BELFAST ARCHITECT Peter Hutchinson won his third successive award in the Stoneguard Phoenix Awards competition for cemetery and memorial design in July.

Preliminary drawings for the Royal Ulster Constabulary\'s George Cross Memorial Garden in Belfast earned Peter a Phoenix Award for best communal memorial in 2003 and the completed project won the Premier Award Last year.

Now he has again taken the Premier Award for an entirely different type of project, a 15-acre extension for Blaris Municipal Cemetery in Lisburn, County Down, to become the first entrant to have gained a hat-trick in the awards scheme.

His second Premier Award for a Total Concept was presented to him at the awards ceremony in London\'s Brompton Cemetery Chapel.

The Award, sponsored by Stoneguard, includes a cheque for £1,000 and an inscribed plaque sponsored by Brighton memorial masons T E Tilley.

"We have had two-time winners before, but this is the first hat-trick," said Sam Weller, chairman of the Association of Burial Authorities who organize the competition. "The assessors had no idea who the entrants were and the contrast between the formal layout of the memorial garden and the natural approach to the cemetery kept them completely unaware of any link between them. It\'s a tribute to the versatility of this designer."

Second prize in the Total Concept category went to JosÈ Cadilhe, an architecture student at Escola Superior Artistica of Oporto, Portugal. His is an imaginative scheme, extending the life of the city into the cemetery. He wons the Olympia Metal Spinners\' Perpetual Cup, and £250.

The award for best design for after cremation commemoration went to Giles Lovegrove, an architect with Coupdeville in Acton, West London. His concept was for a GPS (Ground Positioning Satellite) link with the site where cremated remains are deposited, enabling it to be viewed via a mobile phone. He wons the Federation of British Cremation Authorities\' Crystal Flame trophy and £250.

The site safety award went to Anton Matthews, a memorial mason from Bognor Regis, West Sussex, for his design of a foundation system for lawn memorials. He won the Pearson Panke ToppleTester perpetual silver salver and £100.

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