img(height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=2939831959404383&ev=PageView&noscript=1")

Serjeant Award & SOM Foundation Fellowship

Benjamin Ferns

Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Tutors: Matthew Butcher, Elizabeth Dow, Jonathan Hill


 

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, established in 1603 with Galileo as chair, is relocated to the City of London to provide a  new education system to tackle the Square Mile’s lack of moral purpose.

The Academy is a monochrome mass of libraries and ritualistic lecture spaces set in a landscape to induce physical and metaphysical wandering, meeting and reflection.  Three environments are provided, inspired by the core natural elements of mountain (for isolation and reflection), river (wandering and activity) and valley (gathering).

The use of a monochrome palette within the academy with materials such as Travertine and Basalt increases capacity in the area of the human brain responsible for learning and perception. This offsets the red and gold of the papal robes.

123

Libraries include the Casina di Studio Little House of Study, set in a vertical landscape for wandering. Veneer construction is a metaphor for the ephemeral interpretation of Academy publications. The Casina Della Conoscenza Door of the Little House of Knowledge leads to formal and informal meeting spaces and a scientific experiment fabrication workshop. An Apostolic Auditorium includes a confession pool to ritualistically clear the mind before debate.

Although allegorical to the Vatican, the proposal goes beyond a religious or scientific typology and deliberately refuses an immediate reading.


Return to the main President's Medals page

Latest

On a local project to extend and rationalise a 16th-century building that was once an alehouse, the Hertfordshire practice overcame challenges posed by previous piecemeal additions to create a remarkable old-meets-new home

A 16th-century home that was once an alehouse gets a remarkable old-meets-new makeover

Towers should be the built embodiment of Gulf cities' ambitions and values, both on the skyline and at street level, writes Kourosh Salehi, whose practice is designing the DIFC Living high-rise scheme in Dubai

Towers should be the built embodiment of Gulf cities' ambitions and values, says Dubai architect Kourosh Salehi

The RIBA president elect and founding partner of Weston Williamson reports from a recent visit to a boutique hotel he designed in Spain, which provides a variety of courses and cultural activities

The RIBA president elect reports from a recent visit to a boutique hotel he designed in Andalucia

A recent court case involving WhatsApp messages provides a wake-up call for architects to review their communications with clients

A recent court case involving WhatsApp messages provides a wake-up call for architects to review their communications with clients

Extend an historic subterranean venue, create a garden zone in a city square, lead two projects on a former Harland & Wolf industrial site - some of the latest architecture contracts and competitions from across the industry

Latest: Victorian subway extension