The prestigious 2013 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship has been awarded to one of our Architecture & Civil Engineering students.
The award was made by a jury, chaired by Lord Foster and attracted applications from students at over 40 universities in 13 countries.
Sigita Burbulyte impressed the jury with her proposal titled ‘Charles Booth Going Abroad’, which takes the poverty maps of Victorian social reformer Charles Booth as a starting point for an exploration of slum communities across four continents.
The Scholarship will provide Sigita with £6,000 to develop her research study, allowing her to travel to modern cities like Hanoi, Nairobi, La Paz and Sofia, building on Booth’s pioneering research and aiming to better understand poverty in cities.
Lord Foster said: “Once again, the jury was impressed by the quality of all the entries. However, we were unanimous in choosing Sigita Burbulyte’s highly original approach to urban analysis, which learns from the past and recognises the importance of infrastructure, in physically shaping a community.
“Perhaps most interestingly, the mapping of the relationship between slum areas and their wider urban context is a move toward defining and transforming these informal settlements. She has set herself an ambitious task, which I expect will absorb her in years to come – I am delighted that the scholarship can support her as she embarks on this fascinating journey.”
Professor Tim Ibell, Head of our Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering, said: “The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship is an extremely competitive and highly sought-after award which provides funding for a student to undertake international study. For Sigita, winning this scholarship is an impressive accolade that will give her an opportunity to explore an extremely interesting field of research.”
RIBA President Angela Brady said: “The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship continues to set the bar high with innovative and impressive winning projects. Our 2013 winner, Sigita Burbulyte excels in this with her project ‘Charles Booth Going Abroad’.”
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