Winning idea at Berkeley's contest for design excellence

16 June 2008

DESIGN EXCELLENCE: Petrina's essay won the second prize at the Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Design Excellence.

A CREATIVE idea to use architecture as a tool to better understand the social problem of ageing in Singapore won final-year Architecture student Petrina Yeap from the School of Design and Environment, a second prize in a prestigious essay writing competition organised by University of California, Berkeley. The Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Design Excellence is open to all architecture undergraduates worldwide. Participants have to submit a proposal for a design competition that would address the most important social issue in their home country.

Petrina chose ageing because unhappy looks on wrinkled faces are a common sight in Singapore - the result of rapid progress and architectural development that have left the ageing population neglected. In her essay titled "Good Vintage - Sustainable Architecture for an Ageing Society", she proposed a design competition open to both design and non-design students. Through gathering refreshing proposals from both perspectives, participants will be able better understand the needs of the ageing population.

This is the third time that Petrina has participated in this competition. She was shortlisted as a finalist in 2006.