2017 Press Releases
UCC alum wins architecture award
A UCC graduate was the inaugural winner of the RIAI Scott Tallon Walker Student Excellence Award in Architecture by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI).
Seán McMahon, a graduate of the Masters of Architecture Course at Cork Centre for Architectural Education (UCC/CIT), undertook his studies under the supervision of Course Leader, Jason O’Shaughnessy, and lecturers Dr Eve Olney and Eoin French.
He was presented with the Award and an associated prize fund of €3,000 for his Prague-based architectural thesis project called Pravda Vitezi or Truth Prevails.
Seán’s design proposal for the site in Prague is imagined as a celebration of the freedom of expression following the fall of Communism, and takes the form of a toy museum and a “making” workshop. It deliberately sets out to question the role of the individual in areas monopolised by large industry, whilst also celebrating the nation's past culture as expressed through the medium of toy-craft, and culminates with a peripatetic festival across Eastern Prague.
Seán joins a distinguished list of recipients, including the late Sam Stephenson, of what was previously known as the RIAI Travelling Scholarship, which has been in existence for over 80 years.
The award was relaunched this year and renamed in memory of Scott Tallon Walker Architects’ three founding partners – the esteemed Irish architects — Dr. Michael Scott, Dr. Ronald Tallon and Robin Walker. The newly designated award seeks to recognise and reward excellence in final year architectural studies and create a platform to showcase the work emerging from Irish schools of architecture.
For more on this story contact:
Ruth Mc Donnell, Head of Media and PR, UCC Mob 086-0468950