Winners of the RIBA 2015 President's Medals Student Awards

First awarded in 1836, the RIBA President's Medal Student Awards are considered to be one of the highest accolades in architectural education. Aiming to incite global architectural debate, the program attracts the crème de la crème of research projects by Architecture I and II graduate students, who are then recognized for their talent and excellence. Without a doubt, competition is fierce every time.

Read on for more.

This year's awards included the RIBA Silver Medal (the highest design prize), the RIBA Bronze Medal, and the Dissertation Medal. Winning students were also selected for the Serjeant Awards for Excellence in Drawing; 2015 SOM Foundation Fellowships UK; as well as High Commendations and Commendations.

Have a look at some of the winning projects below.

SILVER MEDAL (best design project at Part 2): Finn Wilkie - The Mackintosh School of Architecture at The Glasgow School of Art 
Project: ‘The Heteroglossic City: A polemic against critical reconstruction in Berlin’

Summary: "The project (tutored by Robert Mantho) investigates the historical background of Berlin’s highly-controlled planning system before setting out a new strategy for architectural intervention. This is illustrated through the ‘Bauforum’, a platform to explore a more dialogue-focused approach to each particular planning context."

BRONZE MEDAL (best Part 1 design project): Boon Yik Chung - the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
Project: 'Space as the Third Teacher: An alternative classroom typology promoting creative learning and play’

Summary: "To explore the notion of flexibility in classroom design, the author researched schools in Amsterdam and Rotterdam designed by Herman Hertzberger, and also drew on his own personal experiences of school spaces in Malaysia. The project (tutored by Rhys Cannon and Colin Herperger) concludes that ambiguous, open-ended spaces rather than wholly flexible rooms provide the best learning environments."

DISSERTATION MEDAL: Marie Price - University of Westminster. Supervised by Harold Charrington.
Project: ‘The Overlooked Back Garden: Voyeurism in the English back garden’

Summary: "The dissertation explores the concept of voyeurism in the wider sense of people-watching to explore the tension between the private and the overlooked. The dissertation considers degrees of overlooking at different scales (from the city, the street, from within the houses, and from within the garden) by resorting to historiography, empirical data and case-study analysis, and digital mapping technology."

SERJEANT AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN DRAWING

Silver Medal/Part 2 - Serjeant Award for Excellence in Drawing winner: Benjamin Ferns (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL): ‘Pontifical Academy of Sciences’

Bronze Medal/Part 1 - Serjeant Award for Excellence in Drawing winner: Andrew Chard (Oxford Brookes University): ‘The Lost Dockyard’

RIBA President's Award for Outstanding Master's Degree Thesis: Christopher Purpura, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London 
Project: ‘Holding Hands, Touching Alterity: Dance as Spatial Practice at Monte Verità, 1914’. Supervised by Professor Jane Rendell and Professor Barbara Penner.

RIBA President's Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis: Torsten Schroeder, LSE Sociology Department, Cities Programme
Project: ‘Translating the concept of sustainability into architectural design practices: London’s City Hall as an Exemplar’. Supervised by Professor Robert Tavernor and Professor Leslie Sklair

RIBA President's Awards for Outstanding University-located Research: Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen, School of Art, Design and Media, University of Brighton
Project: ‘Second Nature Urban Agriculture: Designing Productive Cities’

RIBA President's Award for Outstanding Practice-located Research and recipient of the inaugural RIBA Research Medal: Walter Menteth, Walter Menteth Architects
Project: ‘Pathways to Construction Procurement Reform leading to adoption and embedding of EU Directive 2004/24/EU’

The UK office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill awarded the 2015 SOM Foundation Fellowships UK to Douglas Miller and Benjamin Ferns, whose projects were chosen from this year’s entries for the RIBA President’s Medals.

COMMENDATIONS:

Silver Medal/Part 2:

High Commendation:

• Marcus Rothnie and Marshall Inglis (Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture): ‘Chlorophyllous Urbanism: Mumbai’

Commendations:

• Gemma Wheeler (Cardiff University): ‘Re-Storying the Workhouse: An alternative conservation strategy’
• Alistair Wood (De Montfort University): ‘Lofoten Seasonal Fishery’

Bronze Medal/Part 1:

High Commendation:

• Douglas Miller (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL): ‘The San Francisco Columbarium’

Commendations:

• Sophie Barks (University of Nottingham): ‘The Mnemonic Guild’
• Hong Xi (Nanjing University, China): ‘Academic Landscape: Regenerate a riverside warehouse as an emblem of active learning’

Dissertation Medal:

Commendations:

• Zeina Al-Derry (Architectural Association): ‘The Melancholic City of Mirages’
• Irene Klokkari (University of Brighton): ‘Memories of Famagusta: Recapturing the image of the city through the memories of refugees’
• Niamh Lincoln (University of Sheffield): ‘Tempelhof – Articulating the Void’

RIBA President's Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis:

Commendation:

• Isis Paola Nunez Ferrera (University of Westminster): ‘Territories of Scarcity and Creativity: A Critical view on Informal Settlements and Emerging Tactics under Conditions of Scarcity in Nairobi, Kenya and Quito Ecuador’. Supervised by Professor Jeremy Till and Jon Goodbun.