The current format of the awards dates back to 1984, when the Institute created a Bronze Medal to reward design work produced during Part 1 while the Silver Medal was awarded for work produced at Part 2. In 2001, a Dissertation Medal was added to replace the Dissertation Certificate. Since its early days, the aim of the awards has been to promote excellence in the study of architecture, to reward talent and to encourage architectural debate worldwide.
Each year, the judging panels select up to 16 entries that receive awards. Medals are awarded in three categories: the Bronze Medal for best design project at Part 1; the Silver Medal for best design project at Part 2 and the Dissertation Medal. In addition, there is a maximum of three commendations in each category. Each year the RIBA invites approximately 300 schools of architecture from over 65 countries to nominate design projects and dissertations produced by their students. This year's awards received nominations for student design projects and dissertations from 317 architecture schools in 61 countries - this year was the highest number on record.
Awards include The RIBA Silver Medal (the highest design prize), the RIBA Bronze Medal, and the Dissertation Medal. Additional awards this year included the Serjeant Awards for Excellence in Drawing; the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Foundation UK Fellowship; and High Commendations and Commendations.
MEDAL WINNER 2014. Poohtown Part 2. Project 2014, Nick Elias. University College London, London, UK.
The Silver Medal for the Best Design Project at Part 2 (Prize money £2000)
Project summary - "While revisiting Slough and the industrial growth and social inequality the town experienced during the 1920s - the decade when A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories were first published and became popular for their accounts of a fictitious happy world - the project re-evaluates covert responses to socio-political exclusion. This is achieved by reinterpreting the underpinning state of contentment that typifies Milne’s protagonist in order to propose ‘happy’ architectures where residents can live, work and play together in a sustainable economic network.
By doing so, ‘PoohTown’ establishes the grounds for a subtle critique of today’s cities potential to prescribe policies of happiness alongside familiar amenities (a concept, in the author’s opinion, worryingly absent in current city planning) and alerts for the need to design for emotions as a way to find architecture’s purpose in a changing world. Nick was tutored by CJ Lim and Bernd Felsinger."
and up to two commendations (Prize money of £250 each)
- Commendation-MEDAL WINNER 2014. Brooklyn co-operative, Part 2. Project 2014. Yannis Halkiopoulos, University of Westminster, London, UK.
- Commendation-MEDAL WINNER 2014. The Living Dam. Part 2, Project 2014. Louis Sullivan ,University College London. London, UK.
- SOM Winner - MEDAL WINNER 2014. Untitled, 2014. Mixed Media. Part 2 Project 2014. Mike Lim. Royal College of Art. London, UK.
and SOM Winner (Prize money of £250)
- SERJEANT AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN DRAWING. The Restored Commonwealth Club. Part 2 Project 2014. Adam Bell. University of Greenwich, London, UK
The Serjeant Award for Excellence in Drawing
£250 worth of books at http://www.ribabookshops.com/ for Part 1
BRONZE MEDAL WINNER 2014. Flow, 1944. Part 1 Project 2014. Simon Dean. Kingston University, Kingston-Upon-Thames, UK.
The Bronze Medal for the Best Design Project at Part 1 (Prize money £2000)
Project summary - "On the surface, the project proposes a design for a bathhouse located on a quarry carved into the rock created by solidified lava that erupted from Mount Vesuvius in 1944. As it develops this idiosyncratic space of transience on a shunned landscape, ‘Flow, 1944’ highlights the importance of the notions of ephemerality and the passing of time in the formation of built environments as they are conceived by architects and inhabited by users, thus alerting for the role played by architecture in constructing historical layers of physical strata and collective meaning."
and up to three commendations (Prize money of £250 each)
- Commendation - BRONZE MEDAL WINNER 2014. Rong Xhan Safehouse. Part 1 Project 2014. Emily Priest. University College London, London, UK.
- Commendation - BRONZE MEDAL WINNER 2014. city frame. the reappropriation of maple house. Part 1, Project 2014. Samuel Little. London Metropolitan University, London, UK.
- Commendation - BRONZE MEDAL WINNER 2014. Urban Living Transition: Vanishing Heritage Of Hong Kong Residence. Part 1 Project 2014. Ho Yeung (Howell) Tsang. University of Hong Kong. Hong Kong, China.
£250 worth of books at http://www.ribabookshops.com/ for Part 2
- The SOM Foundation Travelling Fellowship
SOM Winner - BRONZE MEDAL WINNER 2014. Cultural Perforation Of Madrid, Disruption Of The Defined. Part 1 Project 2014. Kent Gin University of East London, London, UK.
Chosen by a judging panel established by Skidmore Owings & Merill £1,250 for Part 1
- Serjeant Award - BRONZE MEDAL WINNER 2014. The Institute Of Concrete Poetry. Part 1, Project 2014. Oliver Riviere. University of Brighton. Brighton, UK.
£1,250 for Part 2
DISSERTATION MEDAL WINNER 2014. Made Ground: A Spatial History of Sydney Park. Part 1. Dissertation 2014. Jasper Ludewig. University of Sydney. Sydney, Australia.
The Dissertation Medal for the Best Dissertation either at Part 1 or 2 (Prize money £2000)
Project summary - "Produced under the supervision of Ross Anderson and submitted by the University of Sydney, the dissertation focusses on Sydney Park as a case study of ‘Spatial History’, a method of historical inquiry developed by Australian geographer, historian and architectural theorist, Paul Carter. Each of Made Ground’s six essays discusses a series of practices, beliefs and tools in the historical production of Australia’s physical and social space to, ultimately, illustrate the postcolonial capacity of interpreting the texts and records of the past as a way of destabilising assumptions about Australia’s places of the present in which architects, planners, urban designers and artists intervene."
and up to three commendations (Prize money of £250 each)
- Commendation - DISSERTATION MEDAL WINNER 2014. Towards A Common Ground For Play: Examining The History Of Play And Playgrounds In Dublin’s Liberties. Part 2. Dissertation 2014. Ekaterina Tikhoniouk. University College Dublin. Dublin, Ireland.
- Commendation - DISSERTATION MEDAL WINNER 2014. Exilic Landscapes: Synagogues And Jewish Architectural Identity In 1870s Britain. Part 2, Dissertation 2014. Leon Fenster. University College London. London, UK.
