RIAI Celebrates the Rising Stars of Irish Architecture at Annual Conference 2025

RIAI Emerging Awards 2025

Awarded in association with the RIAI Journal, Architecture Ireland, and supported by Equitone, the RIAI Emerging Awards seek to recognise emerging talent in Irish Architecture. The RIAI Emerging Awards (formerly the RIAI Future Award) are open for entries to both individuals and practices, owing to the collaborative nature of architectural practice. 

The Jury, consisting of Roisin Heneghen MRIAI (Chair), Steve Larkin MRIAI, Darrragh Breathnach MRIAI and Orla O’Kane MRIAI, was delighted to see entries that showed exceptional skill and talent in a wide range of areas relating to architecture, such as design, practice, public engagement, research, writing, and education.

Ben Mullen MRIAI, Ben Mullen Architects, was announced as the winner of the RIAI Emerging Architect Award 2025, while Charlotte Harris MRIAI, Studio Charlotte Harris was selected as Highly Commended.

Ben Mullen is an architect with a singular focus on materiality and making. That focus drives his architectural practice and leads to investigation of material re-use, material cultures, and of course, making. He pulls together his interests in art and architecture in his beautifully detailed and tactile buildings.

He also demonstrates an interest in the nature of practice and in the processes of drawing, research, exhibition and analysis. This diversity informs his practice, leads to new opportunities and establishes a distinct voice evident in the portfolio.

Jury Citation

Winning the RIAI Emerging Practice Award 2025 is Islander Architects, founded by Laura Carroll MRIAI and Ciarán Molumby MRIAI, while Sketch, founded by John Nolan MRIAI, was selected as Highly Commended.  

What especially distinguished Islander was the range of work and their engagement in all aspects of architecture. There is a consistency to their work that emerges from an underlying commitment to “tackle the climate emergency”. From small built interventions that actively query scale and push for the possibilities in adaptation, to small scale urban, exhibition and writing, theirs is a focused practise that believes in the power of architecture to engage with the broader issues in society.

They are doing exciting work across a number of different spheres and scales and the selection panel is excited to see the work they produce in the future.

Jury Citation

RIAI STUDENT AWARDS 2025

The RIAI is delighted to support the next generation of Architects and Architectural Technologists through our Student Awards. All entries are judged anonymously by separate juries for each of the Awards. The standard of submissions was very high and the juries made awards and commendations. The selected students are receiving cash prizes from our award sponsors.

RIAI Scott Tallon Walker Student Excellence Award for Architecture 2025

This Award, sponsored by Scott Tallon Walker Architects, fosters architectural excellence and is open to students of architecture enrolled in their final thesis year. 

The Jury, consisting of St. John Handley MRIAI (Chair), Owen O'Doherty MRIAI and Dr Siobhán Ní Éanaigh FRIAI (Non-practicing), was greatly impressed by the overall quality of this year’s submissions, which reflected a remarkable breadth of ideas and issues. They noted the maturity and depth with which many students approached contemporary and future design challenges. Together, the entries reveal a generation of emerging architects who are not only skilled in graphic communication, but deeply engaged with questions of community, sustainability, and the transformative potential of design.

Winner: Ryan McCracken, Queen’s University Belfast, Concrete Resistance

Highly Commended: Bushra Mansoor, University College Dublin, Watermarks

Highly Commended: Gus O’Kelly, Technological University Dublin, Life Above Flooding

Commended: Robert Hackett, University College Dublin, In Light of Rain

Commended: Sarah Poole, University College Dublin, Building Habitat

Commended: Eimear Aherne and Leah Walsh, Cork Centre for Architectural Education, University College Cork, Urban Intimacies

RIAI Henry J Lyons Rising Star Award in Architectural Technology Award 2025

This Award, sponsored by Henry J Lyons, recognises an individual third-year student who exemplifies academic excellence and dedication to the field of Architectural Technology in the national context of the Architectural Technologists’ education. 

The Jury, consisting of Emma Hayes MRIAI (Chair), Orla Harte MRIAI and Brian Malone MRIAI, noted that the entries received were of a very high standard.

Winner: Leah Maher, Technological University Dublin, Tech 3200

Highly Commended: Halina Egan, Technological University Dublin, Sports Hall

Highly Commended: Aisling Holton, Technological University Dublin, Primary school sports hall, Drogheda, Co. Meath

Commended: Bobby McNamee, Technological University Dublin, Basketball arena and Sports Centre

RIAI Student Award for Sustainable Design 2025

This award, sponsored by Sika Ireland, recognises the awareness and integration of sustainable design principles by students as an inherent part of their design approach, regardless of scale or complexity. 

The Jury, consisting of Sinéad Hughes MRIAI (Chair), Alan Connolly MRIAI and Karen McEvoy MRIAI, commends the impressive breadth of knowledge demonstrated by the students, which reflects the growing emphasis on sustainability within architectural education. The projects revealed a wide variety of approaches, from material innovation to design strategies aimed at mitigating and adapting to the challenges of climate change.

Winner: Sarah Poole, University College Dublin, Building Habitat

Highly Commended: Matthew Egan, University College Dublin, Second Wind

Highly Commended: Gus O’Kelly, Technological University Dublin, Life above Flooding

Commended: Sophie O’Neill, University College Dublin, Collective Digest

RIAI RKD Student Writing Prize 2025

Awarded in association with the RIAI Journal, Architecture Ireland, and sponsored by RKD, the Student Writing Prize aims to nurture and recognise the importance of writing in architecture. Students enrolled in any year of an eligible Architecture or Architectural Technology Qualification were invited to contribute an article of no more than 1000 words on a theme of their choice – whether a building or a book; an architect or a movement; contemporary or historic.

The Jury consisted of Michael Hayes MRIAI (Chair), Cormac Murray MRIAI, Susan Roundtree FRIAI (Non-practicing) and Eimear Fitzpatrick MRIAI.

Winner: James Mooney, University College Dublin, Essay on Niall McCullough’s Dublin - Creation, Occupation, Destruction

Highly Commended: Vivien Ahern, University of Limerick, Mythical Placemaking

Highly Commended: Bushra Alhoni, Atlantic Technological University Sligo, Where Walls Weep – A piece on Destruction, Defiance, and the Architecture of Return

Commended: Eve Lowry, Queen’s University Belfast, The Concept of Identity Inhibiting Cohesive Public Spaces in Belfast

Commended: Evin Ryan, Technological University Dublin, Architecture and Power in Twentieth Century Ireland

John Meagher Memorial Bursary 2025

The John Meagher Bursary supports a fourth-year architecture student from an RIAI-accredited school to travel to Finland and/or Sweden to study the work of Alvar Aalto, Sigurd Lewerentz and others, in memory of the esteemed Architect, John Meagher, recipient of the RIAI Gold Medal and RIAI Gandon Medal.

Recipient: Brian Ó Curnáin, University College Dublin