BSP Annual Postgraduate Prize Giving: Winners

Our prize-giving ceremony is an annual opportunity for us to reflect on how proud we are of the outstanding work our masters students produce and how fortunate we are of being part of an academic environment that fosters work of such high quality. This is especially so this year, considering that most of it was done under challenging circumstances. - Claudio de Magalhães, Head of School“

Course Prizes

Ben Clifford, Postgraduate Tutor, introduced the £100 course prizes, which were awarded at the exam board and usually given to the student with the highest average grade across the programme, demonstrating wide ranging academic excellence. We are pleased to announce the following winners:

• MSc Housing and City Planning: Ada McMurtrie
• MSc International Planning: Max Coral
• MSc Infrastructure Planning Apprasial and Develpment: Harriet Brien
• MSc International Real Estate and Planning: Ting Wang
• MPlan City Planning: Emma Bunting
• MSc Spatial Planning: Madeleine Gohin
• MRes Intedisciplinary Urban Design: Samantha Leger
• MSc Sustainable Urbanism: Ewan Clegg
• MSc Transport and City Planning:  Margarita Amaya Torres
• MSc Urban Design and City Planning: Alan Smithies
• MSc Urban Regeneration: Ann-Marie Webb

Hounsfield Prize

Claudio de Magalhães, Head of School introduced the Hounsfield Prize. The prize was founded in 1951 using money donated by Mr and Mrs L Hounsfield to the College to set-up two prizes (the other, in traffic engineering, administered by the Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering) in memory of their late son who had studied at UCL and been interested in the relationship between planning and transport. It is now awarded each year to a student of merit from the MSc Transport and City Planning. Congratulations to Maria Trujillo Pérez, the recipient of this year's Hounsfield prize.

The RTPI Prize

Robyn Skerratt, the RTPI's Young Planner of the Year, introduced the RTPI prize. The RTPI prize is awarded each year to a student of merit from the MSc Spatial Planning programme. The MSc Spatial Planning is the School’s core MSc programme providing a general introduction to the theory, context and practice of UK planning. It is the successor to the longstanding MPhil Town Planning. Congratulations to Thomas Szydlowski, this year's recipient. 

The Sprott and Holford Prizes

The Sprott Prize was established in 2013 in memory of Trevor Ferguson Sprott OBE, former student of architecture at UCL who went on to become Director of Physical Planning at Grampian Regional Council and is awarded to the student submitting what is judged, by a panel of academic staff, to be the best overall planning dissertation or major project produced by an MSc student each year. The Holford Prize was established in 1987 in memory of the Rt. Hon Lord Holford, Professor of Town Planning here at UCL from 1948 to 1970.  The prize is awarded to the student submitting what is judged, by a panel of academic staff, to be the second best overall planning dissertation or major project produced by an MSc student each year.  The dissertations are reviewed by a panel. This year that panel was Ben Clifford, Susan Moore, Michal Short and Iqbal Hamaduddin

The nominees for the Sprott and Holford prizes were:

• MSc Housing and City Planning: Ada McMurtrie
• MSc International Planning: Max Coral
• MSc Infrastructure Planning Apprasial and Develpment: Satryo Wibisono
• MSc International Real Estate and Planning: Chang Sun
• MSc Spatial Planning: Thomas Szydlowski
• MSc Sustainable Urbanism: Ewan Clegg
• MSc Transport and City Planning:  Margarita Amaya Torres
• MSc Urban Design and City Planning: Alan Smithies
• MSc Urban Regeneration: Hannah Williamson

Due to the high standard of the entries, this year the Holford Prize was split between two students, who each received £250. The winners were:

• Max Coral, for his dissertation entitled “Cycling through Covid-19: Exploring Human-scale Sensescapes”, which the panel enjoyed in terms of its topicality, exploratory research method and the way it was written with engaging nuance;
• Maria Trujillo Pérez, for her dissertation entitled “Children's Independent Mobility: A child-oriented perspective on walking, playing and socialising in Aguablanca District. Cali, Colombia”, which the panel felt was well presented, based on an excellent literature review and conceptual framework and with a richness throughout.

Winner of the £1500 Sprott prize:

• Thomas Szydlowski, for his dissertation entitled “Skelmersdale: The design and implementation of a British new town, 1961-1985”, which the panel found an enjoyable read which filled a clear gap in existing research and literature, and drawing effectively on historical methodological approaches