Design for Development MA: Student achievements

Celebrating our students

Find out more about our students achievements whilst on the course.

RSA Design Directions 2009/10 competition winner: Liani Van Der Westhuizen

Liani 2009/10 MA Design for Development student has won the The Resourceful Architect RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) Design Directions competition. She challenged the role of the professional as sole creator by involving children and young people on the Cambridge Road estate in Kingston upon Thames, London (where residents experience poorer health than in more affluent areas of the borough) in developing their environment. Her project provided them with a platform to respond to life on their estate at a workshop, through visual responses and reflection, which led to ideas on how to improve their present reality and spaces, co-creating and transforming their aspirations for an improved environment into proposals for change.

Bright Ideas 2010 competition

Natalie Smith and Albert Mallari were one of four winners of the sixth WestFocus Bright Ideas competition which attracted more entries than ever before. Students from across the WestFocus consortium (six universities in the South East) submitted 175 entries. Some students entered in teams, bringing the total number involved to 275 students.

Natalie and Albert's 'idea' was a social enterprise responding to the increasingly important need to supplement London's consumption patterns with fruit and vegetables that are produced locally. A key component of their enterprise was utilising the vertical spaces in the city.

Student entries were varied in origin and style, including social enterprises, enterprise projects, and products and services with commercial targets. Online software solutions were popular; other examples included a vital aid for health care providers in the prevention of deep vein thrombosis and a social enterprise responds to Natalie and Albert's social innovation response.

The final event took place at the historic Regent's campus of the University of Westminster.