Life has been challenging for degree students of late and tutors have had a difficult time ensuring their usual involvement. However, the calibre of students within East Region universities is as high as ever this year.
The RIBA East Student Awards 2020 have recently been presented online to architectural students from the University of Cambridge, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, the Norwich University of the Arts and the University of Hertfordshire.
The purpose of the RIBA East Student Awards is to promote excellence and reward talent in the study and education of architecture. Entry is open to those studying architecture or design at the four establishments listed above and is judged by course leaders and tutors.
Congratulations go to the outstanding RIBA East Student Award winning students.
Dr James Campbell, Head of Department of Architecture at University of Cambridge this year chose to award Nabil Haque with the prize.
Nabil was the top student out of a class of 35 in his Year 3 cohort, receiving an overall mark of Distinction for his project 'Mono No Aware: A Physical Rehabilitation Centre for Ford End Road, Bedford' with the brief ‘empathy towards non-human things’.
Set in Ford End Road, Bedford, the project reflects on the town's industrial past, in specific reference to its existence for over 200 years as a coal gas works. While fossil fuel extraction is in opposition to the natural ecosystem, the project understands the natural and the man-made as equivalent and leverages the site's history to synthesise an industrial past and an ecological present. Built within the ruins of a nineteent century locomotive shed in the north east corner of the site, the project proposes a setting for the rehabilitation of people with serious physical injuries alongside the rehabilitation of this existing building and the landscape beyond.
Nabil also received individual marks of Distinction for his Technical courses, Dissertation and Advanced History/Theory course.
Tom Foggin, Chairman of the RIBA East Executive Committee was pleased to present the award to Nabil for exceptional work via an online meeting on 1 July 2020.
Idriss Idriss of Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford was chosen as the winner of the RIBA East 2020 award by Howard Gilby, Studio Tutor and Module Leader for final year.
Idriss was asked to choose sites, project themes and clients relating to climate change, population rise and the urgent need to create new, urban infrastructure within our cities. The focus of his design was to create a ‘Makers Guild’: a community of Makers bringing new purpose and life to the land around Cody Dock.
Howard Gilby said: "Idriss approached the challenge with a holistic mindset that oscillated between the macro and micro scales, and inevitably touched on many of these issues, producing an inspired mature vision for the regeneration of the Cody Dock site, and the Banks of the River Lea. A new urban 'high street' of walking and cycling adjacent to an inhabited public realm of urban cooperatives."
Idriss’ aim from the outset was to embrace a new slower paced lifestyle and imagine a city of cooperative self build housing projects, encouraging empowered communities with specific skill sets encouraging sustainability and bringing production back to the city.
Tom Foggin, Chairman of the RIBA East Executive Committee, thoroughly enjoyed meeting Idriss via an online meeting on 14 July and was very interested to discuss Idriss’ passion for product design and model making.
Conrad Areta of Norwich University of the Arts (NUA) was the university’s RIBA East 2020 award winner, nominated by Will Jefferies and Rebecca Crabtree.
Raymond Quek, course leader and lecturer in architecture, said: "As the UK City of Culture 2017, the award led to a resurgence in artistic activity and potential architectural development in Hull. Grappling with the realities of urban and coastal dereliction, Conrad’s imagined architectural interventions leveraged Hull’s augmented art scene and furthered the opportunity for well measured urban invigoration. His project proposes the regeneration of pedestrian and river traffic in currently derelict areas, from the Fruit Market quarter up to the riverside frontages into eastern side of the city, via the skilful addition of a hospitality space that both synergistically networks with the revitalised artistic community and businesses, and offers itself as a focal point and fulcrum via the auction house. A highly nuanced design with a complex programme, the project was executed with exceptional graphic skill."
Conrad’s work, along with all other 2020 architecture student award winners at NUA, is showcased on the NUA online degree show.
Tom Foggin, Chairman of the RIBA East Executive Committee, also recorded his congratulations to Conrad as part of the NUA BA Architecture awards video.
The standout student from the University of Hertfordshire this year, and winner of the RIBA East Student Award 2020, is Lukshay Beegun. Lukshay was an obvious winner, decided by the Hertfordshire Association of Architects (HAA) and nominated by Silvio Carta, Lecturer in Architecture.
The project, The Stanley Kubrick Institute, was guided by a brief which was tailored to designing a ‘repository of knowledge’ and inspired by movie mogul Stanley Kubrick’s films and techniques. Lukshay’s design was a contemporary building offering a public library and a film school to serve a less affluent community in Borehamwood.
Lukshay said: “My design proposal incorporates a combination of industrial materials such a concrete, steel, Corten steel and wood. This sustainable building offers huge opportunities to the community of Borehamwood, from reskilling the younger to the elderly, to regenerating this deprived area of the town.”
Simon Knight, Chair of HAA, was delighted to deliver the news that Lukshay had won the RIBA East Award and commented that although it was a strong year, Lukshay’s work stood out as a well thought out and exciting project.
