AJ Student Prize Sustainability Award 2023 – the shortlist

The AJ Student Prize celebrates the talent of students graduating from undergraduate and postgraduate architecture courses. Here we are proud to present the nominees for the 2023 Sustainability Award.

Against the background of the climate emergency, it’s the breadth and the depth of thought and research behind the work entered for this year’s prize that has particularly impressed. 

What is particularly heartening is that, while these projects are often about a lightness of footprint and a minimising of material and built form, they are not reductive nor austere in their breadth of imagination or exuberance of invention. Expressive, even fantastical, forms are supported by robust understanding of material properties and detailing – from the growing of structural mycelium exoskeletons to a whole new architectural language generated from recycled plastic. 

This is the work of students whose ability to synthesise and spark off the very real challenges and constraints of what will be needed to practise in these days is exceptional. It reflects the increasing bandwidth of skills they will need to arm themselves with as they become the future of the profession.

Sponsored by Marley, the AJ Student Prize celebration event will be held on 12 October 2023 at Perkins & Will’s offices at 150 Holborn, London – click here for free tickets.

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Anastasija Grigorjeva, undergraduate, Coventry University

Course BSc (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief Comprehensive Design
Project title Metamorphosis

Project description Metamorphosis passes on the memory of the planet to future generations by providing the opportunity to subjectively experience the fundamental skills of ancestors and convert them into knowledge. This learning and sharing experience is achieved through engaging in diverse on-site activities, which are selected to highlight Birmingham’s different stages of development. The landscape is altered to bring people closer to the river – the roots of traditional human settlement. This further helps to control flooding and remediate the soil on the site. The building is designed to grow on site, starting with soil remediation and tree planting forming fundamental columns, then building the exoskeleton using growing trees and mycelium. Finally, the filler spaces inside the exoskeleton are designed to be adaptive and replaceable if needed. Metamorphosis represents the adaptation of Birmingham to constant change and development, which led to its blossoming, bringing Birmingham closer to its utopian idea of the butterfly.

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Sam Tipping, postgraduate, Leeds Beckett University

Course MArch
Studio/unit brief Displace Non-place
Project title The Elderly Foundation

Project description Cape Coral, Florida, has been hit by six hurricanes in its short 60-year lifespan. The most recent and destructive – Hurricane Ian – submerged the city in 3.5m of storm surge floodwater and ripped rooftops off buildings, with the city’s elderly residents most affected. The project aims to help this elderly population before, during and after hurricanes. The foundation acts as a social gathering hub, offering intergenerational workshops/kitchens where the elderly can teach new skills to the young – reducing loneliness. When a hurricane hits, the foundation enters lockdown mode offering shelter in the communal accommodation. As it passes, the foundation enters after-care mode by offering support groups and a canal dock is activated to distribute food across the city. Looking to the future, where hurricanes are likely to increase in frequency, the design has future-proofing features, from a raised electrical tram system to kinetic louvre systems and overlapping mesh hosting native Spanish moss. This louvre system uses kinetic axial rotation to enter lockdown mode when a hurricane hits.

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Eve Bembo, postgraduate, London Metropolitan University

Course MArch
Studio/unit brief Poetic Pragmatism I: Housing in the Hinterlands of Hackney (Unit 7)
Project title The Convenient House

Project description This project is a proposal for 33 new homes for social rent on the Suffolk Estate, Hackney, split across three buildings. Silver birch trees and low-level native planting improve the biodiversity of the urban site while mitigating surface flooding. Dowel-laminated timber (DLT) forms the primary structure of walls and floors. DLT contains no additional fixings or glue so can be more easily recycled at end of life. Steel and concrete are used strategically, recognising their sustained importance in avoiding the overconsumption of timber. Communal solar panels and air-source heat pumps on the roof of each building are connected to services. Every unit is dual-aspect with all rooms naturally lit and ventilated while overheating is reduced through shutters and external blinds. The affordance of multiple family structures and lifestyles is an integral principle. Plans are spatially flexible so one type can accommodate many different households and remain appropriate as needs change over time. 

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Harvey Cantrell, undergraduate, Loughborough University

Course BArch
Studio/unit brief AAA – Architecture in the Anthropocene Age
Project title The ThemePark Factory

Project description Seeking to reinstate a new awareness of food production to Woolwich, the ThemePark Factory proposes a horticulture centre dedicated to the reverse engineering of crop domestication, capable of providing the community with the ingredients, tools, expertise and space to celebrate but also adapt their relationship with crops. The rewilding of crops will allow the marginal space of the city to become productive again, despite the busy schedule of the city-dweller, as the interrogation and unravelling of human-crop interdependencies is explored through a new botanical-industrial architectural language incorporating low-tech user operations and the performance of growing processes. The scheme consists of three key elements: the centre for the growing of crops, plants and biomaterial recycling; a framework for market adaptation; and a small temporary accommodation unit to reduce the current realities of home displacement in Woolwich.

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Adam Nightingale, postgraduate, Northumbria University

Course Architect Degree Apprenticeship Level 7
Studio/unit brief Realisation (DP4)
Project title Pottery Lane Earthworks

Project description Situated on Pottery Lane along the Tyne, this project adopts a cradle-to-cradle approach using excavation waste from local construction sites, which would usually go to landfill, to create prefabricated rammed-earth blocks – a low carbon, locally sourced building material – to be used in nearby construction projects. The scheme is a modern interpretation of a brickworks. Its components are designed to reflect the processes that take place within. Blocks are dried via natural ventilation in the sculptural chimney that also serves as a visual monument. The project’s first phase is a site clean-up, using phytoremediation to extract toxins from the soil. This progressive and sustainable approach also benefits flora and fauna habitats. Once cleaned, the soil can be used to construct the building. The earthworks also include a self-build prototype housing scheme to rebuild communities lost to deindustrialisation, while reskilling workers through the building of their own homes. 

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Declan Wain, postgraduate, The London School of Architecture

Course MArch in Designing Architecture
Studio/unit brief Design Thesis/Synthesis
Project title Losing the Plot

Project description The project asks: can we promote equitable and democratised development of our shared environments by fostering a fully inclusive participatory planning process? The UK government’s current housebuilding strategy will consume 104 per cent, annually, of England’s cumulative carbon budget up to 2050. Within this context, this project proposes an alternative housing model for a vacant site on Hackney’s Kingsland Road. It includes both a new material and construction approach where the community are generators of the project. It proposes a ‘use it or lose it’ amendment to planning policy that empowers local authorities to take ownership of plots of land remaining undeveloped after three years. Once implemented through a Community Land Trust, vacant sites quickly transform into fertile spaces, promoting productivity and community engagement through the cultivation of hemp. Framed ‘beacon towers’ are installed and play a role in the site’s development, using hempcrete constructed and grown on-site, and forming inclusive spaces for community interaction. Through this change in land policy, engaging participatory toolkits and exploring hempcrete as a construction material, residents take agency of the design and construction of 48 dwellings. The role of the architect is revised as shepherd of an environmental framework that takes a phased approach. 

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Chia-Yi Chou, postgraduate, The Bartlett School of Architecture

Course MArch
Studio/unit brief Future Fictions (PG11)
Project title Silvertown Battery Park

Project description The project is inspired by Salomon’s House, a fictional scientific institute imagined by Francis Bacon, envisioning a future that lives with the benefits of science and technology. The project reimagines Silvertown Quay as a scientific testing ground within a public parkscape. Silvertown Battery Park is imagined as an innovative energy infrastructure that could also provide a vibrant public space for the local community. The proposal is conceived at a variety of scales through a series of bespoke and performative ‘battery’ buildings, connected via a blanket of solar panels and walkways. The energy park landscape folds into its surrounding context through a series of street-scale interventions. Parks and gatehouses emerge from the site’s periphery, energy clouds at the nodes float up and down throughout the charging process, and mechanical trees open and glow when absorbing surplus energy.

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Shan Wei Chew, postgraduate, University of Bath

Course MArch
Studio/unit brief Regenerative Cities
Project title The Udaipur Plastic School

Project description In the past decade, the amount of unrecycled plastic produced by Udaipur is equal to the weight of the Taj Mahal (80,000 tonnes). Yet consumption of ‘virgin’ plastic is still increasing, entering a ‘plastocene’ in which man-made polymers are registering on a geological scale. Its chemical composition is virtually unchanged before and after its use. So why isn’t this material, so durable, so ubiquitous, being used to make buildings? This project envisions a second life for Udaipur’s waste plastic as pavements, shelters and buildings. Achieving this would need facilities, research and a cultural shift in how we treat waste. The scheme is arranged around two public streets lined with the functions of plastic recycling, and inviting participation. At the same time, to accelerate a future without plastic use at all, the landscape provides material for prototyping bioplastics. Waste and carbon are sequestered through the building’s materials: concrete made with waste slag and plastics and recycled plastic used in the bricks and rainscreen cladding.

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Kallum Lightfoot, postgraduate, University of Sheffield

Course MArch
Studio/unit brief Landscape + Urbanism
Project title Biodiversity Action Hub

Project description In response to the UK’s rampant loss of biodiversity, this project aims to rewild our urban environments by opposing unecological developments and fighting to improve biodiversity through protest. A series of brownfield sites along the River Maun in Mansfield are occupied by local activists to create a wild corridor through the town centre. The sites are allowed to grow into rich, natural habitats while their occupation leads to the construction of the Biodiversity Action Hub. The hub features spaces for organising, and immersive and sensory teaching spaces within the landscape to educate visitors about the importance of wildlife and biodiversity. The architecture places nature at the heart of design. Many of the construction materials are grown or sourced on site and built by the activist group. Living habitat façades weaved from willow invite nature on to the buildings, which become overtaken with wildlife. The architecture slowly decays until, ultimately, nature is the final occupant. 

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Kacper Sehnke, undergraduate, University of Westminster

Course BA (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief ECOmmunity (DS3.2)
Project title Council for Ecological Restoration

Project description The Council for Ecological Restoration’s goal is to blur the boundary between the built and natural worlds while also shifting global perceptions and stimulating discussions on the decline of the environment. The initiative advocates for the creation of large, protected areas and the implementation of sustainable resource management practices, ensuring the long-term resilience of the planet. The building serves as a platform for political discussions and ecological research. Its primary objective is to promote the regrowth of native flora and restore the local ecology. The architecture incorporates recycled timber sourced from consumer objects and end-of-life projects. Throughout its life cycle, it undergoes various stages of occupancy and, at the end of its life, the building materials are returned to the forest, contributing to on-site nutrient cycles through decomposition.

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