – Professional Practice Award
Course: Master of Architecture
Tutor: Jean-Paul Rollo
Email: chelsea.k.fisher[at]hotmail.com

Hayball Award for the Top Graduating Student in the Master of Architecture, Raquel Trapler

"This project is an embodied and feminist critique of architecture that merges performance, image making and speculative storytelling to question how bodies are controlled, erased and reimagined within spatial systems.

"Through experimental fieldwork and the use of apparatuses, I use my own body as a site of resistance and inquiry, unsettling architectural traditions shaped by patriarchal, colonial and capitalist logics.

"Through building a community of practice, I have learnt how diverse creative methods across performance, installation, film and spatial experimentation can operate as critical tools to provoke, reveal and imagine otherwise.

"These collective lessons demonstrate how architecture is not fixed or purely functional, but performative, affective and always in relation to the body.

"By working through gestures of slowness, repetition and discomfort, I seek to expose hidden infrastructures of waste, consumption and control, transforming them into spaces of care, critique and new possibility."

Student: Raquel Trapler
Award: Hayball Award for the Top Graduating Student in the Master of Architecture
Course: Master of Architecture
Tutors: Jacqui Alexander and Laura Harper
Email: raqueltrapler[at]gmail.com

María Fullaondo Memorial Prize in Bachelor of Architectural Design and Communications, Pham Nhat Truong Danh

"This composition explores weaving as both structure and movement. The central exploded drawing expands in four directions, anchored by a single figure knitting at the core.

"Threads spiral outward like a growing yarn ball, guiding circulation across the page. These strands now weave into the title itself, turning the text into a dotted knitted pattern.

"Around the centre, the plan, elevation, section and isometric orbit like particles, reinforcing rhythm and motion.

"Figures contribute to this movement: children throw a ball that loops through the layout, and a small monkey weaves through open space.

"Knitting sticks emphasise the idea of a yarn being formed. Each drawing is linked through one continuous woven gesture."

Student: Pham Nhat Truong Danh
Award: María Fullaondo Memorial Prize in Bachelor of Architectural Design and Communications
Course: Bachelor of Architectural Design
Tutors: Aqil Arif, Dani Tinios and Jhana Pfeiffer-Hunt
Email: tonypham.contacts[at]gmail.com

Monash Architecture Award – Masters of Architecture, Louis Magree

"Melbourne's housing affordability crisis is not simply a policy failure but a structurally embedded system that prioritises property speculation over equitable access to shelter.

"Designing solutions requires confronting a landscape shaped by colonial land accumulation, suburban individualism, and economic frameworks that valorise private wealth over collective wellbeing.

"Within this context, the homogeneity of Melbourne's housing stock – predominantly detached homes on large lots – has intensified spatial and economic exclusivity.

"Northcote, the project's case study, exemplifies this condition, having seen some of the sharpest rises in unaffordability in Inner Melbourne.

"In response, 'Anabolic Urbanism' proposes a replicable strategy for initiating Community Land Trusts (CLTs) in exclusive suburbs like Northcote by adapting underutilised backyard and laneway spaces.

"These peripheral sites become entry points for structural transformation through an 'enabling phase' where small-scale dwellings seed a growing CLT.

"A novel policy system paired with a pattern book of affordable, flexible ADUs provides architectural and regulatory tools for systemic change."

Student: Louis Magree
Award: Monash Architecture Award – Masters of Architecture
Course: Master of Architecture
Tutors: Jacqui Alexander and Laura Harper
Email: magree11[at]gmail.com

Positions and Dialogue Award, Bachelor of Architectural Design, Abigail Julia Ramanathan

"This project envisions a holistic revitalisation of the existing Veg Out Community Gardens located in St Kilda.

"The proposal focuses on improving accessibility and permeability across the site and its surrounding streets (Spenser St and Chaucer St), while introducing new community infrastructure to encourage year-round engagement and activity.

"Currently, the existing artist studios and veg plots are rented out to users, as such the proposed community hall and cafe are designed to seamlessly integrate with these current functions.

"The hall provides a flexible venue for workshops, art and design-based events, neighbourhood meetings and educational programmes, reinforcing Veg Out's cultural identity.

"The cafe offers a casual, garden-oriented space that supports daily activities, encourages longer site engagement and strengthens the garden's connection with the neighbouring housing flats and residents.

"Both are designed to blend with the surrounding landscape and existing architectural style, with strong visual connections to the veg plots."

Student: Abigail Julia Ramanathan
Award: Positions and Dialogue Award, Bachelor of Architectural Design
Course: Bachelor of Architectural Design
Tutors: Charity Edwards, Jacqui Alexander and Alex Brown
Email: abigailramanathan23[at]gmail.com

Student Engagement Prize, Shantel Gilmore

"Architecture is examined as a tool for supporting psychological recovery and social reintegration for individuals with schizophrenia re-entering society after psychiatric institutionalisation: a practice historically rooted in control, confinement and correction, often at the expense of autonomy, choice and dignity.

"The project seeks to re-articulate architectural practice to prioritise empathy, agency and relational recovery, particularly when designing for those navigating trauma and cognitive difference.

"Through design tests, a transitional, mixed-use housing facility is developed that provides short-term, specialised support for people living with schizophrenia.

"The research investigates socially responsive urbanism to discover how architecture can operate as both a building and a care system.

"It proposes models of therapeutic healthcare environments through material, programmatic and emotional legibility."

Student: Shantel Gilmore
Award: Student Engagement Prize
Course: Master of Architecture
Tutors: Jacqui Alexander and Laura Harper
Email: shantel.gilmoree[at]gmail.com

Overall Best in Studio, Bachelor of Architectural Design, Lewis Howarth

"The proposed creative micro-community based in Canterbury re-imagines the evolved functions of the existing buildings as a network of shared spaces and a place for community gathering.

"Existing shared 'holy grounds' of green grass, areas to sit and walk have been separated as its own programme, pushing the circulation underground.

"The acoustic properties, size and function of the churches have been fleshed out into a multi-functioning space that can serve the community, other than just for spiritual practices.

"Rather than treating the site as a singular monument, the site is connected by a network of embedded tunnels, where movement is directed by light.

"The underground circulation invites its occupants to engage with its manipulation of light to create moments of connection with the 'divine'."

Student: Lewis Howarth
Award: Overall Best in Studio, Bachelor of Architectural Design
Course: Bachelor of Architectural Design
Tutors: Tom Morgan, Charity Edwards and Tina Atic
Email: lewishowarth2510[at]gmail.com

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Monash University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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