Barrow architect wins award in Paris for space elevator design

30-year-old Jordan William Hughes won the Jacques Roguerie International Competition - An 'Architecture and Innovation for Space' Grand Prix Award.

He picked up the award and a €10,000 cash prize at a ceremony in Paris. 

He created the designs in his spare time over many months alongside his full-time job at top London firm Foster and Partners. He created the stunning drawings without the use of AI. 

The base of the space elevator in the ocean (Image: Jordan William Hughes)

Jordan, whose family still lives in Hawcoat, moved to London aged 21 having studied at The University of Central Lancashire in Preston.

Once he finished his degrees at Greenwich and Westminster, he worked for a US company doing traditional architecture work before becoming an architect and concept artist at Foster and Partners. 

A space elevator could make space travel easier if it was built (Image: Jordan William Hughes)

It is the second time he has won the competition having beaten all the other entries for the first time when he was still a student. Unlike the previous time, however, Jordan did the work completely by himself. 

He said that the competition had two categories - ocean and space. Jordan competed in the space category. 

The top of the space elevator above the atmosphere (Image: Jordan William Hughes)

"I spent all my spare time in the bedroom five days a week. It was very much my own design and my girlfriend feeding me Red Bull and teas," Jordan said.

"The team that won the ocean category this year was eight people from Japan. It's very international - I did it all on my own."

Jordan spent time researching so he could explain how his space elevator design would work. 

Jordan picked up his award at a prestigious ceremony in Paris (Image: Jordan William Hughes)

Although space elevators sound like science fiction, Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who theorised mathematical principles decades before their practical use in the space race, first suggested the idea in 1895 after visiting the Eiffel Tower. 

Inside the space elevator (Image: Jordan William Hughes)

If one could operate it would make missions out into the solar system much easier and cheaper due to not having to push payloads through the atmosphere via rockets. 

Jordan is involved in large projects across the world with his company, some of which are confidential.

He worked in a team with the European Space Agency to design a future moon base and has helped conceptualise a city in Saudi Arabia. He has also helped design island projects and floating villages.