Winning design: Dr Riaan Els, director of the Carl & Emily Fuchs Foundation, congratulates Mariet Willemse on winning a Fuchs Prestige Prize.

Mariet Willemse of UCT's School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics has been named the winner of one of the new Carl & Emily Fuchs Foundation's Prestige Prizes in architecture.

Valued at R50 000 each, the award comes with the highest prize money of any architectural student competition in the country.

Seven students competed for the prizes during a 24-hour design exercise held at the University of the Witwatersrand. The three winners must use their prize money for furthering their studies in architecture, and they must also have to present a lecture on their work at the annual Architectural Students' Conference, as well as publish an article on an architectural topic of their choice.

This new competition for students in South Africa aims to reward sustained academic excellence in architectural education. Students who obtained the highest average for their BAS degrees and enrolled for the BAS(Hons) programme are eligible.