Know Thyself (Qudus Patrick).
2019 RIBA President’s Medals nominee (click above image for more info)

Know Thyself: proposes a multifunctional building that accommodates a library/art museum that acts as a gateway to African knowledge, culture and identity.

The project celebrates African identity through spaces that exhibit art and history inspired by Africa’s ancient history of culture, as well as spaces for reflection inspired by cultures of ancient Ethiopia and Egypt. To access the “divine intelligence” and prepare their minds and bodies through rituals and meditation, users are enhanced through the ritual of lighting incense, playing tribal or drum-based music which evokes the spirit of various African cultures. This re-enactment of the past creates a present form drawn from the cultural tradition. This is for the primary user to relearn, reconnect, re-identify, and to learn what wasn’t taught before.

This proposal will help highlight the cultural diversity as well as a re-birth of the cultural identity within African communities. It is with this acknowledgement that tradition gives a limited form of identification. This proposal reflects a series of moments that I have encountered in my journey in finding myself. This will allow the user to celebrate the history of African, whilst discovering their purpose. Empowering Africans that live in London by teaching them who they are.

The China Exchange (Joshua Welch).
2019 RIBA President’s Medals nominee (click above image for more info)

The China Exchange: tackles the re-use, rehabilitation and extension of an existing building within London.

The proposal is personal, beginning with the receiving of a black-and-white photograph of the author’s mother perched next to an older Chinese woman, the great-grandmother. The project thus discusses ignorance of a family’s own Chinese culture, using the built proposal as a vessel to indulge in Chinese culture and heritage as a remedy to an overriding sense of guilt with an analysis of key features prominent within China, such as the tea house, cavernous landscapes and social splendour.

This project seeks to inject true Chinese culture into an otherwise shallow Chinatown, existing currently as restaurants and betting shops. The China Exchange extends the theatrical splendour of Chinatown into 32 Gerrard Street, at the heart of Soho, and multiplies it tenfold to exemplify the true cultural values of China while using tea as a means to unite eastern and western ideals.

Upside Down (Vincenzo Damato).
2018 RIBA President’s Medals nominee (click above image for more info)

Upside Down: proposes an opportunity to rethink and reconsider the public bathhouse in the contemporary urban context.

A new conception of urban public bathhouse can initiate new social dynamics, new social opportunities, and new public behaviours. Haggerston Bathhouse is turned upside down s to reintroduce the ancient meaning of bathing, in commemoration of an old use lost in time.

Migration of Zog (Shpend Pashtriku).
2018 RIBA President’s Medals nominee (click above image for more info)

Migration of Zog: s a forward looking scheme that aims to redefine the working, living and shopping, by introducing and update to the already renowned Hyperloop system. This update is concerned with not only moving people, but moving lives.

The scheme implies the design of pods transportable via the Hyperloop, and easily relocating them into extensive slot-in system framework buildings spread across the major cities of the world.

Tower Hamlets Music Centre (Jed Maiden).
2017 RIBA President’s Medals nominee (click above image for more info)

Tower Hamlets Music Centre: uses two subjects that are under threat – industrial heritage and the dwelling music industry — this proposal sets an example for rehabilitation of a brownfield industrial site under threat of being demolished.

The speed of urban growth is inorganic in an area with social problems, therefore this proposal aims to reducing these tensions by providing a 21st century music centre and urban park, acting as a buffer between social and commercial districts.

Collective Memory (Jay Jordan).
2017 RIBA President’s Medals nominee (click above image for more info)

Collective Memory: explores place making with a focus on celebrating and empowering a marginalised, post-industrial community (based in 197 Farm Road) who’s personal and social histories have gone, and continue to go unrecognised.

The scheme proposes a network of local relationships, which, when realised, acts as an architectural device that generates a petitionary community building and records, remembers, and preserves the everyday – understanding the nature of local, this decreasingly cohesive community reveals an island in phases of development.