By CASEY NEILL
A CRANBOURNE North student has designed herself a bright career.
Phalhong Mao last week won the Best Response to a Design Brief award at the Building Designers Association of Victoria (BDAV) Building Design Awards.
TAFEs delivering the Advanced Diploma of Building Design (Architectural) nominated one outstanding student from each class to present a detailed project submission to a BDAV judging panel.
“I did actually feel really excited and surprised to win this award,” Phalhong said.
“I never expected that I could attend a competition like this.
“This is because of my background as an international student from Cambodia.
“I remember when I first arrived here about two and half years ago I was struggling to adapt with everything like geography, weather, culture, and the education itself.
“The language – the technical terminologies – used and the study environment are very different to my country.”
But she successfully designed additions to a commercial building in Smith Street, Collingwood.
Phalhong had to work with strict requirements and complex restrictions and her pitch won her the award.
She’s just started her second semester of her second year of a Bachelor of Architectural Design at RMIT.
She used the RMIT TAFE Advanced Diploma of Building Design (Architectural) course as a pathway to the degree.
In the next five years Phalhong will study and work towards sitting exams to become a fully registered architect.
“Design is everything and I have always enjoyed doing it since I was young,” she said.
“I’ve tended to dream about designing my own dream house throughout the years that I have grown up.
“I think, I feel and I engage to every moment within every space in my imagination.
“Therefore, users’ experiences of a space within a building are always the heart of my design.”
Phalhong has also started to incorporate environmental sustainable design (ESD) into her building designs to minimise energy usage and costs during the building’s lifespan.
“Because I am from one of a developing country in Southeast Asia, I’ve actually always wanted to help design shelters inclusive of ESD design aspects for the homeless people, or the people who value this concept back home in my country,” she said.
