Submitted by M.L. R. Grove on Thu, 08/12/2022 - 12:25
For more information about the awards and a full list of winners visit: https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/knowledge-landing-page/riba-reveals-winners-of-186th-presidents-medals
Bronze Medal Winner 2022
Out of the Closet, Into the Garden
Part 1 Project 2022
Mary Holmes
University of Cambridge | UK
A space to age in place, to age together, is a privilege that many, particularly those within the queer community, do not have. Learning from the spatial practices of the queer and feminist squatters of the late twentieth century this project explores the possibility of an almshouse for queer elders. It is a deeply personal, emotional project; a chance for me to imagine my own queer utopia. To challenge our current reality through this act of imagination. It is a protest and a provocation within and against a system of architectural education that continues to exclude queer theory, queer practices, from its teaching. It challenges, demands more. Strives through and beyond architecture towards enduring queer grounds. Spaces that we can wander from and return to. A queerness on the horizon.
This manifests in the queering and retrofitting of two rows of terraced houses in the heart of a suburb in Harlow, a town whose hospital only two years ago labelled being queer a mental illness. In this context the love, mutual support and collectivity at the heart of queerness are centred to create an enduring queer space that, despite its location, would not need its users to quieten their queerness.
Mary Holmes
Tutor(s)
Lola Lozano Lara
Elena Palacios Carral
Commendation 2022
Beyond Humanitarianism: From States of Violence to Futures of Care in Northern France
Part 2 Dissertation 2022
Kieran Ka Ming Tam
University of Cambridge | UK
Beyond Humanitarianism makes the case for the urgent adoption of an ethic of universal care in response to the current migrant humanitarian crisis unfolding in at the Anglo-French border. This thesis draws primarily from three months of volunteer experience and situated research in northern France relying on sensory ethnography and participatory methods. I reflect critically on my positionality as both a volunteer and researcher as well as the methodologies used. Using literatures on spatial and structural violence, I interrogate the ways in which the border regime in northern France has engendered a state of everyday violence experienced by both the migrant communities and the local population. A minimalist humanitarian model has proven to be limited in its capacity to alleviate the suffering of migrants, whilst being vulnerable to appropriation by violent states and simultaneously risking the perpetuation of hegemonic power imbalances. Building on existing volunteer- migrant solidarity practices and literatures on ethical care, this thesis speculates on how an urban strategy based on universal care and a politics of presence could enable Calais to recover from decades of urban decline and embrace its inevitable role as a transit point for migrants.
Kieran Ka Ming Tam
Tutor(s)
Julika Gittner
Irit Katz
