ADAM Architecture Travel Scholarship 2026 winner announced

We are delighted to announce that Central Saint Martins (UAL) graduate Tireni Adeniji is the recipient of our 2026 Travel Scholarship. This year, we received a record number of applications, with an exceptionally strong pool of talented candidates, making the selection process more competitive than ever.

Tireni's chosen area of research will explore Yoruba spatial and building culture, focusing on the historic distric of Isale Eko as a case study. Through observation-led research, Tireni will examine the transformation of traditional compound typologies and layered historic urban forms within Lagos, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world.

The ADAM Architecture Travel Scholarship provides the opportunity for students or recent graduates to travel abroad and conduct research on an architectural subject of their choosing. The scholarship offers a £2,000 award to support original research in architecture, architectural technology and urban design, increasing access to and inspiring international travel.

This year’s panel comprised Hugh Petter, Partner and Victor Man, Associate Director Senior Architect from ADAM Architecture, Nico Jackson, Consultant Architectural Historian, and invited external judge Frances Sands, Curator of Drawing and Books at Sir John Soane’s Museum.

Hugh Petter, Partner at ADAM Architecture and juror for the 2026 Travel Scholarship, says: “The Travel Scholarship has opened doors for a generation of emerging architects, giving them the opportunity to immerse themselves in architecture and urban planning through first-hand research. Every year, the calibre of applications reminds us how much talent and curiosity exists within the next generation of the profession.”

Tireni's research is grounded in a broader investigation into the relationship between architecture, design education, and knowledge systems. The project forms part of The A.K.A.N.I Toolkit, a decolonial design education initiative founded by Tireni that draws on African and Indigenous systems of knowledge to rethink how design, space and making are understood and taught. Through the toolkit, she seeks to challenge architecture's inherited colonial frameworks while bringing Yoruba knowledge systems into architectural education on their own terms, rather than as a footnote to the Western canon.

Tireni’s research also reflects a personal journey to bridge two architectural worlds: the European architectural history taught through formal education and the Yoruba architecture and spatial traditions that shaped her heritage at home.

On the subject, she says: “I'm incredibly grateful to have won the ADAM Architecture Travel Scholarship. It means I get to take a question I've posed, ‘how Yoruba spatial thinking survives, adapts, and speaks back to colonial architecture,’ and root it in the ground it comes from. I'll be travelling to Lagos, Nigeria, to study traditional courtyard compounds, looking at how these spaces held communal life differently to the closed European house. Many of these buildings are disappearing as rapid urbanisation reshapes the city, so this research feels urgent as well as personal, a way of reconnecting with my own heritage before more of that knowledge is lost."

Congratulations, Tireni. We look forward to following your journey and the valuable insights your research will bring.