Our Journey to Adelaide by Hussein Esufally & Arundathi Ekanayake

Regular readers of the Lion magazine will remember that students from Year 12 won both categories of the Film Fly Australia competition this year. Last week we heard about Steshni and Raviya’s trip to Sydney, this week we’ll hear about our other winners, Arundathi and Husein, who spent last week in Adelaide at the University of South Australia.

The week-long programme was flexibly designed to accommodate a project in the department of architecture conducted in the mornings, and sightseeing tours around the city in the afternoons and evenings.

The category of video these students won was titled, “the house of the future”, therefore the project that was assigned to the group was titled “what is Architecture to you?” – and required participants to ponder the dynamics of the topic of design. The task was based on Fujimoto’s “Architecture is everywhere” display in the Chicago Architecture Bennial 2015. Essentially, the winners were to create a model that projected their vision of what Architecture is. The challenge was to manifest this with one type of material, and the models ranged from a building with foam to a futuristic dystopia made of staples. Subsequently, the winners were required to give a short presentation explaining the conceptualization of their projects. Not only was the Senior Lecturer present at this presentation, but the Program Director of Architecture, and the Head of Masters in Architecture also attended. Anybody presenting to such a distinguished panel of judges would be nervous, but Arundathi and Husein took it in their stride and delivered presentations that truly wowed their distinguished audience.

Throughout the tour we were given the opportunity to see the university as a whole and really get an idea of what life would be like to study at an Australian University. Though we spent most of our time at the City West Campus where the architecture program was located, we also got to visit the other campuses, including the Mawson Lakes Campus of Engineering and Aviation where we experienced a flight simulator and saw the world’s longest bike.

Away from the university we undertook a multitude of different activities throughout the week, including a tour of the world famous Adelaide Oval, a trip to the Cleland Wildlife Park where we saw kangaroos and koalas in the flesh, a trip to Glenelg Beach, and a shopping trip through Adelaide Central Markets. For dinners we experienced different cuisines from the vibrant multicultural community that is modern Australia, including Italian, Thai, Vietnamese, Lebanese, and modern Australian (where both crocodile and kangaroo were on the menu).

All in all it was a phenomenal experience. We were struck by the friendly and open-hearted nature of all the Australians we came in contact with, who made us feel welcome at all times and left us longing to return. Year 11s should definitely consider entering this competition next year!