Marcus White emerges

University of Melbourne lecturer Dr Marcus White has been named the inaugural National Emerging Architect of the Year at the Australian Achievement in Architecture Awards ceremony, run by the AIA.

“I am extremely grateful to receive this award, particularly at such an important event for the industry. It is also a tremendous honour to receive the award alongside such illustrious company as Dr Graeme Gunn,” he said. Dr Gunn won the 2011 Gold Medal for Architecture.

“It is a pretty tough climate for young architects today. If we think back to 1950s to projects like the Melbourne Olympic Swimming – a major public building – it was designed by McIntyre and Borland when they were about 25 years old. These kinds of opportunities don’t really exist much today.”

The jury identified Marcus’ demonstration of equal excellence in practice, research and education as a “point of difference”.

Dr White said working in education strongly informed his efforts in practice, and vice versa. “You learn quite a bit by teaching as well, and what you learn there feeds back into the work I do in practice and vice versa; what I do in practice informs how I teach. The same also goes for research.”

[edited from a University of Melbourne press release]

Harrison and White

Posted by Peter on 25.03.11 in architects and awards