Huddersfield University student’s stunning eco lodge design wins Huddersfield Civic Society award

Huddersfield Civic Society gives an award every year to celebrate the best design project by a student at the University of Huddersfield.

The Peter Stead Sustainability Award is named after Huddersfield-born Peter Stead, a pioneer in urban design, who died in 2000 aged 77.

Farnley Hey (below), his Bauhaus-inspired house built at Farnley Tyas near Huddersfield in the 1950s, was recognised as a revolutionary concept and awarded a medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

The winner of this year’s award and £200 prize was Christo Ollewagen for the design of the Blueliliebush Eco Lodges which are sustainable coastal retreats in South Africa. 

The judges particularly liked the fact that the project concentrated on sustainability and was beautifully presented, showing the high quality of research, design and drawings.

The Eco-Lodge is a regenerative hospitality and conservation project located on the Garden Route in South Africa. It integrates eco-tourism, wildlife rescue and community development on a degraded coastal farm, transforming it into a carbon-sequestering sanctuary. Christo applied passive design, renewable energy and closed-loop systems to achieve net-positive operational carbon. The project demonstrates how architecture can move beyond sustainability to actively regenerate ecosystems and communities.

Andrew Raine came second for his project set in Hackney Wick in east London called The Conservation of Heritage Through Fragments. He took four buildings due for demolition to see what materials could be used for future building – in particular heritage items such as windows, doors and tiles. The thesis explored the tension of those who want to just develop and those who want to maintain historic parts and re-use.

Andrew was strong on sustainability as the intervention has been designed to be disassembled and reused elsewhere, and this was a most innovative approach.

Bennie Keir was commended in third place for the project called The Undivide set in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This proposed using two site areas that previously divided the Catholic and Protestant communities of the Falls and the Shankill to create a series of environments that focus on reconnecting the two communities and dismantling the divide between them, both physically and psychologically.

The 10 entries were judged by Huddersfield Civic Society members Gideon Richards, Sue Lee Richards, Ann Denham and Sylvia Johnson.

Gideon said: “HCS would like to thank all the students for their innovative approaches to sustainability in the built environment and wish them and all of the students the very best in their future in architecture.  We were also grateful to the Department of Design and Architecture at the University for all their support.”

When Sylvia presented the award she stated that in 1825, a Scientific and Mechanic Institute was founded in Huddersfield, to bring the “acquisition of useful knowledge” with the reach of all, particularly the trading and working classes.

This is the bicentenary of the first major initiative in technical and professional education.

Huddersfield Civic Society was pleased to have been invited by the Vice Chancellor to sit on the steering group for the year-long project which highlights the role education has made over the last 200 years. 

The students of today may not have been here if it hadn’t been for the Young Men’s Mental Improvement Society and the Huddersfield Female Educational Institute and the Universities forerunners.

There is an updated book by Professor John O’Connell on The Making of a University – The Path To Higher Education in Huddersfield and an exhibition of archive material in Heritage Quay. 

Sylvia added: “These all link to the rich heritage of our education system in Huddersfield producing great academics like the students graduating this year.”