AJ Student Prize 2024

The Architects Journal reveals all entries to this year's AJ Student Prize, showcasing the work of architecture students and universities

The AJ Student Prize celebrates the talent of students completing undergraduate and postgraduate architecture courses. 

Undergraduate Nominee - Chloë Maestre Bridger

Studio/unit brief Watershed
Project title Don’t Play Too Close to the Edge

Project description The river and the shore have a mutual relationship of respect, boundaries and repercussion. However, this relationship has worsened over time, with dramatic flooding, rising temperatures and overabundance of fish farms. Despite this, water continually provides humans with a vital material – seaweed. This can be taken to produce biodegradable materials and sustainable building fabrics in this ‘Seaweed Bio-hub’ facility. However, humans grow greedy; the seaweed is over-farmed until the ecological balance is broken. The waters darken, fish numbers reduce. Humans face the repercussions of their actions.

Tutor citation Chloë’s project takes the form of a parable, describing how a well-intentioned intervention succumbs to greed, disturbing the balance between town/mankind and sea/nature. The controlled design occupies these thresholds with contrasting orthogonal and curvilinear geometries. John Kinsey, Fiona McNeill

Postgraduate Nominee - Charlotte Ashford

Studio/unit brief Quarrying a New Vernacular: A Material-Centred Approach to Place-Making
Project title Down to Earth: Crafting the Perfect Imperfect 

Project description This project explores weathering via a series of interventions along Northumberland’s coastline. A bothy is used to experiment with crafting buildings that harmonise with nature’s cycles. At Dustanburgh Castle, the project provides rammed earth shelters as a testing ground to observe how these materials behave over time and under different climatic and environmental stresses. By learning from the landscape, the site will grow over five years, each move developing from how the previous installation has responded to being in situ.

Tutor citation An extremely perceptive and rigorous approach to material and structural studies, this project involves a deep understanding of geomorphological processes and geological formations – and suggests ways of a respectful stewardship of these life cycles of earth materiality. Christos Kakalis, Niki-Marie Jansson

Find out more