RIAI Student Awards

The RIAI Student Awards are free to enter and are open to students from all the recognised programmes of Architecture in Ireland and RIAI accredited programmes in Architectural Technology. The winners are announced each year at the RIAI Annual Conference.

The Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI) announced on 24 November the winners in its Future and Student Awards 2020. The awards, which are open to students of architecture and architectural technology, recognise architectural excellence amongst the student body as well as up and coming talent within the profession.

Winning submissions included a proposal to create a new Citizens Assembly forum in Merrion Square, an innovative way to deal with an accommodation problem in residential context including the adaptive reuse of existing buildings, and a proposal to increase diversity along a river walk in Carlow. UCD, TU Dublin, CCAE and Queen’s University, Belfast, were some of the educational institutions represented by the winning students.

Kathryn Meghen said: “Architects are making an important contribution to our built environment, our culture, society and economy and the RIAI is delighted to support and promote the next generation through our awards schemes. Congratulations from the RIAI to all our Award Winners and those who received Commendations.  The submissions received demonstrated exceptional skill and talent in design and I look forward to seeing the contribution our current students make to the profession in the years to come.”

The RIAI also presented the RIAI Future Award, an award for emerging architects, who have been RIAI registered members for ten years or less. The Future Award recognises a new talent in Irish architecture and acknowledges the wide variety of ways in which architects can contribute to the advancement of architecture. This year’s recipients of the Future Award were Jane Larmour from Arigho Larmour Wheeler Architects and Thomas O’Brien from TOB Architect.  Highly Commended were Noreile Breen and Jack O’Kelly, while Niamh Chambers was Commended.

Sandra Campbell, Director of Education at the RIAI, said: “Driving standards in the architecture profession is a core remit of the RIAI, and this begins with the standard of education in our universities as people first develop their career as architects. Our Student Awards recognise the quality of talent in our third level institutions and this year we had a record number of entries. As architects play a key role in how as a society we tackle climate change, the jury noted positively a significant rise in students’ depth of knowledge on sustainable design.”