Explore, imagine and create cities, cultures and communities
UWA’s School of Design is a collaboration of creative thinkers and makers that includes landscape architects, urban designers, experimental artists, historians and architects. We inspire our students and graduates to be boundary-breakers, navigating knowledge, cultures, habitats and landscapes to the benefit of our communities and environments.
Our School is future-focused and comprehensively prepares graduates for a successful entry into their chosen career of design.
From a unique place, we imagine cities, cultures and communities.
Explore, experiment and create with us.
Welcome from Dean and Head of School Sarah McGann
Disciplines and Courses
We deliver courses and research in the following areas
Architecture
Fine Arts
Landscape Architecture
Urban Design
History of Art
Building Information Modelling
Research
LAWN Project
The LAWN Project explores sustainable solutions for lawns in Perth in times of drying climate.
Bio-based Materials Design Lab
The BBMLab is a multicultural and interdisciplinary community that conducts cutting-edge research, develops solutions and fosters innovation
Visualising Batavia Silverware
Imaging and analysing VOC's previous metal trade objects for Mughal India
News
Ava Minji Kim named as a member of Australian Design Review‘s 30UNDER30 for 2025/2026
Ava Minji Kim named as a member of Australian Design Review‘s 30UNDER30 for 2025/2026
Ava Minji Kim named as a member of Australian Design Review‘s 30UNDER30 for 2025/2026
UWA School of Design architecture alumna Ava Minji Kim has been named as a member of Australian Design Review‘s 30UNDER30 for 2025/2026. Currently based in Adelaide as an architect at Grieve Gillett Architects , Ava’s work moves between built practice and urban research projects.
Ava was recently interviewed by Yvonne Wang for Australian Design Review where she highlighted her Independent Research project ‘Sharing City’, undertaken as part of the Master of Architecture at the School of Design and supervised by Lara Camilla Pinho, as one of the highlights of her career alongside work on St Aloysius College with Grieve Gillett Architects and contributing to the Aesop Pitt Street store with Snøhetta.
‘Alongside practice, my ‘Sharing City’ research project allowed me to explore how design and technology can support more collective and sustainable ways of living. It speculated on an all-in-one digital platform designed to build communities at different scales and provide a spectrum of sharing for underused resources – from everyday household items like vacuums to larger assets such as unused backyards – shifting the paradigm from ownership to access.’ - Ava Kim, 2026
Read the full interview here
Harvey Rupp awarded First Prize in the UIA International Student Competition
Harvey Rupp awarded First Prize in the UIA International Student Competition
Harvey Rupp awarded First Prize in the UIA International Student Competition
Congratulations to UWA Master of Architecture Graduate Harvey Rupp on winning First Prize in the UIA International Student Competition themed Catalysts of Resilience. Additional congratulations go out to Master of Architecture students Havva Nur Kurt and Sarah Larsen on being selected as finalists.
All three projects were undertaken as part of the 2025 UWA Master of Architecture studio ‘Invasive Wetlands’ coordinated by Lara Camilla Pinho.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Launched in July 2025, the call received over 587 submissions from students of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and urban planning from around the world, each engaging with the Congress theme Becoming. Architectures for a Planet in Transition.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The proposals were evaluated by an international jury, including alternate jurors, composed of Tatiana Bilbao, Josep Ferrando, Marianna Rentzou (Point Supreme), Wtanya Chanvitan (Bangkok Tokyo Architecture), Sumayya Vally (Counterspace), Donn Holohan (Superposition) and Alejandro Vargas (Entropia Studio) alongside the curatorial team and an observer appointed by the UIA.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
On the winning proposal the International Student Competition Jury commented:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
‘…Rather than asserting architectural dominance, the project adopts a restrained spatial approach that foregrounds the landscape and positions non-human entities—water, climate, materials, and ecological processes—as active agents in the design. This “more-than-human” stance is articulated across multiple scales, from infrastructural diagnosis to territorial and seasonal transformation, allowing architecture to operate as a mediator rather than a fixed object.’
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
All three proposals will be part of an exhibition during the Congress.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
For more details about all awarded and selected contributions visit:
https://uia2026bcn.org/international-student-competition/
Designing for Impact: UWA Lecturer Jennie Officer Receives Prestigious WA President's Prize
Designing for Impact: UWA Lecturer Jennie Officer Receives Prestigious WA President's Prize
UWA School of Design Senior Lecturer in Architecture Jennie Officer has been awarded The Australian Institute of Architects’ Western Australia chapter’s highest honour, the 2025 WA President’s Prize, alongside co-director of Officer Woods Trent Woods.
The award was presented by chapter president Ross Donaldson to architectural practice Officer Woods, ‘for their unwavering commitment to addressing the most prescient challenges: climate change; housing delivery and its affordability; equity and inclusion, and, in particular, First Nations inclusion.’
‘Their practice has shown leadership across all these frontiers and this leadership has been recognised nationally,’ a media communique notes.
Officer Woods has been awarded more than 30 awards and prizes for their projects, including the East Pilbara Arts Centre, Spinifex Hill Project Space, and Boola Katitjin at Murdoch University with Lyons et al. The release noted that co-director Jennie Officer’s research at the University of Western Australia had been evidenced in the firm’s innovative design for the NSW Housing Pattern Book, and that the firm was a leader in energy-efficient structures and decarbonisation, with co-director Trent Woods currently chairing the chapter’s Sustainability Committee.
‘They have been fearless and relentless in their engagement with ethical integrity and they have confidently shown the best the profession has to offer to the communities we serve,’ the communique notes.
Congratulations Officer Woods!
SMAR's Science Island Museum Wins COAM 2025 First Prize and Global Nominations
SMAR's Science Island Museum Wins COAM 2025 First Prize and Global Nominations
Congratulations to Associate Professor in Architecture Fernando Jerez, Belen Perez de Juan Gonzalez and the team at SMAR who were awarded First Prize COAM 2025 by the Institute of Architects Madrid, which recognised the best building finished between 2023 and 2025, for their Science Island Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania which opened in December 2024. The award celebrates buildings by Madrid-registered architects that advance architectural culture in Spain and abroad.
Additionally, the project has also been nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Awards 2026. Winners will be announced in 2026!
Science Island Museum has already gathered several other awards including Baltics Awards Best Urban Regeneration Project 2025; Lithuania National Architecture Awards Finalist Socio-Cultural Architecture 2025; and Kaunas Institute of Architects Best Building of 2025.
Congratulations SMAR!
How studying abroad helped Louis gain a global perspective in Architecture
How studying abroad helped Louis gain a global perspective in Architecture
At our School of Design, our students have plenty of amazing opportunities to travel overseas as part of their course. We spoke to Louis, a Bachelor of Environmental Design graduate and current Master of Architecture student who recently returned from his exchange trip to Milan to hear all about his experience!
How Lyndsay is bringing her passion for Architecture back home to Albany
How Lyndsay is bringing her passion for Architecture back home to Albany
Hear from Lyndsay, UWA Bachelor of Environmental Design and Master of Architecture graduate, about her experience studying at the School of Design and her life as a graduate architect.
Events and community engagement
Art History and Curatorial Studies Launch
Lawrence Wilson Art Galley
22 October, 6-8pm
Join us for an evening celebrating the launch of the Bachelor of Art History and Curatorial Studies course, featuring an alumni panel, exhibition tours and the UWA Art Writing Prize.
FAM+26
Fine Arts and Electronic Music and Sound Design Graduate Exhibition
ALVA Building, UWA School of Design
Opening Wednesday 28 October, 6 pm until 5 November
Explore a creative showcase of work from Electronic Music and Sound Design (EMSD) and Fine Art students, featuring sound installations, sculptures, games, textile and more.
Summer Exhibition 2026
UWA School of Design
Opening Wednesday, 11 November at 6 pm until 29 January 2027 (excluding UWA Christmas closure)
UWA School of Design Catalogues
.png?h=269&w=369&hash=6324B53CF55A6EBCE0012445B97DD2D5)
Our alumni
Emilia Galatis
Curator, writer, consultant and facilitator
Emilia Galatis
Curator, writer, consultant and facilitator
Bachelor of Arts (Honours)
As a Fine Arts (Honours) graduate, Emilia has worked freelance for over 10 years across urban and remote areas seeking to strengthen and support community-led commercial artistic practice for artists and their arts organisations. She has delivered projects and major exhibitions for Indigenous-owned art centres and national institutions and held roles as creative director of Revealed for Fremantle Arts Centre in 2016 and 2017; co-curator and community liaison for Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley for the Art Gallery of Western Australia; and arts and business manager of Warakurna Artists the remote Ngaanyatjarra lands. Her current clients include AGWA, AACHWA and Martumili Artists.As a current Churchill fellow, she has been developing international business opportunities and advocating for Indigenous contemporary arts inclusion in broader contemporary dialogues.
Looking back on her studies at UWA, Emilia says she had no idea how her life was going to pan out at the time.
“I was able to choose electives that enriched my intellectual capacity and extend my critical thinking. After getting to third year psychology, I decided that I didn’t want to be a psychologist. I did extra units to finish my degree with two different majors in Archaeology and Fine Arts theory. I then completed an honours dissertation in Fine Arts. After psychology and my deep interest in human behaviour, these two majors, on reflection, are oddly in line with that interest. I enjoyed the study of the output of humanity rather than the flesh itself. Darren Jorgensen and Clarissa Ball at Fine Arts and Jane Balme and Alistair Patterson at Archaeology were formative in my future career pathways and knowledge.”
Photograph by Casey Ayres
Abel Feleke
Norman Foster Foundation Scholar
Abel Feleke
Norman Foster Foundation Scholar, Madrid
Bachelor of Environmental Design and Master of Architecture
Abel is an Ethiopian-Australian designer working across architecture and urbanism with a strong interest in city futures. In investigating innovation through design he has taught and worked alongside communities across the globe. The sole recipient of the 10th Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Norman Foster Travelling Award, he is a Norman Foster Foundation Scholar and contributing writer to ArchitectureAU. He has worked in the international studios of Kengo Kuma & Associates (Tokyo), Foster + Partners (London) and the Norman Foster Foundation (Madrid), collaborated alongside the Australian Urban Design Research Centre (Perth), and taught at the UWA School of Design.“The part of the course that I enjoyed the most was getting to form a close network of friends and mentors. Being able to learn in the classroom is important, but what I found of great value was the opportunity to come across a lot of curious minds with differing perspectives. It's really this access to a wealth of experience coupled with the opportunity to debate opinions that I found most beneficial to my personal growth.”
Christina Chau
University lecturer
Christina Chau
University lecturer, Perth
PhD (History of Art and Communication Studies)
Since completing her PhD, Christina has been working as a lecturer, first at UWA and now at Curtin University. She has published a book titled Movement, Time, Technology and Art and presented on ABC TV about contemporary art in Australia. Christina has also published academic articles on kinetic sculpture, contemporary art theory, post-internet aesthetics, robots, contemporaneity, Henri Bergson, and Gilles Deleuze.“What sticks with me the most are memories of the conversations that emerged during and after the tutorials. Through talking about the readings in the tutorials, I learned a lot about how to be a decent human being, but also how to engage with ideas that I found uncomfortable or challenging. I learned how to think, what to think about, and how to think through problems. I also learned how to have conversations with people that thought differently to me, without having a fight about it,” she says.
“I love that my career requires me to commit a lot of deep thinking time to my areas of expertise. I also love that academia is a lot more collaborative and social than I first thought. Being able to talk through ideas, theory, and ethics with colleagues and students is immensely nourishing.”
Photograph by Bo Wong
Jenny Watson
Associate at ARM Architecture
Jenny Watson
Associate at ARM Architecture, Melbourne
Bachelor of Environmental Design and Master of Architecture
Jenny is now a Melbourne-based Associate at ARM Architecture. She has worked on a wide range of large projects all over Australia including RAC Arena, Elizabeth Quay, Melbourne’s Southbank Theatre and, currently, the Gold Coast’s HOTA Gallery and Geelong Arts Centre. She has a keen interest in computer-aided 3D design, and is skilled at virtual 3D modelling for designing buildings and for communicating them to clients and the public.The things she enjoyed most about studying at UWA were “The complex, varied, often contradictory passions of each of the staff, which showed me how many different ways there are to approach architecture and be an architect. Also, of course, the lifelong friends I made during long hours in the studio, the computer lab and the library.”
Joe Bean
Co-founder of ‘Brave and Curious’
Joe Bean
Co-founder of ‘Brave and Curious’, WA
Bachelor of Design and Master of Architecture
Throughout his studies, Joe became increasingly interested in how design relates to ecological and social contexts and finished his master’s by travelling to the Philippines to intern with Habitat for Humanity Asia-Pacific and writing a dissertation on climate-induced displacement.After graduating he worked for residential architecture practice David Weir Architects, then lived in remote north-western Zambia for a few months working with Orkidstudio (now Build X and BuildHer), working on design and project managing construction of doctors’ and nurses’ housing. There he learnt a lot about the potential of a construction process to promote change, equality and wellbeing in a community, as well as the opportunities, constraints and nuances in getting humanitarian projects off the ground.
He’s now relocated to the south west and runs a small business called ‘Brave and Curious’ with his friend and mentor Greg Grabasch, working across urban design, landscape architecture and architecture.
“My UWA degree provided me with a broad set of skills which I have been able to apply to a wide range of projects. I have worked across a huge range of scales already – from large trail mapping projects through to detailing bathrooms. I am grateful that by offering a wide range of electives, my course facilitated this jack of all trades (master of none at this stage!) approach. The course also encouraged me to form a world view and design approach that I have been able to test and bounce off collaborators, clients and the local seals, with positive results so far.”
Sara Padgett Kjaersgaard
Landscape architect and lecturer
Sara Padgett Kjaersgaard
Landscape architect and lecturer, Sydney
Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (Hons)
Sara is a Registered Landscape Architect (AILA), PhD candidate (UWA) and Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at UNSW. She was awarded the Jeppe Aagaard Andersen scholarship to travel in Denmark in 2006, where she worked on projects including the London Olympics and the Aalborg Music Hall. She has held several leadership positions with the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) and has recently been a juror (2019) and co-host (2020) of Channel 10’s Australia By Design – Landscape Series alongside Jamie Durie.“I knew Landscape Architecture was the right degree for me – it’s the perfect balance between the arts (design), science (natural systems) and human culture (geography/anthropology). Landscape Architecture is a diverse and growing profession which is gaining increased profile within Australia and abroad. The profession is well equipped to deal with some of the biggest challenges this century including climate change, rapid urbanisation, preventative health measures, access to open space, species diversity as well as political activism.”
Connect with the School of Design
Contact the School of Design
Access
Weekdays 9am to 5pm