Last edited 09 Feb 2021

ARCHIVE Buro Happold Competition winner blog

An excellent blog post from Rob Pollard, winner of our student architect essay competition.

As an architecture student, and having recently researched and written an essay myself, I feel that Designing Buildings Wiki is an excellent source of information for fellow students. Other than the RIBA library, there are very few dedicated resources where students can research architectural history and theory. Designing Buildings Wiki gives us an instant-access online resource with a helpful encyclopaedic format. This a great resource for research and it also allows us to publish our own work online.

For my own essay ‘The History of the Architect as a Profession’ I had to travel to London to use the RIBA library. I wanted to include a list of the bodies that govern the architectural profession in different countries around the world, but couldn’t find comprehensive, up to date information anywhere. There was very little online, and my university library was only of limited help. So I had to compile a list from scratch myself by searching for each individual governing body.

Having gone to all that trouble, and knowing my list and the rest of the research I’d done for the essay would be useful to other people, it was great to be able to upload it onto Designing Buildings Wiki. So now when people search for information about the architectural profession they will find my essay. Try googling – architecture "governing bodies" – and you’ll see it already comes up on the first page of the results.

Rob Pollard

Check out the other winners of our student competitions

Smart cities - Great new article by Buro Happold

50% of the population lives in cities, but they account for 75% of the consumption and 75% of the pollution…Smart Cities should be about more than just technology….they should also balance opportunities through smart planning, design and construction...