Student awards 2024: interview with Briony Potter and Isabelle Warren
(October 2024) As part of the A&DS and RIAS Student Awards for Architecture 2024, Briony Potter and Isabelle Warren, ESALA, were awarded the Architecture and Design Scotland Placemaking Award, the RIAS Andy MacMillan Drawing Award and Highly Commended for the Architecture and Design Scotland Designing in a Changing Climate Award for their project "Working Walls: Negotiating (Im)material Grounds". In this interview they outline their winning project and plans for the future.
How does it feel to win this award category?
We are both completely thrilled to have won the awards, it feels great for our hard work, and that of our tutors who guided the project, to be recognised outside of the scope of our individual university and appraised alongside other strong and interesting submissions. Overall, it’s just a lovely way to end our university experience on a high.
What inspired you to create this project?
Our inspiration came from our site visit to Naples, in 2022 when we started the thesis. Exploring the area of Porta Capuana and coming to recognised that the community on site was lacking a real open space, as well as considered community spaces.
What was the biggest challenge you experienced whilst creating this project?
Biggest challenge was also what we considered the most valuable aspect of the project, how to represent the wet and dry conditions we were trying to convey - and how to make this consistent across drawings and various medias. Which is why it is particularly special that we were awarded the Andy MacMillan Drawing Award, and to know the effort, revisions and iterations we put into our drawings paid off.
What are your plans for the future?
As for the future, we have both been successful in obtaining Part 2 Positions after graduating from our masters – coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) at the same practice in London! So, we are working hard in the aim of passing our Part 3s, qualifying and registering as architects in the next few years.
Working Walls: Negotiating (Im)material Grounds project Gallery
Judges’ comments: "Beautiful architectural interventions in Porta Capuana, Naples. The working walls act as new landmarks and create new uses and places for the community, while defending the city from the harsher impacts of climate change and retaining fresh water as needed in extremes of heat. It looks at an important solution and contribution to a city that has a real-life threat. The approach and solutions have the potential to be replicated in similar global cities with ideas that could, for example, be repurposed in Scotland. The three-dimensional drawings in the submission, are incredibly atmospheric with a great use of colour. The isometrics are exceptional."
