SRA are very proud of Eve Howe, who along with her Bath University project group, has been nominated for an RIBA Bronze Medal for this years President Medals Awards, for their ‘The Retrofit Institute’ design project.
The judging of the 2024 RIBA Bronze Medal will take place tomorrow, on 8 October 2024, with the winners announced on the 4 December 2024.
We wish Eve Howe Jack Johnson Louise Gogstead Johanna Lupp Paul Scott Matthew Rochester Christian Best and her group the best of luck for the judging.
#BathUniversity #Presidentsmedals #Architecture #awards #Architecturestudents
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‘The Retrofit Institute’ by Eve Howe
Brief:
Entitled Industria, the brief was for a new HE institute combined with industry innovation hub in Swindon for 5,750 students (120 of whom live on-site), and 175 full-time staff members – each student group was to name their ‘institute’ – we chose The Retrofit Institute.
The proposed building acts as the public face for a regional university and industry collaboration, focusing on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Maths) fields. Student groups were able to propose suitable partnerships of technical companies to populate the site as befitted their vision and the broader ongoing regeneration of Swindon.
Each group decided their building’s organisational logic. Key questions addressed were:
How are existing models of technical/vocational education challenged?
How does the architecture embody these new ideas
My Description:
‘Swindon lacks facilities that excite young people about their future.’ The stagnation of the town’s railway industry meant many residents lost not only their jobs but their hopes and motivations too. Sited adjacent to the derelict 1855 Mechanics Institute, which was once a beacon for teaching and innovation, The Retrofit Institute will regenerate local job opportunities by embracing future technology as a tool rather than competition in labour-intensive sectors.
Inspired by fungal mycelia’s cross-pollination of knowledge, natural building material research labs enriched by workshops to up-skill construction professionals will promote research and development into sustainable solutions for retrofitting buildings. The mycelium cycle and a cycle of production relate to the spatial arrangement of the institute. Spaces are encompassed within three phases: Grow, Build and Display. Following these phases best explains the scheme. The unconventional material library serves as the public face, showcasing the institute’s catalogue of research. Over time, this will inhabit the accommodation blocks, whose waste is used to fertilise natural building products grown in the laboratories. These products are then tested at small scale in the details and structures workshops. Sitting at the heart of the scheme spatially, thermally and structurally is the 1:1 prototyping workshop, where larger mock-ups are showcased externally for all to see.
