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Bartlett students make clean sweep of 2013 RIBA President's Medals

5 December 2013

Three UCL Bartlett School of Architecture students, Ben Hayes, Ness Lafoy and Tamsin Hanke, were announced the winners of the RIBA President's Medals last night.

RIBA dissertation panel

The prestigious awards reward talent and excellence in the study of architecture.

The RIBA Silver Medal for best design project at Part 2 was awarded to Ben Hayes for 'Kizhi Island'. This proposal is for a museum landscape that will restore and reassemble 250 wooden Orthodox churches on Kizhi Island in Northern Russia. Ben studied on Unit 17, directed by Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Niall McLaughlin and Michiko Sumi, part of the Bartlett's MArch Architecture programme.

Ness Lafoy and her proposal 'Helsinki Archipelago Town Hall' was awarded the Bronze Medal for best Part 1 design project. Her work is a proposal for a mainland hub for over 50,000 people who inhabit the 455 islands in the archipelago that surrounds the capital of Finland. Ness studied on Unit 8, run by Rhys Cannon and Ben Addy, as part of the Bartlett's BSc Architecture programme.

Tamsin Hanke, a student on Unit 17, was awarded the Dissertation Medal for her work 'Magnitogorsk: Utopian vision of spatial socialism'. Supervised by Sophia Psarra, her dissertation looks at the conception, realization and present state of the Russian city of Magnitogorsk as an experimental socialist utopia instigated by Joseph Stalin. The work explores how a political ideology of socialism was developed spatially in the city during the years 1930 to 1953.

RIBA President Stephen Hodder said the winners, "...overcame intense competition from the best students of architecture around the world and truly shone with their innovative, challenging and thought-provoking projects." 

 

 

The RIBA Research Awards, also awarded on the night went to the Bartlett's Professor Adrian Forty for Outstanding University-located Research and Dr Ricardo Agarez for Outstanding PhD Thesis. 

Marcos Cruz, Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture said: "This is an unprecedented achievement. It is due to the extraordinary talent and dedication of our students and staff."

He added: "It is also a reflection of the school's commitment to keeping our staff and students at the forefront of innovation, ideas, and excellence in architecture. All of us at the Bartlett School of Architecture are very proud."


Images: (top) The RIBA dissertation judging panel, (bottom) from Tamsin Hanke's dissertation 'Magnitogorsk: Utopian vision of spatial socialism' (homepage) from Ness Lafoy's Bronze Medal-winning project, 'Helsinki Archipelago Town Hall'


Links:

The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
RIBA