Congratulations to Matthew Downey and Emmanuel Owusu, students here at the Kent School of Architecture who have both received prizes for excellence from the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Matthew, 24, was the winner of the Diploma Prize at Kent and Emmanuel, 20, was the winner of the Degree Prize at Kent. They both received their prizes from Derek Nicholson, Chair of RIBA West Kent Branch at the School of Architecture’s recent End of Year Show. The Prizes are designed to celebrate the talent of architecture students at the University.
RIBA has stated that the judges were impressed with Matthew’s project, which was a design for Millennium Mills – a derelict 20th century flour mill in London’s Docklands. Matthew proposed a new building as a trade centre that would integrate a mixture of societies, combined with a centre for monitoring immigration. ‘By integrating different technical approaches adopted from a culture’s native way of life, such as their traditional construction methods and materials, the cultures can come together to represent a community.’
The judges were excited by Emmanuel’s project, which was a design for an extension to the Centre for Urban Culture in Lille. La Maison Du Hip-Hop aims to celebrate the rise of contemporary hip-hop in Lille and in France as a whole and is dedicated to the professional development of hip-hop artists. The project would rejuvenate an area that suffers from high unemployment and declining manufacturing industries. As Emmanuel says, ‘Inspired by the spontaneity of the street dance battle, the scheme aims to contribute to the great strides taken by Lille to be one of the foremost French and European cities’.
Matthew has just completed his MArch Part 2 course towards qualifying as an architect at the University of Kent and Emmanuel has just graduated from the University of Kent with a BA (Hons) in Architecture, we wish him both all the best for the future.