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. Find more information here.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- For further press information contact Emily.Stallard@riba.org +44 (0) 20 7580 3813
- If you are a student interested in applying you can find out more information here.
- 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, South East 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.
- The list of higher education institutions invited to nominate students is selected by the RIBA and can be found here. 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).
- 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’.
- The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a global professional membership body that serves its members and society in order to deliver better buildings and places, stronger communities and a sustainable environment. Follow @RIBA on Twitter for regular updates
