The Student Award at this year’s Interior Awards went to Annie Tong from the University of Auckland for her project, Museum of Lost Memories. Annie describes the project as an “exploration on the practice, political and cultural meaning of silence in architecture”.

Museum of Lost Memories uses the process of excavation to create space for silence and begins with a 20 x 20 x 20 concrete cube that had voids carved out of it. “An announced absence of the remnant solid prompts actions of staring and intrigue. Silence is experienced whether be a voluntary or involuntary act,” Annie says.

The design is built around an internal courtyard, which the visitor is to arrive at last and offers a place of reflection. Annie’s vision for the museum also includes “casting and engraving capabilities” to “allow the narrator to leave scripture upon the walls of the museum, an act of memorial.”

This project is teeming with details and design moves that make it shine. Annie took home a bespoke trophy and a $1,000 cash prize for her win at the sold-out Interior Awards night on 21 June at St Matthew-in-the-City.

Full jury citation:

A project on the architectural embodiment of silence runs the risk of being designed too literally: as merely an acoustic experience or somewhat devoid of the psychological layers it can entail.The Museum of Lost Memories is a poetic contemplation of stillness through void-making. It turns the designer into a composer, modulating light, materials, pressures and release.

Through a series of spaces and curated experiences – involving natural light, conceptual materials, choreography and remembrance – Annie Tong crafts stillness in the middle of a busy central city. This project beautifully draws its conceptual fuel from Donald Judd and Ma, the Japanese idea of space, for an interior experience that is soothing and meditative.

• See all the winners of the 2018 Interior Awards here.
• Extended coverage of the Interior Awards will be featured in the June 2018 issue of Interior magazine

With thanks to our 2018 sponsors: