Students For Change

The Westminister Design Competition (South Asia) Results Indicate A Promising Future For Design.

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While most academia-based design competitions focus on futuristic conceptual solutions, the Westminster Design Competition (South Asia) takes a different direction with a vision to give under-appreciated urban zones a new lease of life. Part of the wider Latitudes Network at the University of Westminster in London, UK, the competition was inspired by the Clean India Mission (although not directly affiliated to it). Darshana Gothi Chauhan, founder of the competition at the University of Westminster, explains, “The intention of the competition has always been to inspire and bring together the creative energy of students and local communities to work towards a common vision, use design as a catalyst of change and scale up the impact of small but effective local transformations to make a massive difference at a regional level.”

The competition invited students from 87 architecture colleges in South Asia to transform their neighbourhood and be instigators for change – as the logo states, “…competition strictly for doers, creators, change makers; initiate ideas, change will follow.” The result was the transformation of 100 disused public spaces – across 42 cities and towns – by over 1,500 local undergraduate architecture students. The public spaces brought back into active use through the design and build solutions, mostly through clever use of recycled materials, stretched across 3,000km from Quetta (Pakistan) to Madurai and Jaipur to Visakhapatnam.