Limerick students share architecture award

Final-year architecture students at the University of Limerick have been awarded joint first prize at an international design workshop in Hamburg where they competed against entrants from Barcelona, Istanbul, Oxford, Sheffield Stockholm, Okinawa and Hamburg. The award was announced on Saturday following a week-long “Art and City” workshop to generate ideas to connect Hamburg’s docklands area – known as Hafen City – to the city centre. One of the adjudicators was Hamburg’s chief architect and city planner.

Merritt Bucholz, director of the Limerick school of architecture, said they were all thrilled to win such a prestigious prize – especially at a time when architects in Ireland faced such difficult times, with up to 50 per cent estimated to be unemployed due to the recession. All of the participating design teams had the opportunity to present their ideas to the people of Hamburg during the workshop, and it is intended that their designs will be published in a catalogue for Hafen City towards the end of this year, the organisers said.

The Irish Times