Two students were selected for the AJ Student Prize by London South Bank University: Dola Mukta, BA (Hons) Architecture (Undergraduate) and Yianna Moustaka, March (Postgraduate). A big congratulations go out to the students on behalf of the School of BEA.

Dola Mukta, BA (Hons) Architecture (Undergraduate)
Project title Education of Autonomy
Project description In a society where the idea of community is vanishing in between the vastness of tall institutional buildings and skyscrapers, the proposal of a live-work educational centre located near Canary Wharf is a result of the interpretation of socio-economic factors of migrant families in the area, as well as aspiring new entrepreneurs. The research focused on the specifics of the surroundings and the response to these. The architectural approach responds to this data to deliver protected live-work spaces formed by a series of separate buildings used for counselling residents in need, and all facing towards the central market space, a social hub. The centralised space depicts the influence of the Panopticon but is fundamentally different in functionality. By providing housing, trading opportunities, and educational spaces for disadvantaged locals, the project aims to empower the community through education and a business environment.                                                                                                                                   

Tutor citation The brief was to design a live-work unit for entrepreneurs in the Canary Wharf area in order to counter the corporate domination of the market that was once regarded as ‘too big to fail’. Dola’s project shows sensitivity to the local community but at the same time there is architectural ambition with an innovative approach to dealing with the site specifics. Todor Demirov and Daniel Tang.
Yianna Moustaka, March (Postgraduate)
Project title Star Energy: Grosvenor Square
Project description Michal Murawski said: ‘The palace complex is not necessarily a pathology, but also a source of wonder, and a kind of strange and wonderful urban folklore.’ Without memories of any previous function to support its authority, and now relieved of the security systems that added menace to its charisma, Eero Saarinen’s abandoned US embassy building in Grosvenor Square is a forgotten palace, ripe for reinterpretation. This project focuses on the theme of the power and necessity of sunlight, and the beauty of darkness to promote the Dark Sky Movement – a worldwide campaign to reduce light pollution, preserve the natural night sky and celebrate stars in the city. Proposing a mechanism in the form of a ‘light sucker’, a cluster of spheres creates giant urban networks modulating the exposure of sunlight, a machine that absorbs and stores sunlight, and releases it at will.
Tutor citation Yianna‘s work has always worked at many levels; combining instinct with research, and intuition with a strong sense of constructed reality. While her architecture has an extraordinary level of detail, the rigour of her site analysis means that her work is continually controlled, and its development always logical. Yianna contributed so much to every tutorial and was determined to see the poetry in every line she drew. Professor Lilly Kudic and Luke Murray

For more details see the Architects’ Journal here.