MakMax Australia was proud to co-sponsor the LSAA 2025 Student Design Awards alongside Tensys Engineers. This initiative, led by the Lightweight Structures Association of Australasia (LSAA), aims to inspire the next generation of designers to explore innovative, sustainable solutions in the realm of lightweight structures.
Empowering Future Design Leaders
The LSAA 2025 Student Design Competition invited small teams of tertiary students to develop conceptual designs that embodied the principles of lightweight structures. The competition placed a strong emphasis on sustainability and encouraged responses to pressing social and climate change issues.
The theme for this year, “Connecting to Tomorrow,” challenged participants to reimagine the facades of Melbourne’s ageing public housing towers—transforming them into vibrant, liveable spaces that could foster community connection and environmental resilience.
Participants were provided with a standardised concrete structural skeleton and tasked with designing a new facade that covered three levels and one corner of the structure. The brief encouraged students to move beyond traditional materials like glass, aluminium, and steel, and instead consider innovative, adaptable solutions that could address the demands of future urban living.
Showcasing Innovation at ArchiBuild Expo
The top three shortlisted projects from the LSAA 2025 Student Design Awards were showcased at the ArchiBuild Expo, held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from June 12–14, 2025. This prominent industry event provided an exceptional platform for students to present their innovative facade designs to an audience of architects, engineers, and built environment professionals.
The LSAA extended its gratitude to ArchiBuild Expo for their generous support in hosting the competition showcase. Their involvement offered student teams a valuable opportunity to engage directly with industry stakeholders and gain real-world exposure for their work.
The competition was judged by a respected panel of industry experts. Professor Brendon McNiven, who leads the Architectural Engineering Masters Course at the Melbourne School of Design, brought an academic lens and future-focused perspective to the evaluation process. He was joined by Dr Peter Kneen, a founding member of the MSAA/LSAA and a long-standing innovator in lightweight structures, with a career spanning back to the 1960s.
Together, the jury assessed the entries based on creativity, structural logic, sustainability, and responsiveness to the competition theme, “Connecting to Tomorrow.”
The winners of the 2025 LSAA International Student Design Competition were:
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First Prize: Architecture FormX Lab Team, RMIT University.
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Equal Second Place: Team RX, University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Design.
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Equal Second Place: Team Biscotti, Swinburne University.
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Third Place: Team Bloomline, University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Design.
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High Commendation: The Louverline Tower, University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Design.
MakMax Australia’s Commitment to Design Excellence
At MakMax Australia, we believe in nurturing the talents of emerging designers who will shape the built environment of tomorrow. Our co-sponsorship of the LSAA 2025 Student Design Awards reflects our commitment to innovation, sustainability, and education in the field of lightweight structures. By supporting this competition, we aim to inspire creative solutions that address the challenges of urbanisation and climate change, while promoting the use of efficient, adaptable design strategies.
MakMax Australia congratulates all participating teams for their exceptional work and innovative contributions to the field of lightweight structures.
For more information about the LSAA 2025 Student Design Competition and to view the winning entries, please visit the LSAA website.
Note: Registrations for the competition closed on April 22, 2025, and submissions were due by May 31, 2025.