Architectural Technology student receives award from HRH The Prince of Wales

A student in Architectural Technology at CPUT, Marla Bekondo Plunkett, was recently awarded a study grant for an architectural drawing that he submitted for the Georgian Group Architectural Drawing Prize 2008.

The awards were presented by HRH The Prince of Wales at a ceremony at the Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly, United Kingdom on 26 November 2008.

The competition is organised annually by the Georgian Group, a London-based British charity founded in 1937 to preserve Georgian buildings, monuments and landscapes.

The 2008 event was held conjunction with The Prince’s Drawing School and the Traditional Architecture Group of the Royal Institute of British Architects, to celebrate the Georgian Group’s patron HRH The Prince of Wales’ sixtieth birthday. Competition entries were exhibited at Fitzroy Square in London during the week leading up to the Prince’s birthday.

Hailing from Cameroon, Plunkett was encouraged to enter the competition by his History of Architecture lecturer John Samuels, who noticed Plunkett’s talent during coursework practicals.

Plunkett’s submission, the only entry from CPUT, was submitted for the competition in September 2008 and was amongst ten finalists to be shortlisted and subsequently to receive the title of ‘commended entry’.

Overall, out of over 240 entries received, Plunkett was the only international student architect to be placed fifth in the amateur measured drawing category.

The entrants, being professionals and students alike, had to sketch the exterior or interior of an existing Georgian building.

For the purposes of the competition, the term ‘Georgian building’ referred to architectural structures that were completed in the period 1660 to 1840.

The building chosen as the subject of Plunkett’s series of drawings was an old municipal building in Tokai, one of Cape Town’s Southern Suburbs.

According to the Georgian Group, the aim of the architectural drawing competition is to promote and reward excellence in technical drawing and to encourage a close study and understanding of Georgian buildings.

The competition was open to British subjects and to all citizens of the British Commonwealth, British Overseas Territories, Crown Dependencies and the USA under 40 years of age.

The Architectural Technology course offered at CPUT aims to equip students with independent technological innovations, researching skills and the capability to perform professional architectural services in technology, design and management in the public and private sectors of the built environment.

To learn more about the Architectural Technology course at CPUT, contact the Faculty of Informatics and design at +27 +21 460 3136.

By: Thando J. Moiloa, Department of Marketing and Communication

Photographs: Architectural Technology student Marla Bekondo Plunkett; HRH The Prince of Wales examines one of the competition entries.

Written by CPUT News
Email: news@cput.ac.za