Nominees for AJ Student Prize 2018

Samuel Us (BSc Architectural Studies) and Hollie Jones (MArch) have been selected as the Welsh School of Architecture nominees for the Architects’ Journal (AJ) Student Prize 2018.

This year, the AJ invited all RIBA-accredited schools of architecture in the UK to select their top two student projects – one at undergraduate level and one at postgraduate level – as nominees for the AJ Student Prize. This year, 88 entries were submitted from 44 schools.

The new AJ Student Prize, run in association with Marley Eternit, offers a platform for students and the architecture departments that foster their talents, as well as inspiration for the wider industry.

Samuel’s project is a demonstration of how architecture can respond to the complex social, cultural, political and economic pressures that face the UK. It involves the design of a new Maritime Training College in Ilfracombe, Devon, whose vote to leave the EU has become an opportunity for the fishing community to voice longstanding discontent of the fishing quotas imposed upon them. The maritime training college will offer training in maritime-related disciplines alongside mainstream secondary education, providing for a progressive and co-operative local sector.

Hollie was challenged to reimagine and economically repurpose the ‘rural’ in light of the likely impact on farming communities in the Black Mountains and its Borderlands post-Brexit. She devised a pilgrimage route through the valley which will heighten people’s perception and experience of the landscape. The route ends in a retreat, where Hollie has created different atmospheres in a sequence of spaces along the length of the building through materiality and the manipulation of light.

In September, both students will travel to a congratulatory event in London to celebrate their success and find out if they are this year’s winners.