Bartlett Professor part of team on shortlisted project for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture

Murray Fraser, Professor of Architecture and Global Culture at The Bartlett School of Planning, and Vice-Dean of Research for the Bartlett Faculty, worked with the Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) on the Birzeit regeneration project which has just been shortlisted for the 2013 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Their key contribution was to devise a new urban strategy which has revived the previously derelict historic quarter of Birzeit, a university town close to Ramallah.

The overall project was carried out by RIWAQ: Centre for Architectural Conservation, a leading Palestinian NGO which works tirelessly on the protection of the West Bank’s surviving built heritage. Murray and his colleagues in PART-- Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari of NG Architects-- set up the ThinkNet advisory group to bring in support from international experts in regeneration, following which they drew up the plan to reshape the main urban spaces and also did experimental tests for how to renovate old dwellings to create greater thermal comfort. RIWAQ produced the detailed architectural designs and ran the scheme on site. All of the regeneration work in Birzeit was carried out using local labour and materials.

The scheme is now one of a number of contenders for the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture, which are being judged this year by a panel including David Adjaye and Priztker Prize winner, Wang Shu.

The shortlisted projects can be viewed at http://www.akdn.org/Content/1177