SPAB Philip Webb Award

16th Jan, 2019

Winning the Webb Award 2016 - Announced December 6 2016

I am delighted to have been awarded joint first prize for the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) Philip Webb Award for new design in an historic context, for my Master’s project Città della Memoria. The Webb Award brief was to “devise a scheme which sympathetically revitalises a historic building for reuse through careful repair of existing fabric and a significant element of new construction in a contemporary design.”

The Webb Award is a design-orientated competition encouraging sympathetic reuse of existing buildings and sensitive new design in a historic context. I felt that my Master’s project would be appropriate for this theme, and fortunately the judges agreed!

The project explores an alternative reconstruction approach for heritage in post-disaster L’Aquila, Italy. The project has been documented as part of this website, including my Journal (http://www.bethanwatson.co.uk/posts) which documents the 9 month period spent living and working in L’Aquila to better understand the city and it’s redevelopment issues post-earthquake. This was a challenging period because at that time - despite being 6 years post-quake - the city felt abandoned and depressed. It was, however, extremely informative and I met many wonderful, interesting people along the way.

For the award, I demonstrated my proposal for the re-use of two old palazzi in the heart of the centro storico, interwoven with my developing conservation ideas and underpinned by the SPAB principles. The submission comprised two A2 panels and a project report - reminding me of the fundamental challenge of re-shaping and distilling a project into a concise, eye-catching package!

The SPAB and their principles of conservative repair have always been close to my heart, and resonate with my emerging architectural design and conservation ethos. It is gratifying to be jointly awarded the Webb Award in recognition of my Master’s project work and dedication to the SPAB approach.

initial ideas visual 2 copy.jpg

Axo scheme A3 copy.jpg

full plan of model.jpg

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