BE Design Competitions is one of four streams of the Built Environment Interdisciplinary Learning (BEIL) initiative offered by the Faculty of Built Environment.

Opportunities for BE students to participate in design competitions and bids materialise throughout the year. Students will work on complex ‘real life’ projects in interdisciplinary teams with leading design professionals, industry and community partners. These courses will enhance skills needed in professional practice, offering an opportunity for students to learn from and interact with industry and community partners, and to showcase their work via exhibitions. The project or focus at the centre of these courses will vary each time it is run and may be taught by different undergraduate programs. The course will be taught in a studio style format, encouraging collaborative group work and group learning.

For Semester 1 2015, the studio task is a real life design challenge currently being investigated by Telstra Corporation, who will introduce the project from their perspective and provide valuable industry feedback to the final presentations. This design studio asks teams to re-imagine the public phone/Payphone. By dropping all assumptions about what a Payphone is or has been, students will postulate on a new kind of public infrastructure that can deliver a myriad of services and content in inspiring, efficient and sustainable ways.