Zliten Campus at Asmariya University for Islamic Sciences has won the prestigious Islamic Architecture Award at Cityscape 2009 in Dubai on Tuesday 6 October 2009, a press release on Wednesday by RMJM said.

After fighting off stiff competition from Jordanian architects Dar Al Omran, Gordon Hood and Roger Klein of RMJM accepted the Islamic Architecture Award for their work on the Zliten Campus at Asmariya University for Islamic Sciences.

The Zliten campus is a new branch of Al Asmariya University, 120km southeast of Tripoli, Libya. RMJM’s architects designed a campus masterplan for the development of the 82- hectare site. Core academic functions are organised in four quadrants within a perimeter ‘habitable wall’ that contains faculty offices and academic support functions.

With a total build-out of 100,000m˛, the new campus provides academic and support buildings, a conference and student centre as well as administration, library, recreation and residential spaces for a population of 4,600 students.

Gordon Hood, RMJM said: “We are absolutely delighted to win this prestigious award for Islamic Architecture. It is a true testament to the success of our Global Education Studio and emphasizes the strength that RMJM maintains in its understanding of local culture and traditions. We are particularly grateful to Dr Mustafa Muzourg of ODAC in Libya, without whose advice, this project would not have been possible”

The success of the work on the Zliten Campus is largely down to the development of RMJM’s Global Education Studio. The studio allows for the greatest talents in Educational Architecture from across RMJM’s international network to pool together, providing unprecedented service which combines international and local expertise for architectural excellence. After a short absence during the 1990’s, RMJM have re-entered the Libyan market with a permanently based Director, Gary Wright, in Tripoli.

RMJM is a UK-based international firm of architects with offices throughout the UK, Asia, the Middle East and the USA.