Students innovative ecodesign takes out the 2020 Fleetwood Challenge Cup

As a lack of housing diversity and affordability continues to prove a major grappling point for many Australians, a team of Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) students from the University of Melbourne have taken on the challenge and reimagined the great Australian dream using a holistic approach to offsite manufacturing.

Winners of the inaugural Fleetwood Challenge Cup in partnership with prefabAUS, the students’ ‘ecoShip’ solution was chosen as the most affordable, functional and sustainable design, promising social and community benefits by integrating greater accessibility for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Using a modular design, the ecoShip can be built just about anywhere and in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional construction methods.

With amazing entries from top universities around Australia, the team from The University of Melbourne were pleased to have come away victors this year.

“Being part of the Fleetwood Challenge Cup has been a fantastic and an extremely valuable experience which has given our team the opportunity to apply knowledge into practice to help solve a real-world problem!” advised the winning University of Melbourne team.