Bartlett students runners-up at International Design Awards

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com/winners/catwinner.php?compName=ARCHITECTURE&level=student&compNum=comp-2" target="_self">IDA 2008 results

UCL Bartlett School of Architecture

Two former UCL Bartlett postgraduates, Kyle Buchanan and Ben Ridley, have been announced as runners-up in the architecture competition of the International Design Awards (IDA) 2008.

The awards, supported by the Farmani Group, recognise and promote design visionaries, and seek to uncover emerging talents in architecture and interior, product graphic and fashion design. It was the first time the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture submitted entries to the awards.

Kyle Buchanan was announced as a runner-up in two architecture categories - urban design and landscape - for his project titled 'Instrumental Architecture'. His work imagines a reclaimed landscape around the village of Tollesbury, Essex in 2065. The village, historically reclaimed from salt marshes, is currently facing increasing pressure on its embankments as the sea has already been allowed to flood back into the fields, forming new marshland. 'Instrumental Architecture', presented to the committee in models and drawings, operates as a context of interrelated systems (rather than a set of picturesque views and historiographies) that inform the dynamic interaction between the scheme and its changing coastal landscape.

Ben Ridley was awarded third place in the landscape category for his project 'Thingvellir Architectural Myth'. Ben's project is a design for a multi-faceted building located at Thingvellir, Iceland, a World Heritage Site. The building functions as a weekend retreat for migrant workers who suffer from Iceland's unusual climatic conditions, and as a reconstruction of the parliamentary function of the historic site. Ben's vision for the building was to encourage the development of the psychological notions of belonging, comfort, and attachment to landscape via the traditional Icelandic activity of inventing myth.

Images

Top: a model from 'Instrumental Architecture' showing the imagined landscape of Tollesbury in 2065. The port architecture would occoupy, describe and affect the transformations of the landscape. 

Bottom: a long section detail from 'Thingvellir Architectural Myth'.

UCL Context: UCL Bartlett School of Architecture
The Bartlett, made up of the Schools of Architecture, Construction and Project Management, Graduate Studies, Planning and the Development Planning Unit, offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the built environment. The school is at the forefront of the debate on the future of cities and uses London as a unique laboratory for studying the architectural, constructional and urban situations that affect the built environment.   

Recent news from the Bartlett include Professor CJ Lim's short-listed seafront development and a workshop organised by Dr Rachel Armstrong on the use of evolutionary theories in architecture.