RIBA Silver medal commendation
Four of our MArch students - Bethany Clarkson, Xhesika Biçaku, Sam Beckwith Flint and Tom Dutton - have won one of the five RIBA part 2 awards this year.
The Consumption of Landscape. A Grand Tour for the 21st Century was judged "one of the best design projects produced in the last academic year worldwide”. In his opening remarks, RIBA President Muyiwa Oki welcomed a record number of entries, more than 150 for the Part 2 submission, which makes the award even more significant.
The thesis explores the contemporary consumption of land by the built environment and the experiential 'consumption' of landscape by people. Alongside speculative and indiscriminate building construction during the second half of the 20th century in Rome, one main manifestation of 'consumption' is mass tourism in the city. The thesis employs a methodology to re-invent and re-design landscape with an informed understanding of the tradition. It traces the itineraries of 17th & 18th-century European aristocracy and modern visitors alike and proposes a decentralised approach to tourism to ease pressure on Rome's historic centre.
The students were part of Studium Urbis, 5th year research group lead by Dr Marco Iuliano with James Jones and Valentino Capelo (architects at Sheppard Robson and part time tutors). It included a field trip to Rome supported by the University of Liverpool global opportunity programme. You can see an the excerpt of the ceremony here. Congratulations!