A first for Atlantic Technological University: its architecture graduate takes Ireland's top student prize

Aidan Doherty designed 'A Town Outside Time: Re-designing Dementia Care' — and became the first Atlantic Technological University graduate ever to win the RIAI Scott Tallon Walker Student Excellence Award, Ireland's top student architecture prize. ATU students and graduates collected four national honours at the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland Student Awards 2026, presented in Dublin: Kian Moore was commended for a daycare and housing design for young adults with autism in Ireland's northwest, and fifth-year student Bushra Alhoni won both the John Meagher Memorial Bursary and the Student Writing Prize. Doherty, originally from Surrey and now living in Carrick, County Donegal, built his winning project around a question architecture is only beginning to ask: what should a town feel like to someone living with dementia?

SDG 4 · Quality education — Mechanism: individual leader