Sheffield University School of Architecture student, Charles Palmer, has been announced as the winner of the 2015 RIBA Norman Foster Traveling Scholarship for his proposal Cycling Megacities. Palmer will use his £6,000 scholarship to fund a study tour of four "megacities" in developing countries: Mexico City, Mexico; Lagos, Nigeria; Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Shenzhen, China. Focusing primarily on bicycle advocacy and urban design, the tour will examine the manner in which socio-political forces impact urban public space, and explore the bicycle as a means of transportation accessible to all social classes.
"[T]he jury felt this was an important subject, with an interesting focus on these rapidly expanding cities," said Lord Foster, chair of the scholarship jury. "[W]e were interested in the potential lessons that this research could offer for UK policy." The jury also highly commended Teodora Todorova of the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy, Sofia, for her proposal 'Extreme Environments', which sought to examine "some of the world's driest, wettest, and coldest regions".
Charles Palmer's winning proposal and Teodora Todorova's highly commended proposal can be viewed here.
