Bartlett Professor wins sustainable design prize

The Bartlett’s Professor Murray Fraser and his colleagues Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari in the Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) have won a 2014 Holcim Awards Acknowledgement Prize for the adaptation of two derelict buildings in the village of Beit Iksa in the West Bank, close to Jerusalem. Their project, titled 'Adaptive Re-Use: Women's Centre and Playground', involved the conversion of these buildings into working spaces with an eco-kitchen, along with the rehabilitation of surrounding spaces into play areas for children and into allotments/green roofs for agricultural production. The intention of the project is to maximise social impact and self-sufficiency by responding to local technical knowledge and patterns of everyday life, and thereby to develop a new form of sustainable construction. The project was carried out through PART's ongoing collaboration with RIWAQ, a leading Palestinian NGO that carries out architectural/urban conservation work on the ground in the West Bank.

The Holcim Awards are a prestigious annual global competition for sustainable design which received over 6,000 entries for its 2014 Awards, with prizes amounting to around $650,000 being given out this year.

Murray Fraser is Professor of Architecture and Global Culture and Vice-Dean of research at The Bartlett.