AJ Student Prize 2022: Queen’s University Belfast

About the School of Natural and Built Environment

Location Belfast • Courses BSc (Hons) Architecture, MArch • Head of school Sarah Lappin • Full-time tutors 21 • Part-time tutors 17 • Students 300 • Staff to student ratio 1:13

Undergraduate

Malgorzata Migut

Course BSc (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief Time out of Time 2022: Hope Street
Project title Sandy Grow

Project description This project explores the use of temporary greenhouses as a ‘taster’ introduction to self-sustaining neighbourhoods in the heart of Belfast. It proposes replacing the site’s contaminated soil with a new topography of internal and external spaces for community gardening. A market-like façade along Wellwood Street invites pedestrians to move between the city centre and a neighbouring transport hub. The aim is to construct housing on part of the site to house 66,000 people within 10 years and the proposal is phased so that a series of greenhouses and allotments will remain on site, bringing together existing and new residents.

Tutor citation This project draws attention to a set of spatial, social and political issues unique to Belfast. Malgorzata managed to respond to these concerns with a brave, surprising and beautiful proposal backed by practicality and consideration of the climate emergency. Rachel O’Grady and Fearghal Murray

Postgraduate

Darcy Carroll

Course MArch
Studio/unit brief Inhabited Thickness
Project title Spatial Negotiation Through Projection

Project description This thesis aims to investigate techniques of projection when designing and representing architecture. The themes explored include: utilisation and manipulation of projection to develop a general arrangement that evokes intrigue, the influence of the Surrealist movement on geometry, and the notion of parallax in establishing plasticity of movement. These are investigated in two conceptual studies: an urban fabric condition in Belfast City Centre; and, by contrast, within a forested cemetery in Dusseldorf. The projects translate as a composition of connected spaces that unfold as the observer negotiates space.

Tutor citation Darcy’s thesis starts on an observation of an intuitive preference and skill (implicit knowledge), this is then analysed (surfaced as explicit knowledge), and then this hypothesis is tested on a spatial proposal of landscape and built elements. Michael McGarry and Susie Brown