Global Student Challenge winners’ high hopes for future careers

One wants to explore how the different disciplines in construction can communicate more effectively, another wants to highlight the skills of built environment students in Indonesia, something that could contribute to closing the skills gap. The third plans to help in the development of the more remote parts of Indonesia, while the fourth plans to teach and inspire the next generation of construction professionals. 

Together, the students in Team Santapurna Sanctuary combined their ambitions, skills and knowledge to win the CIOB Global Student Challenge earlier this year. 

The challenge was for built environment students to create a cost-effective, flat-pack type building suitable for rapid response disaster relief.

Team Santapurna Sanctuary includes civil engineering students Bayu Dewanto, Fransiskus Adinda Rio, and Daffa Aliyo, and architecture student Alexander Ganesh. All four are students at Universitas Indonesia, which also fielded the team which won the competition in 2023. 

Team Plasfold Home from Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology in Malaysia and ReBuilda from Applied Science University of Bahrain scooped joint second place, while third place was claimed by Team Blitzford by Solid Build from Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Competition 

Bayu was encouraged to form a team to enter the competition by Juan Fidel Ferdani, who was part of the winning team in 2023. The group put their success down to their synergy after spending hours brainstorming in their architecture studio. But the competition also taught them how to collaborate and work with other disciplines, something that’s essential for successful built environment professionals. 

“As the only architect in the team … I get to hear a lot of opinions that I don't really get to hear in my day-to-day life,” Alexander says. “I think that's the point in a multidisciplinary team.”

Daffa says the project also taught them a lot about time management, as they were all preparing their thesis at the same time as preparing for the competition.

SafeHut System 

The SafeHut System developed by the team is designed to meet community needs by combining care for humanity with practical engineering. Their modular flat-pack system can house up to six people, with a SafeHut Q variation serving as a communal centre for up to seven residential SafeHuts. When integrated, both units will create a community-centric ecosystem, which they say will elevate the living standard of post-disaster community condition.

“We came up with the rapid deployment shelter that is foldable but also resilient,” Bayu says. “That boils down to what materials we will use and how it works.”

The system was designed to work for both refugees, who can often be displaced for longer, as well as internally displaced people (IDPs), who can be more transient. Alexander says the main aim was to make it community centric, to help reduce the risk of isolation and rebuild the sense of community that refugees and IDPs can often lose. 

The team are now in talks with an Indonesian construction firm to create a prototype to test whether the design is as cost effective as they believe it is.

Member’s Forum

As winners of the Global Student challenge, the team was invited to Cape Town, South Africa, for CIOB’s Member’s Forum to present their winning project and meet members from around the world. 

Bayu says the diversity of cultures and backgrounds represented at Member’s Forum led to a lot of interesting discussions, although he does admit that they were initially intimidated by being the youngest people in the room. “But everyone was very welcoming and very open to talk to, and we had a lot of constructive feedback for our designs,” he says. “I think it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Future plans 

As well as aiming to continue developing the SafeHut system, each of the students also have their own plans post-graduation.

Bayu has created the Blueprint ID initiative, which aims to promote the portfolios of Indonesian built environment students. Daffa is preparing to study his master’s degree, and plans to go on to study a doctorate to allow him to become a lecturer. Rio is also studying a master’s, before becoming a contractor. “I have a dream to develop the more remote areas, especially in Papua,” he says.

Alexander is planning to continue studying overseas to further explore how different fields within construction can be more integrated. “I feel like there should be a connection between them, they should be all speaking with one another because they have different insights,” he says. “By doing my master’s overseas, I hope to try to connect the bridges.” 

Transition to local student challenge events

Following the conclusion of this year’s Global Student Challenge event, CIOB has decided to replace the global event with local competitions. This will enable greater focus to be placed on local student challenge events, which some of our hubs already run, allowing greater levels of student engagement at a local hub level and with local employers, to support students in taking their first steps into the industry.

To enable fully accessible competitions to be run all over the world and at different times of the year, we have created a toolkit to support staff, members, and Tomorrow's Leaders Champions to deliver newly branded ‘Tomorrow’s Leaders Student Challenges’ across the globe.

For more information, contact your local hub.