RIBA President's Awards for Research 2019

The President’s Awards for Research celebrate the best research in the fields of architecture and the built environment.

The 2019 RIBA President’s Medal for Research was presented to the winner of the History and Theory category: Dr Tania Sengupta of the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London for ‘Papered Spaces: Clerical Practices, Materialities and Spatial Cultures of Provincial Governance in Bengal, Colonial India, 1820s-1860s’.

Dr Sengupta’s research examines the architecture, spaces and material culture associated with colonial paper-bureaucracy in Bengal. Focusing on the colonial cutcherry (office complex) that formed the centre of its zilla sadar (provincial administrative) towns, she looks at the roles, spatial relationships and design developments of such ‘papered spaces’ as record rooms and clerical offices.

Find out more about ‘Papered Spaces: Clerical Practices, Materialities and Spatial Cultures of Provincial Governance in Bengal, Colonial India, 1820s-1860s’.

The Research Medal is awarded to the best work from the winners of the four categories: Cities and Community; Design and Technical; History and Theory; and the annual theme, which this year was ‘Building in Quality’.

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Image: Cutcherry, Munger, 1860s, by unknown photographer. Copyright: The British Library Board, Photo 798(94)

Cities and community

• The Gulf in Bosnia and Herzegovina: An (Un)Intentional Consequence of Peace
Dr Mirna Pedalo, Goldsmiths, University of London
• Investigating Urban Conflict and Reciprocity Between Chicala and Luanda, Angola
Dr Paulo Moreira, London Metropolitan University/University of Lisbon
• Between, below, behind: An ontology of small urban spaces in Hong Kong
Dr Ivan Valin, Xiaoxuan Lu, Susanne Trumpf, The University of Hong Kong

Design and technical

• Cork Construction Kit
Oliver Wilton, University College London and Matthew Barnett Howland, CSK Architects
• Defornocere
Prof David Coley, University of Bath
• Energy Performance Gaps in Residences in the UK: An analysis of the variables that create energy gaps
Amrutha Kishor, University of Nottingham

History and theory

• Papered Spaces: Clerical Practices, Materialities and Spatial Cultures of Provincial Governance in Colonial India
Dr Tania Sengupta, University College London
• Hans Hollein: Postmodernism Culturally Reconsidered
Dr Eva Branscome, University College London
• The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy Architect
Prof Kester Rattenbury, University of Westminster
• Spaces Of Transcultural Resistance: Alterity in the Design Practices of Lina Bo Bardi and Alison and Peter Smithson
Dr Jane Hall, Assemble

Annual theme: Building in quality

• Providing Care Quality by Design: A New Measure to Assess Hospital Ward Layouts
Rosica Pachilova & Dr Kerstin Sailer, University College London
• Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate
Tumpa Fellows, Mannan Foundation Trust and University of Westminster
• Building in Quality of Life Retirement-Living
Dr Sam Clark, Newcastle University

RIBA Presidents Awards for Research 2017

RIBA Presidents Awards for Research 2016