Friends of St Peter's, Great Berkhamsted

After three rounds of voting by an Expert panel, an online Public vote and the RLC’s Project Board, the Friends of St Peter’s are pleased to be able to announce the winners of the ‘Seat to Remember’ Design Competition, launched at the Heritage Open Day at Rectory Lane Cemetery on Sunday September 11th 2016.

The overall winner of the £1,000 first prize is Andrew Ingham of London who designed the ‘Cruciform Bench’. This was first choice of the Project Board and scored highly overall.  This was described as “A nice minimalist design, economical and contemporary, with the cruciform structure hinting at religious influences on the site”.

There are two joint seconds winning £500 each:

The ‘Family Seat’ designed by Ania Khodabakhshian of Iran. The Expert Panel said it was “A potentially beautiful and magical piece, once the structural aspects have been fully developed.

The ‘Human Hive’ designed by Ivana Linderova of London  was praised for its form and symbolism. “With its reflective/lit qualities, the seat would be an attractive feature associated with the beehive and connotations of a complex, interwoven society”.

In total 52 entries were received, some local but others from Chile, Italy, Germany, India, New York, Portugal, Malaysia, Russia, Iran, France, and Spain.

James Moir, Convenor of the Rectory Lane Cemetery Project, said:

“With so many cultural influences informing the designs, the Rectory Lane Cemetery Project has, as part of the Lottery Funded Development Phase of the Project, learnt so much about the possibilities for creating an exciting seat sculpture trail in the Cemetery.

“We eagerly await the final decision as to whether the Lottery will be providing the capital funding for the delivery of the Project. If successful, we shall be investigating the potential for turning the winning entries into real seats. Equally, even if a prize has not been won, we may be contacting individual entrants to develop their designs further when we come to plan and install all of the benches on the site.”

He continued: “Given the rich variety of entries, it has been a challenging choice and we are sincerely grateful to all participants for sharing their marvelous visions for seating in this sensitive site.”

Each and every one of the 52 entrants will receive feedback on their submissions.

The Friends of St Peter’s also acknowledge the hard work, time and enthusiasm of the three constituent groups involved in making the selection:

• Members of the Project Board which includes representatives of Dacorum Borough Council, the Parochial Church Council (PCC) and the Trustees of the Friends of St Peter’s
• The expert panel: Peter Ellsworth (Berkhamsted Chamber of Commerce), Hugo Hardy, RIBA, Adrian Morrow RIBA and Jonathon Wong, RIBA.
• 1806 votes were cast online via the competition website

The following Composite schemes also received Commendations:

• ‘The Nightingale and the Glow Worm’
• ‘Benchscapes’
• ‘Haptic & Perceptible’
• ‘A Seat on the Horizon’
• ‘A Seat to Remember’

And in the Single entries these entries also received commendations:

• ‘Bridge of Memories’
• ‘Light & Heavy’
• ‘Fallen Still’
• ‘A Bench for Everyone’
• ‘Voroni Bench’
• ‘Memory Circle’