Two MArch students, Olivia Hellman and Nikola Yanev, have been jointly awarded first-place in the SPAB Philip Webb Award 2019. This annual national award for recent graduates and Part 2 students at UK Schools of Architecture, presented by The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, encourages and celebrates the sympathetic reuse of old buildings and sensitive new design within historic contexts.
Olivia is a current MArch student who completed her project last academic year within Studio ‘Temporal Places’. Her inventive program for a dairy farm is situated within a former calcining mill in Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent, and thoughtfully builds upon the local history of the building and Potteries region. Once part of a thriving ceramics industry, the mill was previously used to grind up cattle bones to make bone china, whilst the earliest local potters were also farmers, producing pots to support the region’s dairy industry. The project repairs existing built fabric and thoughtfully adds a new layer of architecture that reflects the pottery process of slip-casting, whilst contributing to the mending of place and the surrounding community.
Nikola is a recent MArch graduate who previously completed his project within Studio ‘Histories of Place’. His bold proposals for Old Lane Mill in Halifax, Yorkshire, convert this abandoned textile mill into an algae ‘clean’ energy production plant and education centre. This innovative new use secures a long-term future for the ‘at risk’ historic structure, eliminating the danger of demolition and the associated consequences of waste accumulation and disproportionate carbon emissions, whilst strengthening the area’s identity and generating local economic and social benefits.
