Romanian graduate receives Chancellor’s Prize and heads to India
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:37:00 BST
Award-winning architecture student Ecaterina Raluca Stefanescu (pictured) already has a truly global outlook. As an element of her University of Huddersfield degree course she spent a fascinating three weeks in Vietnam and responded powerfully to its art and culture. Now she is to visit India, as part of a high-profile UK government initiative, and she expects that she will absorb fresh influences.
At school, in her home city of Ploieᶊti, she became passionate about the arts – painting and sculpture initially. “Then I met an architect and that pushed me in a new direction,” she said. “I realised I could follow my artistic passions and also design structures that would be useful.”
She sought an overseas degree course and the University of Huddersfield was recommended. She appreciated the appeal of the campus, the attractiveness of the town and the quality of its architecture course, which will lead to a Master’s degree.
Ecaterina has completed the first phase of her studies, graduating as a Bachelor of Architecture, with exceptionally high average marks of 84.6. This qualifies her for a coveted Chancellor’s Prize – awarded to elite students who score more than 80 per cent for their final two years of course work.
She has embarked on a year’s work placement with Leeds-based firm DLA Architecture, after which she resumes study for her Master’s degree. There is also, in the late summer, to be a three-week trip to India, under the auspices of the UK India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), launched by former Prime Minister Tony Blair and recently backed by the current Prime Minister, David Cameron.
Its aim is to enhance educational links between India and the UK, and Ecaterina has been selected for a UKIERI study programme that will take her to New Delhi and Mumbai, where she will meet university lecturers and students and undertake a five-day internship.
She is looking forward to a new source of stimulus. “That is one of the main reasons I am going, to understand the architecture of another place.”
That is certainly what happened when, as part of her University of Huddersfield studies, she and fellow students spent three weeks in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, carrying out a detailed analysis of the urban environment and its architecture.
On return, the students developed designs for a building for which they felt there was a need in the city. Ecaterina, whose interests revolve around public and social architecture, designed an Artist Colony, including galleries and studios, aimed at the unofficial art scene in Ho Chi Minh City.
Her engineer father and economist mother visited Huddersfield to attend Ecaterina’s graduation ceremony, but she will remain UK-based for now and hopes to combine work as a practising architect with academic research and teaching, for she also developed a strong interest in the history of architecture.
