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President’s Medals 2013: New Lohachara

The President’s Medals have been rewarding the best student ideas and drawings since 1836. This year those projects spanned from the archaeology of the future to the social effect of a socialist city and a civic centre for an island community, with intelligent design development and many beautiful drawings along the way. Of 81 schools that entered, this year saw one, the Bartlett, sweep the board with the excellence of its students’ submissions.

 

Serjeant award, Part 2

New Lohachara: A dialogue between man and the (super)natural
Kirsty Badenoch

Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark
Tutors: CJ Lim, Maria Gaardsted, Oliver Wilton, Chris Thurlbourne

 

‘New Lohachara’ is centered on the preservation of disappearing lands and cultures in the face of rising sea levels. The intent of the project is to create an architecture that augments nature: that explores architecture as supernature. 

Constructed in an embrace of water, New Lohachara is dedicated to the ‘saving’ of endangered lands from their similar impending fate of disappearance beneath the rising seas, and in doing so simultaneously revives the ancient civilisation of the lost island of Lohachara. The site of focus for the project is Venice.

The manifestation of supernature within New Lohachara is split into three parts, each of which harnesses or re-engineers a natural condition: Flood Mitigation – Preserving ­Venice by embracing water intake;  Fresh­water Supply – Supplying Venice distillation of floodwater using natural weather principles to create a ‘supernatural’ weather system; ­Microclimate – Re-Establishing Lohachara ­using the power of the water intake and processing, the creation of a hot, humid microclimate within a temperate macroclimate recreates the environment of Lohachara’s tropical Indian homeland within the Venetian context

The new water cycle: drained floodwater is processed from brackish to fresh water and stored at the base of the well, periodically distilled and heated it rises as steam, collects into clouds and force-precipitated over Venice to be collected as local fresh water.
The new water cycle: drained floodwater is processed from brackish to fresh water and stored at the base of the well, periodically distilled and heated it rises as steam, collects into clouds and force-precipitated over Venice to be collected as local fresh water.

Part 2 Judges

Roz Barr, founder of Roz Barr Architects
David Gloster, RIBA director of education
Elena Marco, associate head of department, architecture, UWE
David Rieser, 2012 Silver Medal winner, ACME

 

Commendations

Evolution of a Building: The unexplored potential of a sugar factory in Sofia
Vladislav Velkov

University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Bulgaria 
Tutor: Milena Metalkova

Outer City Settlement: reassessing the suburban situation of Hampstead Garden Suburb
Amy Perkins

London Metropolitan University
Tutors: Peter St John; Rod Heyes
SOM Foundation commendation

 

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