The structural engineer behind four Stirling Prize winners
2024 Soane Medal Goes to Hanif Kara
John Hill
9. October 2024
Hanif Kara at Sir John Soane's Museum (Photo: Matt Tidby)
Structural engineer Hanif Kara, design director at AKT II, the engineering firm he cofounded in 1996, is the latest recipient of the Soan Medal, given annually since 2017 by Sir John Soane's Museum in London.
The Soane Medal was established to "[recognize] architects, educators and critics who have made a major contribution to their field through practice, history or theory, and in doing so have furthered and enriched the public understanding of architecture.” Hanif Kara is the first engineer to win an award whose previous recipients include architects Rafael Moneo (2017), Denise Scott Brown (2018), Marina Tabassum (2021), Peter Barber (2022), and Lacaton & Vassal (2023), and historian/critic Kenneth Frampton (2019). (No award was given in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.)
Heydar Aliyev Centre, Zaha Hadid Architects (Photo © Hufton + Crow)
In his nearly thirty years of practice at AKT II, Kara has worked with some of the most famous architects in the world, such as BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, Zaha Hadid Architects, David Chipperfield Architects, Herzog & de Meuron, and Foster + Partners. Accordingly, he has also worked on projects that garnered Stirling Prizes, RIBA's highest honor — four of them, to be exact: Peckham Library by Will Alsop (2000); Sainsbury Laboratory by Stanton Williams (2012); Bloomberg’s European Headquarters by Foster + Partners (2018); and Kingston University London – Town House by Grafton Architects (2021).
Bloomberg European HQ, Foster + Partners (Photo © Nigel Young, Foster + Partners)
The museum's announcement of Hanif Kara as the 2024 recipient of the Soane Medal mentions the above architects and buildings, highlighting the engineer's role in high-profile projects, but it also draws attention to his advocacy for interdisciplinary collaborations and approaches to the built environment, and the desire to preserve and build for reuse through what he calls “advanced reverse design.” In the case of the last, Kara “combines the innovative use of new and ancient techniques and materials to arrest, mitigate, and in some cases reverse, the environmental impact of construction.”
Kingston University Town House, Grafton Architects (Photo © Ed Reeves)
“I am delighted to be awarded this year’s Soane Medal. Soane used his work and collection to inspire future generations of builders and designers, something I hope to continue through my own work. The scale of ecological, economic and social challenges we face today requires a transdisciplinary approach. It is impossible to solve the problems we face without interdisciplinary collaboration and thinking. Only through curiosity and continual enquiry - questioning practices and norms- will we find the solutions that are so urgently required.”
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