Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021 Winner, RIBA World Architecture Travel Prize

2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship News

Royal Institute of British Architects News – open to schools of architecture globally

15 July 2021

Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021 Winner

Weronika Zdziarska wins 2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship

Architecture student Weronika Zdziarska:

photo : Tomek Kaczor

Thursday 15th of July 2021 – The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is pleased to announce the 2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient as Weronika Zdziarska, an architecture student from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, for her project ‘Don’t Stay Out Alone: addressing women’s perception of safety and freedom in cities by design’.

The annual scholarship offers £7,000 to fund research by one outstanding architecture student who demonstrates original thinking on issues relating to the sustainable survival of cities and towns.

Weronika Zdziarska:

photo : Tomek Kaczor

Zdziarska’s project will evaluate previous interventions carried out by international, regional and local organisations in South America, to improve the safety of women in cities. Five cities have been selected for evaluation, each representing different attitudes and responses to this area of research: Medellín, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; Santiago, Chile; Montevideo, Uruguay and Curitiba, Brazil.

The proposal seeks to demonstrate the relationships between gender inequality and design, and to outline best practices for building more inclusive cities.
The judging panel also commended ‘Biofuel Producing Technology; Algae: An Alternative Energy Source’ by Basant Abdelrahman from the American University in Dubai, UAE.

The 2021 judging panel comprised of:

• Norman Foster, Lord Foster of Thames Bank (Founder and Executive Chairman, Foster + Partners; President, Norman Foster Foundation)
• Elena Ochoa, Lady Foster of Thames Bank (Publisher and curator; Vice-President, Norman Foster Foundation)
• Professor Ricky Burdett (Professor of Urban Studies, and director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age Programme; Trustee, Norman Foster Foundation)
• Sofie Pelsmakers (Assistant Professor Sustainable Architecture and Sustainable Housing Design, Tampere University; Co-founder & Director, Architecture for Change (AfC))
• Professor Alan Jones (President, RIBA)

Student Weronika Zdziarska:

photo : Tomek Kaczor

Lord Foster said:
“The Jury was unanimous in its selection of Weronika Zdziarska’s submission as the winner. Her methodology was impressive, and her project was beautifully presented. Her decision to explore issues of gender in the public spaces of just Latin America demonstrated a sophistication in her early research which differentiated her work from that of her worthy fellow applicants.”

RIBA President Professor Alan Jones said:
“Zdziarska’s proposal was very well structured and presented, with her focus on exploring and learning from South American urban environments that have improved inclusion and safety and increased gender equality in design. As a judging panel we were inspired by her initial research and pertinence of the proposal, and her drive to investigate and address these issues on an international scale. Congratulations on this winning project – I look forward to seeing the findings of this important research.”

29 Mar 2021

Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021 News

RIBA opens 2021 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship for applications

Weaving the Urban Fabric: Examining the Significance of Community:

photo © Abel Feleke – 2016 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient

Monday 29 March 2021 – The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has today (Monday 29 March 2021) opened applications for the 2021 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship.

The scholarship seeks to reward one architecture student and fund their travel to explore the sustainable survival of cities and towns.

This year, in response to global travel restrictions, students can alternatively submit a proposal to research a topic in their home country. Applications are welcomed from students around the world and a £7,000 grant will be awarded to the winner, decided by a panel of judges including Lord Foster and RIBA President Alan Jones.

Lord Foster said:

“As a student I won a prize that allowed me to spend a summer travelling through Europe and to study first hand buildings and cities that I knew only from the pages of books. It was a revelation – liberating and exhilarating in so many ways. Today it is the privilege of the Norman Foster Foundation to support the RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship, which I hope will have a lasting legacy – offering the chance for discovery and the inspiration for exciting new work – for generations to come.”

RIBA President Alan Jones added:

“The prestigious Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship gives aspiring architects the chance to carry out important research, addressing global challenges and the sustainable future of our towns and cities. Students need support now more than ever, and we are very grateful to the Norman Foster Foundation for their ongoing generosity to make this grant possible.”

Applications are open to students who are enrolled in, or have successfully completed, the first year of a professional qualification in architecture, in one of the higher education institutions invited to participate.

The deadline for submissions is 17:00 Friday 28 May 2021. For more information visit: www.architecture.com/fosterscholarship

First established in 2006, the scholarship, supported by the Norman Foster Foundation, is now in its fifteenth year and is intended to fund national or international research on a topic related to the sustainable survival of our towns and cities, in a location of the student’s choice. Past RIBA Norman Foster Scholars have travelled through the Americas, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle and the Far East, and Russia. Proposals for research might include: learning from the past to inform the future; the future of society; the density of settlements; sustainability; the use of resources; the quality of urban life; and transport.

Over 400 higher education institutions are invited to participate, and this list includes all institutions that offer qualifications validated by the RIBA or are recognised by the Commonwealth Association of Architects; it also includes a large number of schools listed under other recognition systems (such as the European Directive for Recognition of Professional Qualifications in the EU, or the National Architectural Accreditation Board in the US).

RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship Winners

Past recipients of the RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship:

2020: Iulia Cistelecan – London School of Architecture – ‘‘Life Between Shelters: Refugee camps of today becoming cities of tomorrow.’

2019: Siti Nurafaf Ismail – University of Malaya, Malaysia – ‘Architecture of Humility’

2018: Steven Hutt – University of Greenwich, UK – ‘East of Eden’

2017: Chloe Loader – University of Lincoln, UK – ‘Emerging Cities: Sustainable Master-Planning in the Global South’

2016: Abel Feleke – University of Western Australia – ‘Weaving the Urban Fabric: Examining the Significance of Community’

2015: Charles Palmer – University of Sheffield, UK – ‘Cycling Megacities’

2014: Joe Paxton – Bartlett (UCL), UK – ‘Buffer Landscapes 2060

2013: Sigita Burbulyte – Bath University, UK – ‘Charles Booth Going Abroad’

2012: Thomas Aquilina – University of Edinburgh – ‘Material Economies: Recycling Practices in Informal Settlements Along African Longitude 30’

2011: Sahil Bipin Deshpande – Rizvi College of Architecture, India – ‘Sanitation: A Case Study across Eight Metropolises’

2010: Andrew Mackintosh – Robert Gordon University, UK – ‘In Search of Cold Spaces’

2009: Amanda Rivera – University of Bio Bio, Chile – ‘Ancestral Cities, Ancestral Sustainability’

2008: Faizan Jawed Siddiqi – Rizvi College of Architecture, India – ‘The Role of Public Transport in Shaping Sustainable Humane Habitats’

2007: Ben Masterton-Smith – Bartlett, UK – ‘Emerging East: Exploring and Experiencing the East Asian Communist City’.

Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD

Phone: +44 (0)20 7307 3814

The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021 information / image received 290321

Previously on e-architect:

RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship

2022 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship

2022 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship

Iulia Cistelecan wins 2020 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship

The 2020 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship has been awarded to Iulia Cistelecan, from the London School of Architecture, for her project ‘Life Between Shelters: Refugee camps of today becoming cities of tomorrow’.

RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2020

Bidibidi Refugee Settlement is a refugee camp in northwestern Uganda:

photograph : Nora Lorek

The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2019

Hong Kong Peak © Steven Hutt – 2018 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient:

image courtesy of architects
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2019

The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2017

image courtesy of architects
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2017

Norman Foster

photo of Norman Foster from HPA
Norman Foster is one of the most important architects practicing in the world. He is chairman and founder of Foster + Partners, an international practice with project offices worldwide.