SCOSA Architectural Education Awards
2025 Winners
Sara Shafiei – Bartlett
"Sara has led two initiatives that support both staff and students. She co-developed a support programme for academic staff, with a focus on those from underrepresented backgrounds. Through workshops and mentoring—prioritising women, LGBTQI+ staff, Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff, and those with disabilities—over 200 colleagues have received tailored guidance. This has led to a measurable increase in successful senior promotions and helped foster a culture where underrepresented staff feel valued and supported.
She has also co-launched and solely coordinates Bartlett Alternative—an evolving, interactive education platform that amplifies underrepresented voices and agendas in architecture and the built environment. This online curriculum hub is a space where students and staff contribute to a more inclusive and representative knowledge base. Its Library and Laboratory sections celebrate diverse references and work produced by students and staff, while flattening hierarchies through open, community-led contributions. The platform has become a vital educational resource within and beyond UCL.
Together, these initiatives focus on inclusion, recognition, and curriculum diversity. "
Austin Williams – Kingston
"Professional Practice Podcasts are a free programme of interviews with leading expert commentators about the practice of architecture and construction matters.
The regulatory and policy guidelines for architects and other construction professionals is changing at a confusingly rapid pace and these podcasts have been developed as bite-sized content providing in-depth insight into a range of important topics: from the Building Safety Act to planning enforcement; from Fire Regulations to structural safety; from Employee Ownership Trusts to Dispute Resolution.
Originally devised as additional value-added content for the Kingston School of Art Part 3 course, it has expanded into a free-to-air service available to anyone who cares to listen, university students, faculty or practitioners. There are often not enough hours in the day to learn about the subjects that we would like, so this educational resource hopes to fill the gaps and to address various topics of contemporary practical application.
The interviewees give their time freely; while I organise, script, host, edit and post the programmes online and on social media on a regular basis. We now have around 1,000 listeners per programme and a 5-star rating on Apple and Spotify. The podcasts comprise a growing archive of specialist, as well as general knowledge programmes that help build listeners’ appreciation of, and competence in, a considerable range of issues that we all need to know more about."
Available on Soundcloud, Apple, Spotify, Amazon or wherever you get your podcasts.
See: https://soundcloud.com/user-486346414
Regenerative Cities Studio Team– University of Bath
Anne Claxton, Andy Jarvis, Steve Fisher, Jayne Barlow, Alex Wright, Alan Keane, Rupert Grierson, John Martin, Matthew Harrison
"More than half of humanity now lives in our cities and this proportion continues to grow. In many key aspects our future rests on the future of our cities. The challenge we face in the built environment disciplines is how to develop a regenerative approach to urban problems. This is a complex and multidisciplinary field which embodies all the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
To help prepare our students to play leading roles as instigators and champions of urban design we devised a specific unit, undertaken by final year students in the MArch course. The unit is titled “Regenerative Cities”.
It forms an integrated final year thesis project, completed as part of professional accreditation. The teaching is deliberately multidisciplinary and focused on explorations, propositions and resolutions of complex issues. The intention is to widen students’ horizons and introduce new ways of thinking. Students demonstrate, through holistic design, how creative solutions can establish propositions to move cities toward a regenerative future. Final outputs include design reports, films, exhibitions, physical analysis and models.
We engage students with experts in this field through lectures, charettes and reviews. Contributors are often drawn from practices working at the leading edge of innovative design."
Proposal for Krakow, ‘The Noyau’
Regenerative Cities Studio Project: “The war next door”
Nicholas Ratcliffe, Alexander Daniel, Eric Chan, Tom Deathridge, Sasha Swannell, Josephine Hamill
Commended:
Ciaran Malik – Kingston
Demetra Kourri – Manchester (MSA)
Tonia Carless – UWE
