News: a concept for rooftop housing built from foam blocks and steel cables (above) is one of the winners of the RIBA President’s Medals Student Awards, announced last night.

Above and top: Sunbloc by students from London Metropolitan University

A team of students from London Metropolitan University receive the RIBA Silver Medal for their graduate project, Sunbloc, which imagines residences that generate their own electricity for infill sites and unused rooftops around London.

Above: Sunbloc by students from London Metropolitan University

Vidhya Pushpanathan, an undergraduate student at the Architectural Association, wins the Bronze Medal with her designs for a system of scaffolding around the buildings of Moscow.

Above: The Depository of Forgotten Monuments by Vidhya Pushpanathan

Spanning between the nineteenth century Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and the Garage Centre of Contemporary Culture, The Depository of Forgotten Monuments is conceived as a framework for the city's fragmented architecture.

Above: The Depository of Forgotten Monuments by Vidhya Pushpanathan

The dissertation medal is awarded to the Bartlett School of Architecture student Matthew Leung, who presented his studies into the development of Chinatown in the Japanese city of Yokohama.

Above: Oriental Orientalism in Japan – the case of Yokohama Chinatown by Matthew Leung

The RIBA President’s Medals Student Awards are awarded annually to two stand-out design projects and one dissertation from the undergraduate and post-graduate courses of over 300 schools of architecture.

Above: Oriental Orientalism in Japan – the case of Yokohama Chinatown by Matthew Leung

The winners were announced at a ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London last night and medals were presented to each of the winners.

"2012 has been a record-breaking year for the RIBA President’s Medals with the highest number of entries ever in the 176 year history of the awards," said RIBA president Angela Brady. "It is an honour to present these awards to the future trailblazers of the architecture profession."

See some of the winners from previous years.

Here’s a press release from the RIBA with the full list of awards presented:

Winners of the 2012 RIBA President's Medals announced at London ceremony

The winners of the 2012 President’s Medals have been announced at a special ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in central London. The prestigious RIBA Presidents Medals, which date back to 1836, reward talent and excellence in the study of architecture.

‘Sunbloc’, a collaborative project by a team of students from London Metropolitan University, received the RIBA Silver Medal (awarded for best post-graduate design work).

Sunbloc is a lightweight and heavily-insulated prototype house constructed using a pioneering system of foam blocks and steel cables. The inexpensive structure is designed to produce more electricity than it consumes over an annual cycle. The judges rewarded the detailed study and solid body of research involved in the project and were highly impressed with the team’s entrepreneurial spirit and ability to complete a real building. The students were tutored by Eva Diu, Nathaniel Kolbe, Jonas Lundberg, Toby Burgess and Iain Maxwell.

Vidhya Pushpanathan from the Architectural Association was awarded the Bronze Medal (for best undergraduate design project) for her project ‘The Depository of Forgotten Monuments’.

‘The Depository of Forgotten Monuments’ addresses Moscow’s paradox of deconstruction and reconstruction. The project suggests a flexible architectural framework. As both a curatorial strategy and an urban prototype, it suggests an opportunity for a hybrid between the city’s cultural and commercial art sites and an allowance for the co-existence of past and future. The project was deemed by the judges to reveal a fresh and sophisticated quality of thinking. Vidhya Pushpanathan was tutored by Maria Fedorchenko and Tatiana von Preussen.

Matthew Leung from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, was awarded the Dissertation Medal for his work ‘Oriental Orientalism in Japan – the case of Yokohama Chinatown’.

The judges considered this a highly accomplished dissertation on the development of a pocket of Chinese style within a major Japanese city. Drawing from an impressive breadth of sources, Matthew Leung meticulously composes a picture that brings a careful reading of history to bear upon the complex contemporary reality. Critically astute, beautifully written and illustrated, this piece never loses sight of the architectural dimension of its topic, offering a thoroughly convincing and sophisticated discussion of an unexpected and topical subject. The dissertation was supervised by Professor Murray Fraser.

A number of other important student awards were also presented at the ceremony:

Bronze Medal Commendation
Paddi Alice Benson from the University of Cambridge for ‘Remember Berlin - kunsthochschule archipelago’

Bronze Medal Commendation
Richard Breen from the University of Newcastle for ‘Afterimage - Projected Morphology: a cyclotel created from perspectives’

Dissertation Medal High Commendation
Kirti Durelle from the University of Sheffield for ‘Poetic Creation: the magical metaphor of architectural design - an investigation into the relationship of exoteric and esoteric dimensions in the practice of architecture and alchemy’

Dissertation Medal Commendation
Stephen Marshall from the Architectural Association for ‘Here isn't now - Ballard, Silvertown and the forces of time’

Dissertation Medal Commendation
Tom Sykes from Cardiff University for ‘The Site as Muse: Georges Perec and Walking into Topophilia’

SOM Travelling Fellowships
Part 1: Paddi Alice Benson from the University of Cambridge
Part 2: Rebecca Roberts from London Metropolitan University

Serjeant Awards for Excellence in Drawing
Part 1
Vidhya Pushpanathan from the Architectural Association for ‘The Depository of Forgotten Monuments’
Part 2
Martin Tang from Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, for ‘Manual for Eternal Autumnal Micro-climates: re-imagining Kyoto as the city of a thousand autumns’

RIBA Donaldson Medal
Brook Lin was awarded the RIBA Donaldson Medal. The winner of this medal is selected by the Bartlett School of Architecture to the student who graduates top of the class at Part I.