RMIT student wins Best in Category at Victorian Premier’s Design Awards

RMIT student wins Best in Category at Victorian Premier’s Design Awards

A sustainable furniture system using digital fabrication techniques and repurposed furniture waste has won Best in Category for Student Design at the Victorian Premier’s Design Awards alongside over twenty RMIT-affiliated projects recognised at this year’s awards.

T.R.I.A.L furniture system by Wenya Zhang. T.R.I.A.L furniture system by Wenyu Zhang.

Designed by RMIT Interior Design student, Wenyu Zhang, T.R.I.A.L. (Test, Reuse, Innovative, Assemblage, Lifecycle) is an adaptable and sustainable furniture system designed for students, renters and mobile populations who frequently need to relocate, while addressing the environmental and financial challenges of fast furniture culture.  

Zhang, who is graduating from a Master of Interior Design this year, took home the Best in Category for Student Design across all disciplines. 

Zhang said, “T.R.I.A.L. aims to create a lasting impact across environmental, social, educational and economical dimensions and explores how old furniture can be creatively disassembled, interpreted, and reassembled into new and meaningful pieces.” 

Blending emotional functionality and cultural storytelling

Christina Suntovski, a Bachelor of Fashion (Design) (Honours) graduate (2023), was Highly Commended in the Fashion Design category for her project, Dressing Dance: Performing Spaces, Places and Bodies. 

Suntovski’s project, ‘Dressing Dance: Performing Spaces, Places and Bodies’. Image credit: Joyce Lee Suntovski’s project, ‘Dressing Dance: Performing Spaces, Places and Bodies’. Image credit: Joyce Lee

Suntovski’s work addresses the challenge of preserving cultural heritage while creating relevant, contemporary designs by reinterpreting traditional Macedonian costumes through a modern lens. The resulting garments were developed not just as aesthetic artefacts, but as emotionally functional pieces, designed to be worn, touched, and felt in ways that foster reconnection and storytelling.

Elevating essential infrastructure through innovation and empathy

Searle x Waldron Architecture, led by RMIT Architecture alum and Director, Suzannah Waldron, received Highly Commended for the Northern Memorial Park Depot.  

The project redefines the traditional design for cemetery operations, delivering a sustainable timber and recycled brick two-storey building, that houses offices, workshops and shared spaces that prioritise empathy. 

Northern Memorial Park Depot. Image credit: Peter Bennetts. Northern Memorial Park Depot. Image credit: Peter Bennetts

RMIT continues success across six categories

A further 19 student, staff and alumni projects were recognised as finalists in this year’s awards.

Professor Tim Marshall, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, RMIT College of Design and Social Context, said the overwhelming representation of RMIT-affiliated projects across almost all award categories is a testament to RMIT's sector-leading position in design education and innovation. 

“RMIT’s success at this year’s Victorian Premier’s Design Awards recognises the strength of our course offerings across a multitude of disciplines. We are so proud of our graduates, staff and alumni’s innovative contributions to pushing the boundaries of design and serving our communities.”

Student Design

  • Enhancing Urban Tree Resilience developed by current RMIT Landscape Architecture student, Wanhui Tang. This project proposes planting a wider variety of heat-tolerant tree species in Melbourne to boost biodiversity, cool the city, and improve long-term climate resilience.
  • Grounds for Grounds developed by current RMIT Industrial Design (Honours) student, Shan D’Cruz. This project turns spent coffee grounds and natural binders into a fully biodegradable golf tee that breaks down harmlessly, offering a sustainable, circular alternative to conventional plastic tees.
  • Holo: Passively Cooled Artificial Habitat developed by RMIT Industrial Design (Honours) and Mechanical Engineering graduate, Fergus Davidson. Holo is a wall-mounted terracotta bird-habitat that uses passive evaporative cooling powered from recycled air-conditioning runoff to help native urban birds survive extreme heat.
  • No Bull Cause developed by RMIT Communication Design graduate, Felix Toohey. This project hand-silk-screens and rebrands second-hand clothes - turning fashion waste into personalised, one-off streetwear pieces.
  • TrueSelf developed by Design Innovation and Technology graduate, Naphatsadol Pansailom. TrueSelf is a trauma-informed, personality-based toolkit that helps LGBTQIA+ teens, and their parents build empathy, trust, and emotionally safe communication.

Communication Design 

  • Australian Gender Equality Council (AGEC) — Strategic Branding developed by the AGEC, with photography work contributed by RMIT Arts (Photography) graduate, Alexandrena Parker. The rebrand of Australian’s national peak body for gender equality, delivers a bold new visual identity to strengthen the organisation’s advocacy, and influence on workplace culture and government policy.
  • One Day In Our Park developed by Letterbox, led by RMIT PhD graduate and Senior Lecturer, Dr. Stephen Banham. This project, commissioned by Metro Tunnel, is a 360-metre mosaic of 1.6 million tiles, that tell 45 stories of people who used the park over a 24-hour period. 

Design Strategy 

Digital Design 

  • Future Naarm: First Light developed by RMIT’s Immersive Futures Lab, led by RMIT alum and Architecture and Urban Design lecturers, Patrick Macasaet and Vei Tan. This project is an immersive, playable virtual world that reimagines a flooded, climate-changed Naarm - using gaming tools to spark reflection on future culture and ecology.
  • 444.2 | Fashion XR contributed to by RMIT PhD graduate and Fashion Design Lecturer, Dr Nirma Madhoo. This VR and AR experience merges fashion, dance and African cosmology, transporting users through the Karoo landscape and Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) to reframe BIPOC narratives in technology.

Fashion Design 

  • Chantelle Lucyl SS25 Collection developed by RMIT Fashion (Design) graduate, Chantelle Lucyl. Chantelle’s sculptural and sustainable range utilises regenerated lycra and dead-stock fabrics, blending swim, active and evening-wear fabrics into versatile and gender-inclusive garments.

Architectural Design 

8 of the 15 Architectural Design finalists were projects by firms involving RMIT staff and alumni. Including:

 

Established by the Victorian Government in 1996, the annual Victorian Premier Design Awards underscore the transformative impact of design on contemporary challenges. 

Story: Duncan Scott

20 November 2025

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20 November 2025

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