Two De Montfort University architecture students have won ProCon Leicestershire’s second year of prizes from the Pam Allardice Bursary.
The fund was established in 2021 to celebrate the contribution of the property and construction network’s co-founder and chair of 20 years Pam Allardice, who died in 2020.
The prize for final year students was won by Jake Southcombe, who is 23 this month, for his vision of a gin distillery and gardens for a site in Tamworth.
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Jake, from Burton Latimer, included landscaping to provide varied habitats inside and out to grow the botanicals to flavour the gin. The runners up were Boren Huang, Paige Hurst and Robert Dargue.
Jake, who after graduating will be joining GSS Architecture, said: “I’m very happy to have won. It’s a nice surprise but I felt my presentation went well.”
Judge Sarah Grocock, a ProCon board member from Leicester architecture practice rg+p, told the students: “You may have realised from how long it took us to select a winner that you all have done really good work.
“We were very impressed with how Jake spoke about his project, how it reuses energy and its connectivity responded very well to the site’s context.”
Sarah’s fellow judges for the final year projects were Chong Wong from Pick Everard, Adam Dodd from Willmott Dixon and Alex Perobelli from Cundall.
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The prize for second year students was won by Harriet King, 19, from Whittlesey near Peterborough, who said: “It was good to have external input from real world practitioners. I’m really pleased with the work I did this year so it’s great to win this prize.”
Harriet won for her project designing a welcome centre for asylum seekers arriving in Leicester, including accommodation and shared spaces for cooking, socialising, and bartering and exchanging goods and services.
Her concept, for land either side of the Old River Soar near Braunstone Gate, included using a reclaimed steel frame in which to place 20 accommodation units above shared spaces amid walkways and planted areas.
The three other year 2 students selected to present their work were Robert Cunnington, Caleb Ernst and Isobel Mobbs.
Sarah Grocock and Alex Perobelli were joined for the year two award by fellow judges Alfie Simons from Corporate Architecture and Piet van Gelder from Gateley.
Sarah told the students: “You have made our job extremely difficult. All the projects were so different but so good, and you have put so much into them.
“Harriet’s presentation was fantastic, both verbally and visually. You had put a lot of thought into the people using the spaces and buildings.”
Kate Cheyne, DMU head of school of art, design, architecture, said: “Our thanks to ProCon and the judges for offering our students a wonderful opportunity to present their projects to external practitioners.”