Bartlett Research Shortlisted for 2019 RIBA President’s Awards
16 October 2019
An impressive array of projects from Bartlett staff and alumni have been shortlisted for this year’s RIBA President’s Awards for Research.

The RIBA President’s Awards for Research celebrate the best global research in the fields of architecture and the built environment. This year, several projects by Bartlett staff and alumni have been shortlisted for the prestigious awards across three categories.
History & Theory

Papered Spaces: Clerical Practices, Materialities and Spatial Cultures of Provincial Governance in Bengal, Colonial India, 1820s – 1860s
Tania’s project focuses on the architecture, spaces and material culture associated with British colonial paper-bureaucracy in Bengal, India. Specifically, it demonstrates how paper became a key agent of colonial governance and permeated the material-spatial culture and ‘lifeworld’ of Indian cutcherries (colonial offices) in provincial and interior regions.

Hans Hollein: Postmodernism Culturally Reconsidered
With the re-examination of Postmodernism now widespread in many countries around the world, Eva’s research offers an innovative and expansive investigation of Austria’s artistic and architectural scene from the 1950s to 1980s. Specifically, she focuses upon the Viennese artist and architect Hans Hollein, who was the 1985 Pritzker Prize-winner and was widely regarded as the foremost post-war Austrian architect, yet is now largely overlooked.
Design & Technical

Cork Construction Kit
Oliver and Matthew’s research reveals a radically simple new form of solid, dry-jointed, bio-renewable construction, made of expanded cork block and engineered timber. The material has already been used to construct Cork House, in Eton, Berkshire, which recently won the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize for the best building under £1m. The house has exceptionally low whole-life carbon and is carbon negative at completion due to the atmospheric carbon stored in its plant-based components.
Building in Quality

Providing Care Quality by Design
Kerstin and Rosica’s research proposes a new layout for hospital wards to improve efficiency, by adopting a single measure called Spaces for Communication Index (SCI), which assesses communication opportunities that arise from the layout of a hospital ward.
Kerstin and Rosica used a method called Space Syntax to analyse a number of NHS wards, which investigated the size of visual fields of healthcare workers on everyday movement paths through the ward. Their research proves that a high index is associated with the provision of good healthcare.
Congratulations to all staff and alumni who were shortlisted for an award. Winners will be announced at the RIBA President’s Medals ceremony at the RIBA HQ in London, on 03 December 2019.
Find out more
- Images
- A European officer and Indian clerks at a cutcherry, nineteenth century. Drawn by Charles D'Oyly, Plate III, from D'Oyly, The European in India: From a Collection of Drawings by Charles Doyley, Esq. (1813, hand colour on aquatint). ©British Library Board (V 10573, Plate III)
- The 1979 opening of the Österreichisches Verkehrsbüro on the Opernringhof in Vienna. Hans Hollein can be seen on the far right of this Postmodern performative travel agency. Courtesy Nachlass Hans Hollein
- The Cork Cabin prototype building around 6 months after construction, standing next to the Cork Casket ©Matthew Barnett Howland and Oliver Wilton
- How Design Affects Communication, by Kerstin Sailer and Rosica Pachilova