Some of Cornwall's brightest and most talented young designers attended the Cornwall Architectural Trust's annual lecture last week where one from Helston and another from St Ives received their work experience awards.

The award ceremony preceded the lecture which this year was delivered by acclaimed Canadian-born

architect and past Stirling Prize winner Alison Brooks, and took place at the Maritime Museum in Falmouth.

For many years Cornwall's leading firms of architects have joined together to sponsor a design competition for schoolchildren undertaking work experience in their various offices. The 2016 project called for the design of an RNLI beach lifeguard station. Over 40 designs were submitted and adjudication took place, for the first time, at Plymouth University's School of Architecture with a panel made up of teaching staff and architects.

This year's winners were Ryan Crisp, a year 12 student at Helston Community College whose mentors were 3HW Architects, and Louis Wood, from year ten at St Ives School whose mentors were PBWC Architects.

So popular has the scheme become that it has drawn entries from Devon and beyond and plans are now emerging for it to expand to the whole South West Region of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

“This is a tremendously successful scheme,” said Cian Spowart, chair of Cornwall RIBA. “Our thanks go out to all those practices who participated and especially to Paul Melling of CFD Architects for co-ordinating the whole event.”