The UTS School of Architecture has announced the three winning proposals in its design research competition, Open Agenda – a competition created in recognition of the need for alternative discourses in Australian architecture.

The three winning projects are The Architecture Drawing Project, by Bryon Kinnaird and Barnaby Bennett from Victoria University Wellington – a project exploring the different modes of architectural drawing; (in)human habitat, by James Gardiner, RMIT (SIAL) PhD candidate – a proposal that looks at using the built environment to preserve ecological habitats; and CityBreeder, by David Pigram and Iain Maxwell, Canberra University and GSAPP Columbia/AA London graduates – a propsal that reshapes the urban design model as an open-source, real-time interactive platform capable of adaptive growth.

An honourable mention was given to The Linear Monument: a search for urban futures, by Ben Milbourne and Edmund Carter, University of Sydney and RMIT.

The three winning proposals will each receive $2000 from the UTS School of Architecture to develop their proposals into an exhibition, publication and lecture format. The exhibition will be on show at Customs House in Sydney, opening in mid-October as part of Architecture Week.

Anthony Burke, Chair of the competition, said they had received an “exceptional” range of proposals. He added that the exhibition and publication would enable a “positive creative tension” in the industry.

“Truly experimental and risk taking work has been pushed underground by a dominant pragmatic conservatism in the Australian profession, which has held innovation back. Clearly our talent and capacity for experimental work in Australia is an untapped reservoir of Architectural knowledge that has much to offer the discipline and broader conversations on the built environment,” he explained.

The competition, which launched this year, is aimed at supporting the development of a new generation of experimental designers in Australian architecture. It challenges recent graduates to explore the possibilities and potential of speculative design and research in architecture and the built environment. The competition will be run annually, with entries for the 2011 competition opening in January 2011.

For more information on the winners and the competition, visit utsarchitecture.net/openagenda