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Last edited 19 Sep 2025

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The IHBC Gus Astley Student Awards

1 About the Gus Astley Awards
2 The Astleys
3 The 2025 Gus Astley Award
4 Previous Award winners
5 Related articles on Designing Buildings

[edit] About the Gus Astley Awards

The Annual IHBC Gus Astley Student Award is presented annually in memory of Gus Astley, former Membership Secretary of the IHBC, and supported by the IHBC and the Creative Conservation Fund. The award is presented for an outstanding item of taught-coursework accepted as part of either under-graduate or post-graduate courses. The subject can now be related to one or more aspects of the ‘Built or Historic Environment, including its evaluation (eg history, research or surveying), management (eg policy and finance) or implementation (eg design and technology). The IHBC’s Membership Standards and Guidelines for Applicants provides further information on historic environment conservation, and the IHBC’s membership criteria to which these relate (see https://www.ihbc.org.uk/).

‘Gus gave so much to the Institute, particularly through his encouragement of newer members. So the Astleys, as the awards are becoming known, are a fitting way for us to remember Gus and to invest in the future of conservation.’
Eddie Booth, IHBC President 2008 - 2011

Who was this man who inspired the thought about giving students free money for their hard work? Find out more here

[edit] The Astleys

The Institute is especially keen to reach people very early in their career, such as undergraduates. Sean O’Reilly, the IHBC Director highlights that there is 'a growing awareness of how historic environment conservation, for all its challenges, is both a good career move and a practical way to address climate change. Conservation is about the future we want, not just the legacy we enjoy.’

It is hoped the “Astleys” will build on their early promise, annually enabling the outstanding work of students to be recognised and possibly published and also promoting this to a wider audience through assistance to students with attendance at and presentation to the Annual School.

The winner(s) of the award are announced in Context, the journal of the IHBC, and at the IHBC’s Annual School. Applicants may be offered the opportunity to speak about their work, or related material, at the relevant annual school following the announcement of the results.

To find out more about the awards and how to enter visit https://ihbc.org.uk/gasa/

[edit] The 2025 Gus Astley Award

The IHBC’s celebrated annual Gus Astley Student Award will now close on 30 September 2025, so if you have relevant coursework from ANY UK taught course – under-graduate or post-graduate, completed by 30 September 2024 OR 30 September 2025 – just submit it online and on time to have a chance to receive a cash prize at the IHBC’s Annual School in Newcastle in June 2026, on ‘Adaptive Re-use’.

For the 2025 Award, as ever, a cash prize of £500 is on offer to the winner, with smaller cash awards to commended entries. Free places at the IHBC’s Annual School, valued at around £500, are also on offer to selected entries.

The Student Award for 2025 is presented for an outstanding submission on ANY under-graduate or post-graduate course in the TWO years now extended to 30 SEPTEMBER 2025

Content need not be on conservation, but can relate to ANY aspect of the Built or Historic Environment, including for example, its evaluation (e.g. history, research, investigation or recording); management (e.g. planning, policy, finance or linked operations and tools such as site management or conservation plans), and/or intervention (e.g. design, technology and project plans), as well as more general practical or theoretical considers with conservation implications

Submission for this award is ONLY possible online. If your coursework can’t be easily digitised – such as craft work – we can accept suitable digital records, such as a film Any submission must be of a form that can be authenticated by the course tutor in accordance with our guidance.

[edit] Previous Award winners

A full list of former winners can be found here.

2018 Award Winner Estefania Macchi said

“The Architectural Design for the Conservation of Built Heritage MSc course at Strathclyde University was a highly enriching, mind-opening journey. From one subject to the other, I collected numerous, very diverse tools related to very diverse aspects of Conservation, that ultimately found purpose in one common denominator: the Conservation Design Project. Future generations will build upon the base we are now creating, so the larger and the more diverse our set of tools, the stronger the base we are able to build. I am truly grateful to have been on this journey. And, likewise, I feel honoured and thrilled to have obtained the Gus Astley Student Award: my path has been of effort and also of passion, and I am now (more) convinced that this is the way I want to work each day. I would sincerely like to thank IHBC for the recognition, as well as the University of Strathclyde and my course director, Cristina González-Longo, for all the encouragement and support throughout the journey. It’s been a true pleasure.”