RIBA and the Norman Foster Foundation are pleased to announce Thomas Warren, nominated by London Metropolitan University (UK), as the winner of the 2024 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship for his project ‘Africa 360°’.
The annual scholarship awards a £7,000 travel grant to facilitate international research by an architecture student who demonstrates outstanding, original thinking on issues relating to the sustainable survival of cities and towns.
Thomas intends to use the travel scholarship to investigate how future off-grid cities can eliminate the time consuming, costly, and maintenance-heavy nature of city scale infrastructure – instead using self-sustaining energy, water, and food systems.
Thomas was inspired after observing how African cities had skipped fixed-line telecommunication infrastructure and gone straight to distributed mobile network towers, effectively leapfrogging technologies.
Africa’s young population, digitised education, solar energy, and abundant resources offer vast potential. Diverse landscapes, cultures, and contexts make for unique research locations for off-grid living and future cities.
Starting and ending in Cape Town, Thomas plans to travel to off-grid projects, communities, and initiatives to understand solutions for future off-grid sustainable cities. These locations include the Earthship Biotecture project in Malawi, the Fambidzanai Permaculture Research Institute in Zimbabwe, the Irente Biodiversity Reserve in Tanzania, the Kipepeo Village in Kenya, and the Enkanini informal settlement in South Africa.
Given the exceptional standard of applications this year, the jury also commended three other entries:
- Henrick Michael (University of New South Wales, Australia), for ‘Urban Biomimetics’
- Qianqian Ma (Royal College of Art, UK), for ‘Finding the Eel & Flounder: A Project to Witness Tuvalu’s Retaliation Against Rising Sea Levels’
- Santiago Fernandez Perez (European University of Madrid, Spain), for ‘Deserted Horizons: The Silent Crisis of Rural Europe’
The 2024 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient Thomas Warren said: “I am honoured to have been selected as the winner of the 2024 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship. The scholarship will allow me to conduct research on my project ‘Africa 360°’, gathering valuable first-hand information on existing off-grid communities to inform the design of future cities. I would like to thank the judging panel of the scholarship for selecting me and London Metropolitan University for nominating me. I am also immensely proud and grateful to be the first South African recipient.”
RIBA President Muyiwa Oki said: “We urgently need to make our cities greener. So, Thomas’s proposal really resonated with the judging panel – he plans to investigate off-grid communities in countries in Africa, where he thinks there is great potential for sustainable solutions to be nurtured. I look forward to hearing how his findings can help to address the global challenge of sustainable urban development. I would also like to thank Lord Foster and the Norman Foster Foundation for having established this initiative with RIBA, generating invaluable support that allows students like Thomas to travel for research projects.”
President of the Norman Foster Foundation, Norman Foster, said: "There were a high number of entries for this year’s Travelling Scholarship. The jury was impressed by the quality of so many of these entries, but unanimously selected Thomas Warren’s proposal to investigate sustainable infrastructure solutions in off-grid communities across Africa. We offer our congratulations to Thomas for his accomplishment and look forward to seeing the results of his research.”
This year’s scholarship attracted 79 entries. The judging panel was comprised of:
- Norman Foster, Lord Foster of Thames Bank (Founder and Executive Chairman, Foster + Partners; President, Norman Foster Foundation)
- David Jenkins, Publisher, Circa Press; Trustee, Norman Foster Foundation
- Diego Tobalina, Head of Innovation and Design, Norman Foster Foundation
- Richard Dilworth, Trustee, Norman Foster Foundation
- Muyiwa Oki, Senior Architectural Manager, Mace; RIBA President 2023-25
- Mehrnaz Ghojeh, Head, C40 Cities Finance Facility
