21.06.12
RIBA Awards 2012
58 covers, 58 winners on the Stirling Prize longlist this cover Lyric Theatre, O’Donnell + Tuomey
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The Architects’ Journal
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If you would like additional copies of the AJ featuring your building on the cover, please contact Mark Malone on 020 7728 3823 RIBA A 58RIB COVVEERS ECIAL SPEC ER OFFER
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COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: PAUL RIDDLE (WHITE CUBE) TURNER CONTEMPORARY (RICHARD BRYANT) PAUL RIDDLE (BRENTWOOD SCHOOL) HUFTON + CROW (HACKNEY MARSHES CENTRE) DENNIS GILBERT (LYRIC THEATRE) ALEX DE RIJKE (FESTIVAL HOUSE) HÉLÈNE BINET (HOLBURNE MUSEUM) THORE GARBERS (MAGGIES WALES) TIM CROCKER (ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE VILLAGE) KILLIAN O’SULLIVAN (HAIRY HOUSE) DAVID GRANDORGE (CAISTOR ARTS CENTRE) IOANA MARINESCU (BROCKHOLES) CHRIS WRIGHT (DUNE HOUSE) JAROSŁAW WIECZORKIEWICZ (HURLINGHAM CLUB POOL) PHILIPPE RUAULT (MAGGIES GARTNAVEL) DANIEL HOPKINSON (NORTH HOUSE) & THANKS TO ALL THE OTHER CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
RIBA Awards 2012
RIBA Awards 2012
£4.95 THE ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL THEAJ.CO.UK
£4.95 THE ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL THEAJ.CO.UK
58 covers, 58 winners on the Stirling Prize longlist New Court, Rothschild Bank by OM with Allies & Morrison
58 covers, 58 winners on the Stirling Prize longlist Dyson Centre for Neonatal Care by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
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RIBA Awards 2012
58 covers, 58 winners on the Stirling Prize longlist Dune House by Jarmund/Vigsnæs Arkitekter and Mole Architects
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£4.95 THE ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL THEAJ.CO.UK
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RIBA Awards 2012
RIBA Awards 2012
£4.95 THE ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL THEAJ.CO.UK
£4.95 THE ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL THEAJ.CO.UK
58 covers, 58 winners on the Stirling Prize longlist H27D, Kraus Schoenberg Architects
58 covers, 58 winners on the Stirling Prize longlist Festival House by dRMM
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RIBA Awards 2012
58 covers, 58 winners on the Stirling Prize longlist Kirk Balk Community College by AHMM
£4.95 THE ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL THEAJ.CO.UK
Week in pictures Biomorphis cycle paths; Hadid made dame Front page Pascall + Watson chases RMJM for unpaid fees International No end in sight for eurozone woe Online Pioneering lighting designer Jonathan Speirs dies Women in Architecture High-profile guests open series of talks Competions AJ Writing Prize call for entries People & practice Renzo Piano discusses the Shard’s reception RIBA Awards Every 2012 winner arranged by typology Sapa technical essay Focus on award-winning envelope design This week online Sign up for the AJ daily email: the latest news, building studies and competitions arrive at 8.30am TheAJ.co.uk
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airburst-m-tec-june-2012-A4.pdf
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Specialist metal fabricators and consultants Specialist metal fabricators and consultants
The Airburst Sculpture a joint project between m-tec and BAE Systems
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Tel: +44 (0)1254 773718 I Fax: +44 (0)1254 873637 Email: info@m-tec.uk.com I Web: www.m-tec.uk.com
a division of
From the editor
If the RIBA Awards have undergone a shuffle and a rethink this year (see p.33 for a full explanation), the AJ has stuck to two recent traditions for this annual special issue. This week’s magazine went to print with a different cover for each project eligible for the Stirling Prize. We’ve also organised the winners by typology, an approach pioneered by AJ deputy editor Rory Olcayto three years ago, making it easier to compare awardwinning projects in specific sectors. All together, the RIBA has awarded 94 regional awards, 50 national RIBA Awards, 9 EU RIBA Awards and 12 International RIBA Awards for 2012. If you are one of the recipients, your work now sets the benchmark for UK architecture, having been chosen by peers and industry leaders to represent the best work of the profession from the past two years. In this issue, you’ll find an introduction to each typology and citations provided by RIBA of each winning scheme. Perhaps unsurprisingly, publicsector projects are thinly represented in the national awards, with the impact of government cutbacks finally beginning to show. In the health typology, just three buildings won accolades this year, and two of them are Maggie’s Centres (OMA and Kisho Kurokawa with Garbers & James). Only four housing projects picked up gongs (RHWL and Richard Griffiths Architects’ St Pancras Chambers, Peabody Avenue by Haworth Tompkins, Union North’s Saxton Leeds, and Glenn Howell’s Triangle). As for schools, there were just three awards given (AHMM’s Kirk Balk College, Cottrell & Vermeulen’s Brentwood Sixth Form Centre (pictured above) and Hopkins’ Henrietta Barnett School). The lack of award-winning projects shows how much the austerity drive has degraded the architectural quality of buildings in these sectors. As for geography, predictably, the bulk of the national awards went to projects in London. Five of the city’s 14 award-winning schemes were in West London, the more moneyed end of town. Just two award-winners 21.06.12
paul riddle
Our RIBA Awards special offers a sector-by-sector picture of UK architecture today, says Christine Murray
If you’re a recipient of a RIBA national, regional, EU or international award, your work now sets the benchmark were located in South London, three in North London, and interestingly, three in the East London (including the London 2012 stadium), which looks indicative of a shift eastwards as a result of the Games. Few Olympic venues are on this year’s list, suggesting many (including Zaha Hadid’s Aquatic Centre) will submit next year. Scotland scooped five national awards this year, suggesting its semi-autonomy has preserved the quality of its architecture. The East region picked up four, while North West and Yorkshire each won three. Wales, the North East, East Midlands and South/South East, Ireland, and Northern Ireland scooped two each. While one-off houses are well represented in the national awards, the list is also heavily dominated by cultural buildings, from Edward Cullinan Architects’ BFI Master Film Store to David Chipperfield Architects’ Hepworth Wakefield; and from Page\Park’s Scottish National Portrait Gallery to O’Donnell + Tuomey’s Lyric Theatre. Again, not entirely surprising, but indicative that, while the recession has slowed investment in the housing, health and schools sectors, cultural clients have not forgotten the value and importance of good design. Congratulations to the architects of all RIBA Awardwinning projects, but also, congratulations and thank you to their enlightened clients. christine.murray@emap.com 05
Week in pictures
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Piercy & Company – formerly Piercy Conner Architects – has completed this £1.4 million, three-townhouse scheme in the Bloomsbury Conservation Area. The project for Great Marlborough Estates features ‘heavily textured masonry and detailed stone cills, lintels and stringer courses’ 1
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Biomorphis has floated plans for a new pedestrian and cycle path on disused railway tracks in the Scottish capital. Connecting existing cycle networks at Gordon Street and Pilrig Park, the project includes communal gardens and a new timberboard suspended over Leith Walk by steel cables 2
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Hopkins has beaten Arup Associates, Bennetts and Stanton Williams to land the prized overhaul of the Broadgate complex. Developer British Land said the landowner was looking for a ‘vision’ for the entire estate. Make already has planning for a replacement of the now-demolished 5 Broadgate 3
Edgley Design has built this £250,000 artist’s studio and two-bedroom house on the site of a former workshop in Hackney, east London. The 74m² studio was conceived as a ‘simple shed with exposed aluminium sandwich cladding panels’ sitting next to a 129m² black-rubber clad house 4
Double Stirling Prize-winner Zaha Hadid has been made a dame in the Queen’s birthday honours. The Iraqi-born architect and designer of the London 2012 Aquatics Centre was among several people recognised for their achievements in architecture and construction, with links to the Olympics 5
TIME OFF
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bathtub Vieques, design Patricia Urquiola, taps Fez, extras Stairs, design Benedini Associati e-mail: info@agapedesign.it www.agapedesign.it
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Front page
The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) has rejected claims Heneghan Peng’s brightly-coloured Central Park Bridge could remain in ‘games mode’ following the Olympics. However, a senior source revealed that, due to continued high use of the key route to the Olympic Stadium, the original plans to convert the 54m-wide competition-winning scheme into a more slender structure had been abandoned. An insider said the bridge could be retained in its current form until the end of the 2017 World Athletic Championships – at the very earliest. Thousands of visitors will pass over the AKT II-engineered crossing close to ArcelorMittal Orbit during the games. The design features a unique Z-shaped structure beneath a multicoloured deck so it can be reconfigured into two stainless steel-clad footbridges after the global event. An LLDC spokesperson insisted the bridge would be transformed post-games ‘in line with the architect’s original design and 2008 planning approval’. Merlin Fulcher
Pascall + Watson chases RMJM for unpaid fees over Russian project Steps have been taken against RMJM after it failed to pay for work completed on Moscow’s multimillion-pound airport scheme Pascall + Watson has been forced to take legal steps to recover around £200,000 in unpaid fees from RMJM. The AJ understand the aviation specialists has not been paid a penny for its work with the troubled AJ100 giant on the huge Domodedovo airport project in Moscow (AJ 31.10.2011). Engineers Ramboll, which also collaborated with lead architect
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‘We have delivered all that RMJM on the £262 million was asked of us in a professional job, is also believed to be owed manner and quite rightly outstanding monies. expect to be paid.’ Pascall + Watson’s RMJM announced managing director it was taking on staff Phil Holden said: Estimated fees owed after landing the ‘It is disappointing to Pascall + Watson contract to design to have fees by RMJM ‘segment 3’ of the withheld from United Terminal at fellow architects when Domodedovo Airport in they present themselves Moscow back in November. as a chartered practice.
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A spokesman for the company, which is due to meet with Pascall + Watson later this month, claimed: ‘With regard [to] Ramboll and Pascal + Watson, we have a mutually agreed way forward.’ Ramboll was unavailable for comment. Earlier this month, former YRM/RMJM director James Thomas – who joined YRM to oversee the £10 billion Sizewell C nuclear power station project – left the company for Zaha Hadid Architects. Energy giant EDF, which is hunting for a design team to take the scheme forward, has allegedly drawn up a longlist of eight firms for the project. Richard Waite
ODA
Olympic legacy designs in doubt
International
No end in sight for eurozone woe Despite the Greek election offering respite from panic, UK firms working in the eurozone advise caution as markets remain shaky, writes Greg Pitcher The outlook for UK architects working on the continent remains bleak despite fears over a Greek exit from the euro having eased after the election of the New Democracy party and the formation of a pro-austerity coalition at the weekend. With speculation rife over a potential Spanish bailout and more woeful eurozone construction output figures showing a 2.1 per cent drop in the sector this month, continued volatility in the European market is inevitable. This unstable picture is highlighted by new data from
Football Club ground to a halt. RICS, predicting a five per cent While much of the world fall in the region’s construction then began to recover from output this year, with similar global economic shockwaves that contraction tabled for 2013. started in the US, the situation According to 3DReid, which in Europe worsened. is linked with MadridTim Bowderbased practice Fenwick Ridger, managing Iribarren, the first director of London signs of trouble RICS predicted fall and Brightoncame five years ago. in Europe’s 2012 based Conran & The Spanish construction output Partners, recalls firm noticed that how the escalating retail and commercial crisis of confidence work was drying up in the euro hit the industry from 2007. But the most in the summer of 2011. visible sign came in 2009, when ‘We had a number of very construction of the practice’s strong projects about to be flagship 75,000-capacity triggered in Europe,’ he said. stadium scheme for Valencia
Construction output in Europe Source: RICS 115 RICS Forecast 110
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‘But a number of schemes across the continent had the brakes slammed on as clients lost confidence. In Italy, we had a large retail scheme just outside Rome that was stopped.’ A year on, there is little sign of the crisis abating. Madrid-based Broadway Malyan director Jorge Ponce said he was monitoring the debt crisis on a ‘daily basis’. ‘We are working in a much more cautious way, being realistic in our outlook and making sure we are happy with our accounts every single month,’ he said. The practice cut its overheads and realigned its focus in 2009 to prepare for the stormy waters ahead. ‘Some sectors just stopped, such as residential work,’ said Ponce. ‘But we have focused all our efforts on other sectors, such as retail.’ Finding the right clients has also been critical over the past three years. ‘You have to find people intelligent enough to create business even in a crisis,’ said Ponce. ‘Primark is one of our clients and it is doing fantastically well because of its business model.’ The type and sector of work undertaken can be important to survival. Conran & Partners has focused heavily on masterplanning in Europe. ‘With long-term timeframes, masterplanning is relatively recession-proof, and
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How has the debt crisis affected clients across Europe? Construction output in the euro area is about two per cent below year-ago levels and about 22 per cent below its peak in December 2006. However, there are regional divergences. In Germany output is five per cent above its last peak; in Spain, output is 55 per cent below its peak.
staff numbers in their European represents healthy work for offices in recent months. us,’ added Bowder-Ridger. ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘we Much of the development remain optimistic and have pipeline remains heavily strategically extended our dependent on clients having the workload in Asia, Russia and confidence to ‘press the button’. Sean Clifton, associate director the Middle East instead.’ Capita Symonds has focused at Jestico + Whiles, said: ‘We are its European operations on finding that clients are, monthPoland. Peter Wislocki, on-month, postponing making regional director of the final decisions to actually firm’s ESA subsidiary, progress the projects said the Polish where significant market had remained investment in Fall in Europe’s ‘remarkably resilient’ fees is required. construction, March compared with much ‘Projects that to April 2012 of the continent. are on site are ‘Many of our clients continuing, but are proceeding with clients seem hesitant office and retail developments, to invest in future work and although costs are being future phases of projects. squeezed hard,’ he said. ‘Developers based only But what next for the on the continent seem more eurozone? Some economists confident than their UK rivals, believe a break-up is unavoidable, however we certainly feel more with at least one or two countries uncertainty and hesitancy from returning to their own currencies. our clients than we did six to While this may mean a nine months ago.’ Clifton said short-term shock as economies he had heard of an number of adjust, Ponce believes a UK practices further reducing
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change in currency would accelerate the export of skills to developing countries. Meanwhile a 3DReid spokesman said a devaluation of local currencies could mean a return of cheap holidays, mass tourism and an increase in leisure projects. Ben Adams, director of Ben Adams Architects, suggested the postive side to the eurozone crisis could be more work in London. He said: ‘London is seen as a safe haven from the euro and local property values reflect that in many different sectors.’ There is a feeling among those architects who have survived the storm in the eurozone thus far that they have at least seen off the worse. They have fewer competitors for one thing, and have learnt to adapt. The smarter and luckier practices seem to be taking opportunities from the crisis, but none have gone so far as to recommend Greece or Spain to UK firms not already there.
What is your advice for UK architects working in the eurozone or considering it? It would take a brave firm of architects to set up European operations in the current environment, or to expand an existing operation. I would consider some of the Scandinavian markets plus some central European markets such as Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. How do you think the crisis will develop from here? The market’s attention is turning increasingly to Spain, whose banking sector faces serious challenges, to put it mildly. What are the best and worst case scenarios for UK architects working in Europe? The best case is that Greece stays in the euro, because this would avert a confidence crisis in the single currency. The worst case is that Greece exits. An exit would almost certainly be disorderly and sink the region back into recession. Households and businesses would then delay discretionary spending, which would weigh heavily on the construction sector.
News on TheAJ.co.uk
Lighting designer Jonathan Speirs dies
THIS WEEK ONLINE
The architect and lighting expert co-founded hugely influential practice Speirs and Major with Mark Major in 1992 Lighting designer and architect Jonathan Speirs died on Monday (18 June) after losing his long fight against cancer. Born in 1958, Speirs (below) co-founded the hugely influential lighting practice Speirs and Major with friend Mark Major in 1992. The Edinburgh-based firm worked on several high-profile lighting projects, including the Stirling Prize-winning Madrid-
Alsop and McLean open London festival
Barajas airport by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Foster + Partners’ Gherkin. In 2010, Speirs won the RIAS Lifetime Achievement Award – the same year he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. A statement on the firm’s website reads: ‘Since his diagnosis Jon showed characteristic strength and a steely determination to defy the life-limiting constraints put upon him. He continued to work with us and travel widely until the end of 2011 finding energy and solace from the great loves of his life; his family and his work. ‘Our thoughts are with Liz, Lucie, Erin, his sister, brothers and father. We will
miss him dearly but will keep him with us, working to his and our primary objective: delivering great projects.’ Rab Bennetts of Bennetts Associates described Speirs as a ‘great guy’ adding: ‘As a lighting designer, he had more influence on many architects than it is possible to chronicle. ‘We really enjoyed working with Jonathan on many projects, from our early work in Edinburgh to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and current projects like Camden’s new offices. Jonathan added a great deal to the projects we worked on together and he will be sorely missed.’ Richard Waite TheAJ.co.uk/obituaries
Shapps under fire for Liverpool demolitions
Emmerson to speak at London Met event
Campaigners have Will Alsop will be in attacked housing minister Grant conversation with artist Bruce Shapps for reneging on his McLean at a one-day symposium promise to stop the bulldozing of next Tuesday (26 June) as part of hundreds of homes in Liverpool. the London Festival of Save Britain’s Heritage and Architecture. Empty Homes hit out at ‘Construction: Shapps for using the Knowing through ‘rescue’ of Ringo Making’ accompanies Potential homes to Starr’s birthplace and the exhibition ‘Built’, be bulldozed in nearby homes as a which showcases the Liverpool’s Welsh smokescreen for the work of four Streets area ‘scandalous clearance’ prominent artists in of more than 500 houses response to signature in the Welsh Streets area. British buildings. Last November, condemning Organised by AJ Sketch a Facade judge Trish Cain, the event Labour’s Pathfinder programme, Shapps said ‘the era of large-scale takes place at the Mall Galleries, demolition was over’. London W1 and tickets are £25. Contact info@mallgalleries.com TheAJ.co.uk/liverpool
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Tom Emmerson of 6a Architects will give a keynote lecture on ‘studio culture’ for a conference at London Metropolitan’s architecture school next weekend. The two-day event, to be introduced by school head Robert Mull, centres on a series of workshops and presentations around studio teaching – Emmerson runs a studio at ETH Zurich – as well as the relevance of the crit and the studio as a place of learning through making. It takes place on 29-30 June and registration cost £40 or £20 for concessions. Place are limited. www.studio-culture.org.uk/register
Read AJ sustainability editor Hattie Hartman’s reports from Brazil on UN conferernce Rio+20. Plus, catch up with the latest developments in sustainability with our daily round-up of the newspapers, blogs and Twitter, every day at noon. AJFootprint.com 1
Browse 131 architecture vacancies by location, salary and job role. ArchitectsJournalJobs.com 2
Benchmark your fees: see what AJ100 practices are charging clients with the AJ Fees Calculator. TheAJ.co.uk/fees 3
Book a place for Terry Farrell’s inaugural Wren Talk at St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street. Tickets on 28 June are free but a £10 donation will be requested towards the INSPIRE! Appeal, which aims to raise £2.5 million for vital work on the church. stbrides-wrentalk.eventbrite. co.uk 4
Read digital editions of AJ and AJ Specification: a library of page-turning PDF versions of all this year’s magazines is available to subscribers online. TheAJ.co.uk/AJdigital 5
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Competitions & wins
COMPETITIONS FILE
Allies & Morrison Finnish harbour win Practice’s urban arm moves up from second place with three fellow joint winners after wowing Helsinki’s judges with its design for a new harbour
Allies and Morrison Urban Practitioners (AMUP) has taken joint top prize in an international ideas competition for Helsinki’s South Harbour. The London-based studio – an alliance of Urban Practitioners and Allies and Morrison formed in May 2011 – is among four practices sharing the prize. Others in the winning quartet were Finland firms Ilkka Svärd and APRT, and Rotterdam’s Maxwan Architects + Urbanists. The contest sought visions for the major passenger terminal and was launched last year as part of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme. The teams initially shared joint second place but the city bumped
them up to first after announcing plans to work with the winners on the project. AMUP was the only UK team to place. AMUP proposed animating public realm inside the 9.3-hectare bay while increasing density at its edges. Two new public buildings were planned to bookend the harbour, three new office buildings would create an ‘arrival square’ for the terminal and a new canal would increase waterfront access. The jury described AMUP’s scheme as a ‘bold, clearly presented proposal with several notable ideas for further development. The proposal combines Helsinki’s traditional, recognisable cityscape with new elements’. Merlin Fulcher
THE AJ DOES NOT ORGANISE, ENDORSE OR TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR COMPETITIONS
The Northumberland National Park Authority is seeking architectural design services for a £300,000 visitor centre and youth hostel at the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site. The project is part of a £10.5 million drive to increase opportunities for participation across the park. [Requests to participate to be received by 2 July] The Finnish city of Mikkeli has opened a two-stage international ideas competition for its Satamalahti area (pictured). Entries should increase the city’s density and extend its centre to the shore of nearby Lake Saimaa. Submissions will be received in English and Finnish. The winner will take a share of a £177,327 prize fund. [Submissions should be received by 1 October] Swansea University is on the lookout for an architect-led team for a new £1.2 million innovation hub. RIBA stage-D proposals are to be progressed to stage L under the 40-month contract starting in September. The 10,200m² project is expected to use a traditional steel-frame construction. [Requests to participate to be received by 2 July] Sean Kitchen TheAJ.co.uk/competitions ..
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Atkins UK architect workforce 241
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Year to March 2012
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housing Affordable housing starts in England plummeted 65 per cent this year, according to the latest government figures. Just 19,967 new affordable units were started in 2011-2012 compared with 57,648 last year and 64,692 the year before – according to the Homes and Communities Agency. Completions were 59,451 in the period and the agency said it was on track to exceed its target of 170,000 new affordable homes by 2015. HCA chief executive Pat Ritchie said: ‘The numbers demonstrate strong completions and a solid platform on which to build.’
Decrease in UK house sales over the past five years
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Construction dips Output in construction fell 6.7 per cent in the three months to April according to official statistics, despite recent upbeat RICS estimates (AJ 17.05.12), with output 8.5 per cent lower than the same period Construction industry output in the UK Source: ONS
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Resolution Foundation & Shelter
practice AJ100 big-hitter Atkins – the fourth largest employer of architects in the country – has revealed a slight growth in the overall number of architects it employs, reporting ‘good progress’ for the year ending March 2012. According to its annual report, Atkins now employs 657 architects, up from 648 at the end of the preceding year. The number of architects employed in the UK, however, fell from 241 to 228 according to the figures. Overall staff levels increased 2.6 per cent to 17,420, while revenue was also up 9.4 per cent at £1.7 billion.
Steep drop in England’s affordable housing starts
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The figures mark a sharp turnaround from its year-toSeptember 2011 results which showed a £34.3 million drop in turnover and the loss of 878 staff.
More architects at Atkins – but less in UK
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Fall in UK first quarter construction orders compared to last year 21.06.12
Women in Architecture
How to get ahead in architecture Three high-profile architects share their stories of business success in the first of a series of Women in Architecture debates, writes Merlin Fulcher
ALL IMAGES THEODORE WOOD
Left to right Hannah Lawson, Christine Murray, Michál Cohen and Gabrielle Omar
The first in a series of AJ debates on business practice took place last week at the NLA with guest speakers including Gabrielle Omar from BBC prime-time hit The Apprentice. The evening included tips on how to brand a business, manage flexible working in a team and ensure younger workers reach their full potential. Other speakers at the event were AJ Woman Architect of the Year joint winner Michál Cohen and AJ Emerging Woman Architect of the Year Hannah Lawson, took turns to explain their careers, sharing business acumen and advising on the route to success. The Roca-sponsored event kicked off a season of Women in Architecture talks, lectures and discussions aimed at broadcasting ..
Omar, who established her business intelligence on the roles, own design consultancy after opportunities and challenges being made redundant four for women in the profession. years ago, made an impassioned After explaining the roots speech about the importance of of her 20-strong female-led branding and communication in practice’s success, Cohen set out winning new clients and work. a strong argument for flexible ‘We need to rebrand ourselves working when managing a team. as a profession. Maybe ‘We need happy we need a face, a architects, we need marketing strategy, people who want to a brand,’ she said. come to work and The percentage of The only architect be fully engaged. staff in Cohen’s ever to appear on the We try so hard to practice who BBC show intends give people that are female to meet with RIBA flexibility,’ she said.
Lawson – who became a director at John McAslan + Partners in her thirties and manages its 25-strong education and culture team – agreed, but warned the industry itself remained ‘inflexible’.
president Angela Brady and chief executive Harry Rich to discuss branding ideas for the profession and ways to let the public know what architects do. In response to audience questions, the debate moved on to look at finances, strategy
and profit. Lawson said she was fortunate to have picked up business skills from others in a big practice but said younger workers brought insight too. Later, asked whether she thought architecture was dominated by men, she said in the construction industry there was ‘definitely an old boys’ club that needs to be broken down’. ‘It’s not in architecture. It’s in the developers, contractors, quantity surveyors and project managers – the auxiliary firms. If I have been confronted by sex discrimination, it is in those circles,’ she explained. When a Part 2 student asked whether architects should have more opportunities to go on site while studying at university all three panellists agreed this would help break down preconceptions about the construction industry. Other issues included winning appropriate fees and the struggles facing small practices because of PQQs and the complexity of modern public procurement. --:
Be familiar with your strengths. If you need help with accounts, seek support Always keep an eye on costs and overheads Flatten office hierarchies and keep younger workers engaged Share accountability for new work with your team Allow graduates early exposure to architecture’s business side
Writing Prize
AJ WRITING PRIZE 2012: CALL FOR ENTRIES
Kahn’s Yale Art Gallery and his neighbouring Mellon Centre for British Art are both supremely tuned to their owners’ mission, for all their users, and for their urban context
Entrants must write an essay that discusses the question ‘Do architects have a duty beyond satisfying the demands of the client?’ Specific references should be made to existing, unbuilt or historic projects. The piece should be written in lucid, jargon-free language. It should inspire, delight and inform AJ readers as well as those who have no design training. Images can be included in the entry, but the emphasis will be on the text.
DOCOMOMO
The AJ, with Berman Guedes Stretton, has begun its annual search for the best new architectural writer under 35. Jury member Alan Berman sets the tone in this introduction, which reveals new perspectives on the challenges facing architects in practice today
Clamped to the monitor, rushing to get drawings out, project manager on your back, no time to lose. No time for questions, no time for why. Practice exerts so much pressure that every fast route to a solution is welcomed: don’t ask questions, adopt the standard detail, find it on the web, don’t try anything new – just get it out. The opportunity to think from first principles, to ask not only how
but why, is now all but lost. One consequence of embedding so much of practice in standard solutions that save time and avoid risk is the absence of dialogue between members of the team, between those in the office with experience and those who are learning. Questioning gives the opportunity to explore and discuss why something may or may not be appropriate. Apart from the creative value, this is
£1,000 will be awarded to the winning writer. The winning piece will be published in full in the AJ and the writer of the piece will be commissioned to write a building study which will feature in the AJ. At the judges’ discretion, a Highly Commended award may be given. In the case of a highly commended writer, extracts of their original entry will be published in the AJ, and they will also be commissioned to write a building study. ..
Christine Murray, editor, The Architects’ Journal Alan Berman, Berman Guedes Stretton Full jury to be continued
Entries should not exceed 1,500 words and must be emailed to ajwritingprize@emap.com no later than 1 October 2012. Where relevant, supporting
visual material may be supplied, though the emphasis is on the quality of the text. Authors should be aged 35 or under on 1 October 2012. The competition is intended for those engaged in practice or students of architectural practice. The competition is not open to professional writers or students of architectural history, theory or writing. Pieces should be wholly the work of the person submitting them. The decision of the judges will be final.
LUKE HAYES
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Malcolm Birks was shortlisted for last year’s prize with his piece on Zaha Hadid’s Evelyn Grace Academy; Hana Loftus was inspired by the Idea Store (right); 2011 winner Alan Miller wrote about Westfield’s Sydney shopping centre (far right)
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one of the joys of shared practice. CAD jockeys attached limpetlike to screens can’t do that: there’s scant encouragement to pause and to think about what is being done and why. Pause for thought? No fee, no time to lose. Architects’ unique skills are too seldom directed where they should be – the making of quality buildings and places that give pleasure and comfort; the handrail, the door step, the eaves, the shaft of light, or the magical surprise of a cleverly positioned window. To get such things right takes many hours. But we fall too easily in line with the mission of those now in control – project managers and bean-counters focused on what they can measure: speed, efficiency, risk avoidance, cost. So there is an overpowering tendency to ‘do it like it’s been done before’ Don’t ask what’s right in the circumstances, do it safe. It’s an unusual client that approves something that’s unfamiliar, so the hegemony of ill considered precedents, of the ordinary, increases exponentially, littering our environments with the banal and the joyless. About
which, surprise surprise! – even the bean-counters complain. This is absolutely not to say that every building must be wildly different in order to avoid the banal. We need to be more sensitive to what makes quality built environments: we need, in the main, well designed unostentatious but satisfying buildings which create a context for communal life. And also a few distinctive buildings, inspiring and expressive, which shine and stand out as the loci for communal values, whether religious, cultural, educational, sport, and even - sadly in accordance with our times corporate greed and power. We should have learned from vernacular traditions, and from Georgian and Victorian towns: in order to create good urban contexts that are pleasant to be in, environmentally sound and economic, the mass of buildings should aspire to modesty and the unostentatious: sensibly constructed and beautifully crafted to make comfortable worlds within, and disposed to make quiet backgrounds for public life. But the current mindset of
Architects’ skills are too seldom directed where they should be – the making of quality places the profession is directed against the modest and the decorous: instead there is an obsession with buildings designed to be noticed in a culture of ‘look at me’ buildings. Architects, too often seeking headlines and self-gratification, seem to delight in the wildly extravagant formal and structural gymnastics made possible by powerful CAD programmes: raking columns crashing through spaces at absurd angles, jutting cantilevers, holes through buildings, jutting pointed prows too narrow to occupy, cubes balanced on one corner. And if wild forms can’t be afforded, there’s the frantic chaos of coloured glass or steel facades, each one a public architectural tantrum shouting in the street. Expensive, difficult to build, costly to maintain, almost always environmentally unsound, yet with few if any tangible benefits.
To what end, and why? Young architects at the computer face should question these extravagant and hollow gestures. For whom are such design statements intended? For building users, for the wider public or for future generations? For clients? Or for recognition by other architects in the pursuit of celebrity status? Architectural practice raises many ethical and philosophical questions. The more obvious are how we treat our colleagues, especially students; whether we should work for paymasters of dubious repute; how to minimise environmental damage; the morality of false decoration, and the many arcane themes that preoccupy academic theorists. But one of the most urgent, not at all academic, that should be brought to bear on daily practice, is the need to avoid being anaesthetised by aesthetics, to stop designing with an eye to the gallery, and to ask why we design something to be like it is, and at root, to ask for whose ultimate benefit do we do what we do? Alan Berman is a consultant at Berman Guedes Stretton
AB C OLI NROWE DE FGH I JO SEPH RYK W ERTK IAN MART IN OPQ REYNERB ANHAM ST UVWXYZ ALAN MILLER BCD ER N STG O MBRICH F GH IAI N SINC L AIR K LMI CH AEL SORK INNI KOL A USP EV SN ERO PQ RSTU VW XYZ ADA LOUI SE HUX TABLE B CHAR LE SJE NCKS DF GH IANNA IRN JA NEJA COBS K L MART INP AW LEY OPQ RIC HAR DSE NN ET TU VITRUV IUS W XYZ THE AJ WRITING PRIZE £4.95 THE ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL THEAJ.CO.UK
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People & practice
‘Architecture is not frivolity’
NEW PRACTICES
MERLIN FULCHER
the value of the scheme. I don’t dislike a bit of discussion. In the end, this is what makes you a bit more humble.
Last week you spoke at a parliamentary event with planning minister Greg Clark about the Shard. You began by saying architecture is a serious business. Why? People sometimes believe architecture is a kind of frivolity, that it’s about shape, it’s about gesture. Recently, the story of the star architect has actually been disastrous because it is creating a sense of a profession in which form and gesture govern. I believe architecture is something that relies on long [time scales] and buildings – they stay there forever like forests, like rivers. It’s not like fashions that come and go. 12 years after its conception, the Shard is nearing completion. Would progress have been quicker without a planning inquiry at the start? In this case [a planning inquiry] was quite welcome. [With Southwark and later with the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment] we had a discussion and we got to prove ..
Do you incorporate criticism into the design process? You have two ways to go back home: one it to say, ‘Forget it’, the other one is to be a bit more loyal and say ‘Let me see. What is right? What is wrong? What is useless?’. I’m not an undecided person but listening doesn’t mean being obedient. Listening doesn’t mean that you do what people tell you to do. Listening is a very difficult job because it is a mix of openness and stubbornness. Are design competitions good for the architectural profession? Competitions are a good idea on one condition – that they don’t become a beauty contest. Unfortunately sometimes this does happen.
MARKUS JATSCH PARTNERS
Renzo Piano, the architect behind the Shard in London, explains why it is important to try to change the perception of the profession
Markus Jatsch Partners Markus Jatsch Hackney, London July 2011 mail@markusjatsch.com
retail and service buildings along a 4km-long section for the new public beach. We are always looking for good clients and challenging projects.
Is there a need for a moral view in the profession? I’m not a moralist, I don’t want to be moralist, but I feel sad about the way architecture is perceived sometimes – as though it’s a job for people creating shapes. Architecture is one of the most difficult, complex serious jobs.
Where have you come from? I founded Jatsch Laux Architects with Günter Laux in Munich in 1996. We split last year so he could focus on local work in Germany and I could do international work. I’ve previously worked with David Chipperfield Architects in London on residential and cultural projects in Belgium, Spain and the UK. Since last year, I’ve also collaborated with my wife Martha Schwartz on masterplanning and urban design projects.
What are your ambitions? We’re consistently nurturing an innovative approach to design. Design plays an integral part in a sustainable solution for the built environment. A place or a building only has a future if people accept it and care about it. A good sustainability rating is not enough.
What does it mean to be a contemporary architect? To be an architect you need to be a master builder, a militant, a poet and a historian. But you have to be master builder; otherwise all this is garbage.
What work do you have? A private house in Belgium and public buildings for the Abu Dhabi Corniche beach revitalisation: a beach club, a community centre (pictured) and two pier restaurants, as well as
How optimistic are you? We are very optimistic, despite the recession. Not restricting ourselves to only one market helps a lot, as well as approaching the profession with a perspective towards design and creativity. ..
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Astragal
Great Danes Denmark’s football team may have narrowly lost out in Euro 2012, but the country’s favourite architectural export 3XN is believed to be celebrating a well-earned but hush-hush victory of another kind. Having been infamously replaced on the waterside Museum of Liverpool by Manchester-based AEW in 2007, the practice was locked in litigation with its former client about how it would be credited. A subsequent legal action was launched against 3XN (AJ 13.05.11) by the museum, with a counterclaim fired back for, among other things, unpaid fees. Following mediation, the museum
has agreed to pay the Danes a tidy sum. It’s not the first time it has been forced to cough up over fees, nor the first time it has lost a legal challenge against its design team. With other litigation ongoing, it may not be the last.
U-turn on Heathrow Worrying news for anyone with more than a passing interest in UK air capacity emerged last week. According to reports in the Financial Times and Independent, the Conservative Party may be considering a U-turn on its opposition to a third Heathrow runway. Worse still, Downing Street’s enthusiasm for a Thames Estuary airport is said
to be waning. No doubt this could be bad news for Foster + Partners who, with Halcrow, is pushing for a £50 billion mega-hub on the Isle of Grain. Partner Huw Thomas described a new landing strip at the west London leviathan as only a ‘short-term fix’ and questioned whether an alternative vision set out by Terry Farrell for a rail hub knitting together airports could compete against the continent’s integrated airports. He said: ‘If we are going to gift the future generations we have got to think bigger than patch and mend.’
Robin of Sherwood Folklore fans will be pleased to hear developer
Swan Housing is considering renaming Robin Hood Gardens the ‘Sherwood Green Forest’. The new moniker was floated last week at a briefing on the £500 million redevelopment known as Blackwall Reach, which involves demolishing the Smithson’s 1970s housing estate. Contrasting Poplar’s finest Brutalism with the confines of Mayfair’s salubrious Savile Club, the evening featured presentations by historian Graham Stewart, urbanist Ray Gindroz and self-proclaimed ‘prophet, madman and wanderer’ Steve Edge. The showstopper came from deputy chief executive Mark Thompson, who announced the company would be seeking an architect for a second phase of replacing Robin Hood Gardens’ west block. ‘We can reasonably assume it will attract attention,’ he said.
WWW.LOUISHELLMAN.CO.UK
At the last hurdle
The Hellman Files #70 A trawl through Hellman’s archives, in which we uncover gems as relevant now as they were then. Hellman writes: ‘As Eurofootie 2012 moves to the knockout stages, we remember past English parrot ..
sickness. This is from the AJ 15.06.00 during Euro 2000, when despite beating a below par German team, England failed to progress to the quarter finals. At least our hooligans came home too.
John McAslan + Partners’ eponymous executive chairman must have been miffed when he, his practice’s director of communications, and a guest from the press were refused entry to the platforms of his recently completed transformation of King’s Cross railway terminus because they didn’t have tickets. Explaining that he was the architect of the £547 million mega-project just didn’t cut it with the barrier attendant. To his credit, McAslan did successfully negotiate the barrier when it was opened for a group of tourists, only to be recalled by the guard. Fortunately, McAslan’s negotiating skills during his 15-year involvement in the King’s Cross project, with it’s regiment of ‘stakeholders’, have been exemplary until now. ..
Letter from London
Olympic victory could be ours if we moved past the veneer and encouraged artistry from the core, says Paul Finch
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summit. It will be interesting to see whether we are ever given the full details of the fees paid to the shadow contractors and engineers who have, to be fair, delivered the entire Olympic project pretty much on time and budget. But this has been achieved at a cost: the cost of paying a whole chunk of construction industry professionals to look over the shoulders of the people actually doing the work. It is a bit like the problem with private finance initiatives: people who have contributed very little to the project make far more money than those who have actually designed and built it. It’s as though bankers, lawyers and the usual host of cost and management consultants are the real achievers as opposed to boxtickers sucking quality out of everything they can get
A principle needs to apply to the park – take design seriously and stop the grey men in third-rate suits having their third-rate way
ODA
‘The English,’ Nikolaus Pevsner famously declared, ‘will spare no expense to get something on the cheap.’ For anyone who has followed the story of the Stratford Olympics, this aphorism will have some resonance as we enter the last lap of the race to complete the extraordinary park and environs in this mainly unloved part of East London. Having visited the park last week, I can say without hesitation that it is indeed an extraordinary achievement. The 2012 Games look as though they will be truly memorable, not least because of the scale of ambition on the part of the Mayor of London (who launched the bid), national government, and the efforts of the Olympic Delivery Authority and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games. The announcement that more than £400 million would be ‘handed back’ to the Treasury because of ‘savings’ sounded alarm bells, however. Savings on that scale suggests there has been some scrimping at the wrong end of the process, i.e. in decisions on matters that were not necessarily envisaged at the outset. To take one example: Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture (engineer Cecil Balmond, architect Kathryn Findlay) is highly successful in several ways, including the provision of magnificent views, and the success of Kapoor’s original notion of a journey through space and time in which light, sky and movement become one. External appearance is a matter of personal taste, but it must be said that having spent nearly £20 million on what may well be the longest surviving element in the park, akin to the Eiffel tower, it is regrettable that there is such meanness at the base. The ground treatment is no better than a second-rate playground; the structure rests on concrete pads – meeting the ground in a constructional rather than sculptural way. You get the feeling that one project manager’s bonus might have been reduced had the Orbit had the same quality of completion at its base as at its
their dullard hands on. The same goes for the sort of engineers who are proud to profess ignorance or dislike (or both) of designers and all their works and who, almost wilfully, try to splatter their temporary rubbish over carefully considered planes and vistas. In respect of the money being handed back by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (none of whose ministers have had anything to do with the Olympic success story), a wise government might ask: what could you improve if we were to make a modest amount of extra money available, even at this late stage? The cost would be minimal but the effect well worth it. The same principle needs to apply to the park and its venues in legacy mode. It is a simple matter of taking design seriously and stopping the grey men in third-rate suits having their third-rate way. ..
Black box
These six buildings should make the Stirling shortlist. Why? Just because, writes Rory Olcayto
ANDREW LEE
There’s only one thing to do when you have all the RIBA award winners gathered in one place: pick the Stirling Prize shortlist – six of the best from 59 this year. So here it is, the unofficial but definitive list of contenders and why they’ve made the cut. Hackney Marshes Centre by Stanton Williams. Because it dignifies Sunday league football (not easy). Because it’s the most social building on the list (who’s got the soap lads?). Because it’s got a built-in burger stand (brown sauce, please). Because it has this amazing detail in the changing rooms – windows overlook a more loosely packed section of gabion wall and the light that finds a way through really does dapple. One nil. New Court by OMA and Allies & Morrison. Because this building for the Rothschild Bank breaks City of London height rules so directors overlook the Bank of England from their triple-height skyroom. Because it gives the impression of creating public space by opening up views of a forgotten church by Wren. Don’t try and walk up to St Mary Woolnoth through the newly revealed graveyard however; like the beautiful lobby, London’s best in years, it’s strictly off limits. An OMA classic. Witty. Sinister. Hot. Get in. The Lyric Theatre by O’Donnell + Tuomey. Because it makes us think of Aalto. Because it’s far better than An Gaeláras in Derry, also by O’Donnell + Tuomey,
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which was shortlisted last year. Because it looks and feels civic in a way that Bennetts’ Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon – another brick ensemble and another theatre in the running two years ago – doesn’t. And because if it wins this year, and Hackett Hall McKnight’s Mac Centre is shortlisted next year (as it should be) and wins, Belfast’s developers and planners might be awoken from their deep slumber. Wexford County Council Headquarters (pictured) by Robin Lee Architecture. Because it’s the first major work by the brightest star in the emerging new guard of British architecture. Because the detail and execution here rivals that of Chipperfield’s best. Because all civic offices should be this good. Because although it seems as though Wexford has come from nowhere, the brains behind it – Robin Lee – was the joint founder of NORD and had been working towards this classic all his professional life. Brockholes Visitor Centre by Adam Khan Architects. Because it’s the best of the crop of new buildings with clustered bisected pyramid roofscapes like this. Really, it’s a trend – see DRDH’s church in Beacon Hill Baptist Church in Tulsa, US (AJ 19.04.12). Then see Feilden Clegg Bradley Studio’s weird new library in Worcester for how not to do it. (It’s called The Hive, if Google’s proving sticky.) Mostly though, it’s on the list because vistor centres are rarely this romantic. Or nearly half as good. Finally: Garsington Opera Pavilion by Snell Associates. Because if you’re looking for demountable architecture par excellence, forget the Olympics and its half-baked approach (I’ll bet the stadium is never scaled back) and check out this summer pavilion in High Wycombe. Because if you’re pining for Archigram’s walking cities, forget Peter Cook’s ossified balloon (aka the Kunsthaus) in Graz, or Roger’s messed-around with Pompidou, and learn from this one instead. Because this is High-Tech architecture as it was meant to be: useful, social, pop-uppable, put-downable. Not listed like the Lloyds for Cedric’s sake! And the overall winner? I’m not sure yet. ..
AJBuildingsLibrary.co.uk
See 240 RIBA Award winners in the AJ Buildings Library Millennium Bridge Wilkinson Eyre Architects This bridge was the winner of the 2002 Stirling Prize and is one of more than 240 RIBA Award winners in the library. Search for ‘RIBA Award’ to see photographs, drawings, development images and working details of all 240 projects on AJBuildingsLibrary.co.uk ..
AJBuildingsLibrary.co.uk Browse thousands of projects in the AJ Buildings Library, a digital archive of built work, part of your AJ subscription
Letters
Last issue AJ 14.06.12 Established 1895
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Into Orbit
Inside the Olympic Park’s eccentric observation tower John Pardey’s college-to-homes conversion
£4.95 THE ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL THEAJ.CO.UK
Extend Madryn scheme I hope that the pilot scheme to release 16 houses on Liverpool’s Madryn Street is extended to a full street – i.e. about 60 properties (Grant Shapps under fire over ‘Return to Pathfinder’ AJ 14.06.12). This would be a more cost-effective project and would save a street from appearing rather odd with only 16 houses looking really good. There is no logical reason to knock down decent houses to create a park or recreation area at the end of Madryn Street, as there is a huge park two minutes walk away. I hope a decision is made to refurbish the full street, test the market properly and then watch the remaining properties in Liverpool’s Welsh Streets return to their former glory. LETTER OFK THE WEE
Letters should be received by 10am on the Monday before publication. The AJ reserves the right to edit letters.
Barbara Smith, via AJ online
The letter of the week’s author will receive a bone china AJ mug.
Could try harder
Post to the address below or email letters@architectsjournal. co.uk
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The Architects’ Journal Greater London House Hampstead Road London
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Editor Christine Murray Deputy editor Rory Olcayto () Acting administrator Rakesh Ramchurn () Digital editor Simon Hogg () News editor Richard Waite ( ) Reporter Merlin Fulcher () Editorial intern Alvaro Menendez Technical editor Felix Mara () Senior editor James Pallister () Group special projects editor Emily Booth Sustainability editor Hattie Hartman () Sustainability intern Sahiba Chadha AJ Buildings Library editor Tom Ravenscroft () Art editor Brad Yendle () Designers Tom Carpenter, Ella Mackinnon Production editor Mary Douglas (on leave) Acting production editor Abigail Gliddon () Acting sub-editor Alan Gordon Asia correspondent Hyunjoo Lee Contributing editor Ian Martin Editorial director Paul Finch Chief executive officer Natasha Christie-Miller
tower, in Vauxhall, London, AJ online). Wherever you are across a wide area, it grimaces at you over the rooftops or in between buildings at street level. It is over-assertive. It has no relation to its surroundings. The regeneration of this area was already underway without this very unfortunate addition to the Thames riverscape and London’s skyline. This practice has done, and can do, far better than this. Owen Luder, RIBA president (1881-3, 1995-7), via AJ online
Defending MOSI Following Ursula Ackah’s comment on the design rationale of the Museum of Science and Industry (AJ.14.06.12), we would emphasise that there are four level entrances to the Great Western Warehouse. While one lift was clearly out of use at the time of her visit, there are two other lifts giving full access to the building. The backwards reference does not take into consideration the increase in visitor numbers to the museum which had rendered the ramped access through the building inadequate for peak use;
Managing director of architecture and media Conor Dignam () Group commercial director Alison Pitchford () Commercial director James MacLeod () Business development managers Nick Roberts (), Ceri Evans () Group advertising manager Amanda Pryde () Account managers Hannah Buckley (), Simon Collingwood (), Steph Atha () Classified and recruitment sales Mark Malone ()
that their design had significant pinch points where prams could not pass one another and that they were no longer compliant with current legislation. While it is unfortunate that a visitor to the museum has had such a negative experience, we are confident in the design choices made which responded clearly to our brief from the client and the issues of developing a listed building. Liz Jackson, associate Buttress Fuller Alsop Williams, Manchester
Boost for bi-fold doors We have an architect on TV (‘An architect on prime-time TV could bring the profession more work’ AJ 31.05.12) – he’s called George Clarke. When he’s not stripping down to a vest to spray paint the owner’s house white and smash holes through their walls, he’s bullying them into spending way over their budget and sticking in the obligatory bi-folding doors. It did little for the profession, but I imagine the sales of bifolding doors are doing well. James Perry, via AJ online
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RIBA Awards 2012
Introduction
T
here are 50 RIBA Awardwinning buildings in the UK this year compared with last year’s 89 which, you might reasonably think, suggests a big drop in quality in 2012. The jury’s briefing notes, however, suggest otherwise. One passage on the regional awards, of which there are 96 this year, reads that they will ‘ include some schemes which would
previously have merited an RIBA Award – i.e when we were giving up to 100 RIBA Awards rather than a likely 50 or so.’ For those who think the RIBA Awards have been overtaken by politics in recent years - one third of Stirling shortlisted buildings over the past two years have been schools, despite a smallish pool of RIBA-Award winners to pick from – the guidelines are clear. The key criterion
‘ is that the project should demonstrate design excellence, that it should be fit for purpose and that it should be sustainable.’ During site visits judges must consider ‘ budget... the spatial experience it offers... its architectural ambition and ideas… the selection and detailing of materials…its fitness for purpose, especially in response to the brief, as reflected in the level of client satisfaction.’ There are always going to be disputes over whether one building is deserving or not. Indeed, at the 11th hour one project was ‘upgraded’ from a regional to a fullblown winner. On the following pages we present the definitive list of winners. We round off with a technical essay on envelope design that draws upon RIBA’s chosen few. RORY OLCAYTO
Campus
34 Health
40 Houses
42
Housing
50 Leisure
56 Public
60
Public realm
70 Schools
72 Workplace
74
: Gareth Hoskins, Paul Karakusevic, Rory Olcayto : Simon Henley, Lars Teichmann, Clive Dutton : Patty Hopkins, Jonathan Leah, Jeremy Titchen : Denise Bennetts, Joe Morris, Richard Simmons :
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Julian Marsh, Simon Baker, Kester Rattenbury : Anthony Hudson, Eric Carter, Chris Brown : Michael Squire, Andy Avery, Nicole Crockett : Pierre Wassenaar, Kevin Singh, Jay Merrick : Charlie Hussey, Mark Jermy, Peter Wilson : Stephen Hodder,
Doug Hughes, Carole-Anne Davies : Stuart McKnight, David Sheppard, David Mellor, Andrew Grant : Marco Goldschmied, James Galpin, Alicia Pivaro, Martin Qualters : Marco Goldschmied, Warren Whyte, Alicia Pivaro : Anna Liu, Roger Shrimplin, Matt Jones : Ruth Reed, Steven Spier, William
Crawley : Sholto Humphries, Robert Dye, Anne Lorne Gillies, Peter Wilson : Deborah Saunt, Gianni Botsford, Alison Brooks, Peter Clegg, Murray Fraser, Rob Gregory, Richard Griffiths, Philip Gumuchdjian, Shelley MacNamanra, Bill Taylor, Cindy Walters, Patrick Bellew. All citations by the RIBA
RIBA Awards 2012 Campus
Campus
L
ast year campus was one of the typologies with the biggest sweep of winners – 16 in the UK – but in 2012 there’s just over half that with nine national award winning schemes. However, this number includes one EU RIBA Award – for Scott Tallon Walker’s refurbishment project in Dundalk – and three international winners, among them another Hopkins building, the Frick Lab in Princeton, for an American university.Two years ago, the Olympic Velodrome architect bagged an award for Kroon Hall in Yale). Stanton Williams is the big winner here. It has been awarded gongs for two very different campus buildings: the reworked and retrofitted Granary complex for Central Saint Martins at King’s Cross, London, and the deluxe laboratory conjured up for Cambridge University and backed by the Sainsbury family.
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X
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INTERNATIONAL
X
EU
2
1. TIM CROCKER 2 & 5. HUFTON + CROW 3. ADRIAN ARBIB 4. NICK GUTTRIDGE
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AWARDS KEY:
1 ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE STUDENT VILLAGE, HERTFORDSHIRE HAWKINS\BROWN
2 THE SAINSBURY LABORATORY, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE STANTON WILLIAMS
: : : : , m Architecturally, the buildings embody the concept of sharing in a variety of ways, thus celebrating not only economy but also the spirit of education, enabling spontaneous meetings, interaction, and gathering to happen in a variety of spaces. The eight dormitory buildings are arranged in a series of shared vistas and green commons, spaced out enough so as not to steal light from each other. Diverse cladding materials such as brick, timber and punched aluminium are well detailed and constructed, resulting in an overall visual coherence.
: : : : , m An architectural promenade forms the heart of this building designed to super-human proportions. The design supports the interaction, communication, and a connection with nature required by a botanical research laboratory. Front to back the building progresses from a grand, fortified façade to an open balcony and public café set within a botanic garden. Sustainability is achieved in the long-term: an adaptable façade behind the limestone colonnade enables research spaces to grow and change as required. ( ..) ..
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3 SHULMAN LECTURE THEATRE, QUEEN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD BERMAN GUEDES STRETTON
4 ROYAL WELSH COLLEGE OF MUSIC AND DRAMA, CARDIFF BFLS
5 CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS KING’S CROSS CAMPUS, LONDON NW1 STANTON WILLIAMS
: ’ : : : , m The Shulman auditorium is remarkable for its skilful combination of traditional materials with an uncompromisingly modern design. The use of the elegant columns as vertical cantilevers allows the roof structure to be free of horizontal ties. The roof thus floats effortlessly above the external walls and all but disappears internally. Closing the large timber louvres transforms the space into an intimate living room. The building conveys that rare quality of having always been there. ■
: : : . : , m The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama is Wales’ national music and drama conservatoire. The building comprises the exquisitely timber-lined Dora Stoutzker Concert Hall, the intimate 200-seat Richard Burton Theatre, along with studio, teaching, rehearsal spaces and café. By capitalising on the building’s inherent thermal mass, the building achieves BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standard. ( ..)
: : : : ,m 2 The 1851 Granary Building has been adapted as the college reception foyer, library and administrative offices. To the rear, the Eastern and Western Transit Sheds frame a pair of new concrete studios, which are separated by a central north-south covered way redolent of a cathedral nave. Stanton Williams has established a robust environment – home to 4,000 students and 1,000 staff – that does not depend on inert perfection but that can absorb the ebb and flow of students for many years to come. ( ..)
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RIBA Awards 2012 Campus
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7 SOMERVILLE COLLEGE STUDENT ACCOMMODATION, OXFORD NIALL MCLAUGHLIN ARCHITECTS
: : ’ : . : ,m 2 The demolition of the Radcliffe Infirmary exposed a long blank facade, which the college had previously had its back to. An exchange of land allowed a development on this edge site containing new student rooms and meant the college could then redevelop its grounds for new humanities faculty. Only six metres-deep by 175 metres-long, the site is just big enough for a row of rooms with a connecting corridor. Externally it creates one side of a new, yet to be completed street.
6. HUFTON + CROW 7. NICK KANE 8. PAUL TIERNEY 9. JOHN GOLLINGS
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9
LOUGHBOROUGH DESIGN SCHOOL, 6 TOWERS WAY, LOUGHBOROUGH BURWELL DEAKINS ARCHITECTS
DUNDALK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, 8 PJ CARROLL’S FACTORY, DUNDALK SCOTT TALLON WALKER ARCHITECTS
CLAYTON CAMPUS, MONASH 9 UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE VN ARCHITECTURE
: : : . : ,m 2 This building comprises teaching spaces, laboratories, workshops, computer suites, offices and a café, and is located within the existing university campus. It is a deep-plan building on a roughly triangular footprint. Environmentally, the inclusion of chimneys within the heart of the plan has helped the building to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating. Structurally, the choice of concrete works well here, offering both a robust and beautiful quality of finish to the interior spaces. ■ ( .)
: : : . : ,m It is not often a practice gets the chance to makeover one of its own masterpieces. The major design decision taken was to organise the offices around three atria. This required three 20 x 20 metre bays to be jacked up by a metre in order to create two-storey accommodation. This is a project that has rescued an important example of mid-century Modernism and answers questions about how best and most economically can we re-use under-performing and outmoded structures, rather than building from scratch.
: : : : ,m 2 This large student housing project comprises two five-storey buildings each housing 300 students arranged around a large sheltered communal space that has a delightful collegiate feel to it. Investment in large solar PV and solar hot water arrays, water recycling and natural ventilation with thermal chimneys, has resulted in a fivestar Australian Green Star rating. This is a creditable and credible application of sustainable design principles on a significant scale in a relatively low-cost project.
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FRICK LABORATORY, PRINCETON 10 HOPKINS ARCHITECTS : : : : , m Princeton University wanted a sustainable building to re-house its chemistry department. Hopkins’ building is a subtle composition of laboratory wing and three blocks of offices and staircase cores, all linked by a lofty atrium that gives a sense of transparency to the normally hermetic world of the laboratories. The environmental strategy sets new standards of environmental performance for laboratory buildings, employing chilled beams, photovoltaics and rainwater/grey water recycling.
10. WARREN JAGGER 11. M MEZULIS
RIBA Awards 2012 Campus
11 BALSILLIE SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, CIGI, WATERLOO KUWABARA PAYNE MCKENNA BLUMBERG ARCHITECTS
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: : : : , m The client wanted a building that would last a century and befit its site; the historic former Seagram Distillery. The architects responded to the client’s wish for a ‘vibrant sanctuary’, and a ‘functional, but not fancy’design, with a contemporary reinterpretation of a traditional Oxford quad with courtyard and bell tower. The BubbleDeck system used replaces 30 per cent of the non-structural concrete with recycled plastic balls.
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CROWN WOODS COLLEGE, LONDON SE9 NICHOLAS HARE ARCHITECTS (above) : : : : ,m 2
EMMANUEL COLLEGE LIBRARY, CAMBRIDGE KILBURN NIGHTINGALE ARCHITECTS : : : : ,m 2
THE HUB, COVENTRY UNIVERSITY HAWKINS/BROWN (above) : : : . : ,m 2
BROADWATER ROAD, NORTHBROOK COLLEGE, WORTHING ECE ARCHITECTURE : : : . : ,m 2
UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM, UNIVERSITY PARK CAMPUS HOPKINS ARCHITECTS : : : . : ,m 2
FORTH VALLEY COLLEGE OF FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION, ALLOA CAMPUS REIACH AND HALL ARCHITECTS (above right) : : : . : ,m 2
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DAVE MORRIS
TIM CROCKER
PETER DURANT
RIBA regional winners
ELMWOOD HALL, BELFAST CONSARC CONSERVATION : ’ : ’ : :
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RIBA Awards 2012 Health
Health 1
AWARDS KEY:
X
NATIONAL
X
INTERNATIONAL
X
EU
I
t was another poor year for good design in the health sector. Even Maggie’s Centres failed to land a national RIBA for all three recent completions – OMA in Glasgow and Garber & James (with Kisho Kurokawa) in Swansea rightly picked up RIBAs but the Piers Gough design in Nottingham only managed a regional. The last big hospital building to win an award was Reiach & Hall’s Stobhill in Glasgow two years ago. Medical Architecture’s Roseberry Park, a 300-plus bed mental health ‘village’ in Middlesbrough, goes some way to challenging this worrying trend, though it would be hard for RIBA to argue that the UK is a leader in healthcare design, given it has handed out so few awards in this sector in recent years.
1. CRAIG AUCKLAND 2 . THORE GARBERS 3. PHILIPPE RUAULT 4. JILL TATE
1 DYSON CENTRE FOR NEO-NATAL CARE, BATH FEILDEN CLEGG BRADLEY STUDIOS : : : : ,m The restraint of the Dyson Centre’s understated, crisply detailed exterior belies the importance of a groundbreaking project. By selecting architects with no prior UK healthcare experience nor pre-conceptions, the client has introduced a new vein of thought to its campus. Feilden Clegg Bradley Studio’s pioneering, holistic approach has created a low-carbon building where careful use of materials, light, scale and intimacy of spaces, generate a calm, caring atmosphere. ..
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4 ROSEBERRY PARK, MIDDLESBROUGH MEDICAL ARCHITECTURE
4
: , : ’ : : ,m This is an ambitious project for a 312-bed mental health village – a new building type which is being assessed by the NHS to see how it works for patients and staff. The success of the scheme is demonstrated by the fact that one discharged patient ram-raided the gate to get back in. As for the care staff at Roseberry Park, they believe the buildings iron out potential flashpoints that can occur. The overall design brings a sense of calm, space and light.
3
RIBA regional winners MARTINE HAMILTON KNIGHT
2
2 MAGGIE’S CENTRE SOUTH-WEST WALES GARBERS & JAMES/KISHO KUROKAWA
3 MAGGIE’S CENTRE GARTNAVEL, GLASGOW OMA
: ’ : : : m Kisho Kurokawa drew the concept sketch for this Maggie’s Centre before his death in 2007 and the outcome is a special building. The established programme of the Maggie’s Centres, the social kitchen at a pivotal location, is articulated beautifully in the plan, while the standing seam spiralling roof prescribes the building’s form perfectly. The concrete used in the design is of a remarkable quality, with embedded titanium plates that glisten in the sunlight. ( ..)
: ’ : : : m Several Maggie’s Centres by ‘signature’ architects are visible over long distances, becoming beacons of the invaluable support provided by the staff that work there. In Glasgow, OMA’s approach has been about more modest external expression, embracing a courtyard garden to generate a place of gentle contemplation and, instead being on the kitchen table, as with other Maggie’s Centres, here the looping plan encourages visitors to go for a walk. ( ..)
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INSTITUTE OF TRANSPLANTATION, NEWCASTLE RYDER ARCHITECTURE : : : : ,m MAGGIE’S CENTRE NOTTINGHAM CZWG (above) ( ..) : ’ : : . : m QUEEN ELIZABETH HOSPITAL, BIRMINGHAM BUILDING DESIGN PARTNERSHIP : : / : : ,m
RIBA Awards 2012 Houses
Houses
AWARDS KEY:
T
here are always lots of one-off houses in the RIBA Awards, although this year’s seven doesn’t quite measure up to the 17 selected last year. (Yet 27 regional winners show that much of the profession’s design skills are expended on bespoke house design while the recession is holding up typically more challenging projects). Of 2012’s winners, Duggan Morris must be particularly pleased: last year it picked up a RIBA Award and the Manser Medal for a retrofit house designed for Graham Stirk and Susie Le Good. This year it has landed one for a house it designed for partners Joe Morris and Mary Duggan. Roger Stephenson too, has been rightly recognised: his North House, which made the cover of the AJ last April, is a national winner.
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NATIONAL
X
INTERNATIONAL
X
EU
2
1. KILLIAN O’SULLIVAN 2. JAMES BRITTAIN
1
X
1 HAIRY HOUSE, LONDON W6 HAYHURST & CO IN COLLABORATION WITH LUCY CARMICHAEL : : : , : m Hairy House, named for the wildflower turf roof, is an extension to a Victorian terraced house, a mere 10 square metres larger than the previous footprint of a dilapidated lean-to, and in brief which required a new family kitchen, dining and play space. The simplicity of the brief was accompanied by a desire to use the opportunities afforded by the angled and tapering geometry of the site playfully to challenge the existing house’s Victorian order. The result is a singular and very satisfying domestic environment.
2 KING’S GROVE, LONDON SE15 DUGGAN MORRIS ARCHITECTS : : : , : m This is a taut, exemplary response to the development of a landlocked site: an intelligent house built by an architect couple for themselves. The house demonstrates a highly disciplined attention to detail in the design and the immaculate quality of construction. All fitting out responds absolutely to the brick module of the enclosure. The architects have employed a simple palette of materials, including exposed brickwork, oak storage wall panels, stairs and flooring and darkstained timber-framed bespoke glazing. ..
RIBA Awards 2012 Houses
3. DANIEL HOPKINSON 4. MCGARRY MOON ARCHITECTS 5. ARD ARCHITECTS 6. PTOLEMY DEAN ARCHITECTS
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3
5
3 NORTH HOUSE, BOWDON, CHESHIRE ROGER STEPHENSON ARCHITECTS
4 GLENARIFFE HOUSE, GLENS OF ANTRIM MCGARRY MOON ARCHITECTS
: : : : m North House is a substantial detached family home in a street of impressive Victorian villas. It is an example of how an uncompromisingly contemporary house can sit comfortably and calmly in a conservation area and its existence is due to a sympathetic planning officer who recognised on appeal the sensitivity of the composition. Despite the affluent nature of this new family home, there is a modesty about the materials and a subtlety to the technology which together deliver a comfortable and sustainable house.
: : : : Set within the Glens of Antrim on the side of the valley running down to the sea, this house respects the rural architecture of the area while providing an immaculately detailed modern interpretation of a country home with excellent environmental credentials. From the road, the massing and white-rendered exterior refers directly to the rural vernacular. Internally, the space flows though the living spaces and the placement and proportion of the windows allow stunning views.
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5 OSBORNE PARK, BELFAST ARD (CIARAN MACKEL) ARCHITECTS : : : : This major addition to a detached Victorian villa is seen in the context of the rear extensions of suburban Belfast. The rationalisation of the functions, spaces and detailing, however, are in marked contrast to the distinction between ‘served’ and ‘servant’ spaces, which is articulated in the massing and the materials as well as the separation of the two activities by a courtyard. The new spaces bring light into the depth of the plan balancing the formal Victorian rooms at the front of the house. ..
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EASTON NESTON, TOWCESTER, 6 NORTHAMPTONSHIRE PTOLEMY DEAN ARCHITECTS
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: : : : ,m One of the finest country houses in England, designed by Hawksmoor with a wing by Wren, unsympathetic additions and a fire in 2002 meant there was much for the new owners and their architects to address at Easton Neston. Repairs complete, attention turned to the sensitive incorporation of modern facilities. This project has not only demanded an understanding of traditional crafts, but also the ability to reconcile conservation with contemporary life.
PRIVATE HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE MOLE ARCHITECTS : : : , : m 2 ■ STABLE ACRE, NORFOLK DAVID KOHN ARCHITECTS (above right) : : : : m 2
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RIGG BECK, NEWLANDS VALLEY, CUMBRIA KNOX BHAVAN ARCHITECTS ( far right, top) : : () : : m 2 MOAT HOUSE, MOTTRAM ST ANDREW, CHESHIRE BUTTRESS FULLER ALSOP WILLIAMS : : : : m 2 PRIVATE HOUSE, KENT HAMPSON WILLIAMS ARCHITECTS : : : : m 2
CHARLES HOSEA
OLD SAN JUAN, GERRARDS CROSS, BUCKS CORRIGAN + SOUNDY + KILAIDITI ARCHITECTS (right, middle) : : : . : m 2 POND COTTAGE, GREAT HORWOOD, BUCKS CHRIS BANNISTER AND BARBARA DUNSIRE (right) : : : , : m 2
CATHERINE WILSON
FEERINGBURY FARM BARN, FEERING, ESSEX HUDSON ARCHITECTS (above) : - : : : m 2
CHRIS BANNISTER
LEFT: JAMES BRITTAIN RIGHT: WILL PRYCE
RIBA regional winners
RIBA Awards 2012 Houses
LADLECOMBE COTTAGE, CRANHAM, 7 GLOUCESTERSHIRE FOUND ASSOCIATES
7
7. HUFTON + CROW
: : : : m The planners required that any new building on the site must be an extension to a tiny neglected gamekeeper’s cottage and that it be subordinate to it in scale. End of project. Instead, the architect and the client successfully argued for a series of dry stone walls and terraces in which the house is buried under grass roofs. The result is a house of substantial scale that does not overwhelm the cottage, with its linear form exploited to create an unfolding sequence of spaces.
LONG HOUSE, WINCHESTER, HAMPSHIRE DAN BRILL ARCHITECTS (above) : : : , : m 2 POOLEY HOUSE, HAYLING, HAMPSHIRE JOHN PARDEY ARCHITECTS : : : , : m 2 LIGHTHOUSE 65, HILL HEAD, FAREHAM AR DESIGN STUDIO ( far right, middle) : :
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HILL TOP HOUSE, OXFORD ADRIAN JAMES ARCHITECTS ( far right, top) : : : : m 2 OLD BEARHURST, TICEHURST, WEST SUSSEX DUGGAN MORRIS ARCHITECTS : : : . : m 2 TOOT RISE, PETT LEVEL, EAST SUSSEX NICK EVANS ARCHITECTS (above right) : :
DAIVD FISHER
: : m 2 PRIVATE HOUSE, WEST WITTERING, WEST SUSSEX GUY STANSFELD ARCHITECTS : : : : m 2
MARTIN GARDNER
PAUL SMOOTHY
: : m 2
LEFT: JAMES BRITTAIN RIGHT: JIM STEPHENSON
EDMUND SUMNER
RIBA regional winners
TWO PASSIVE SOLAR GAIN HOUSES, PORTHOWEN, CORNWALL SIMON CONDER ASSOCIATES (right) : : : : m 2
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TOSHIHIRO SOBAJIMA
RIBA Awards 2012 Houses
8 DUNE HOUSE MOLE THORPENESS, SUFFOLK JARMUND/VIGSNÆS ARCHITECTS & MOLE ARCHITECTS
8
9
10
9 BOGBAIN MILL, LOCH USSIE BY MARYBURGH RURAL DESIGN ARCHITECTS
10 MAISON L, ÎLE-DE-FRANCE CHRISTIAN POTTGIESSER ARCHITECTURESPOSSIBLES
: : : : m With this re-working of an old stone mill the architect has created a number of simple timber pavilions and additions to the ‘found’ walls, threading through crossaxes and arranged in unfolding layers over the ruins to create a series of courtyards. Everywhere, there is natural light and framed views. The old fabric is preserved, with the oak structure revealed inside the main living wing. This is sustainable domestic architecture of high-quality, imagination and clarity.
: : : : m The brief suggested the L-shaped general plan and the use of an indigenous stone for retaining walls. But it did not suggest half-burying a series of interconnecting cave-like rooms nor the five three-storey board-marked concrete towers that poke out of the rockery roof. This is where the genius of the architect comes in. This is masterful house design by an ingenious architect who has brought a little bit of San Gimignano to this corner of theÎle de France.
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8. CHRIS WRIGHT 9. ANDREW LEE 1. GEORGE DUPIN 11. STUDIO GRASSO CANNIZZO 12. TOSHIHIRO SOBAJIMA
: : : : m Alain de Botton’s Living Architecture concept allows people to find out what it is like to live in a fine piece of architecture, albeit for just a few days. While enjoying a pleasant holiday they might be taking their first steps to becoming clients themselves. An open-plan living space hunkered into its land is topped by four tent-like bedrooms above and the roof form plays on local vernacular gables and sheds, but is also an exploration in geometry.
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11 FCN 2009, NOTO, SICILY MARIA GIUSEPPINA GRASSO CANNIZZO : : : , : m Situated on the side of a hill, in a seismic area of Sicily, this house is a lesson in freshness of thinking, invention and in the inseparable nature of structure and architecture. An apparently solid plywoodclad box floats above the site, pitched so as to enjoy the horizon and the distant sea. It prizes open by means of a mechanically operated movable guest wing, which slides away to reveal a terrace and a glass wall to the main house. The main fixed element of the house is constructed in prefabricated concrete. ..
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YOTSUYA TENERA, TOKYO 12 KEY OPERATION INC
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: : : : m Situated in a residential district of Tokyo, the three storey Yotsua Tenera building occupies a cranked site and complies with onerous planning constraints, including strict boundary setback, rights to light, plot ratio and evacuation requirements. While meeting these demands, the architects have succeeded in creating a building of coherence and complexity, with 12 unique unit types accessed from two daylit stairs that eliminate the need for corridors. The communal stair encourages interaction between residents without compromising privacy.
PAINTED HOUSE, LONDON NW1 JONATHAN WOOLF ARCHITECTS (above) : : () : : m 2 VAUGH STEIL, PENRITH O’NEIL ASSOCIATES/O’NEIL & PETRIE : : : : m 2 DEVONSHIRE ROAD, CHORLTON, MANCHESTER OLLIER SMURTHWAITE ARCHITECTS (above right) : : : , : m 2
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CAPE COVE, SHORE ROAD, HELENSBURGH CAMERON WEBSTER ARCHITECTS : : : , : m 2 HOUSE AT BORRERAIG, SKYE DUALCHAS BUILDING DESIGN : : : , : m 2 MODEL ‘D’ HOUSE, INSCH GOKAY DEVECI CHARTERED ARCHITECT : : , : m 2 OLD SCHOOLYARD, EDINBURGH ZONE ARCHITECTS : : : . : m 2
LEFT: PETER LATHEY RIGHT: TIM SOAR
HÉLÈNE BINET
MATT OLLIER
RIBA regional winners
PRIVATE HOUSE, SONNING GREGORY PHILLIPS ARCHITECTS : : : : m 2 HORSEFIELD HOUSE, SHEFFIELD PRUE CHILES ARCHITECTS (above) : : : : m 2 AD++ HOUSE, YORK COFFEY ARCHITECTS (above right) : : : : m 2
CARREG A GWYDR ITTON COMMON, MONMOUTHSHIRE HALL BEDNARCZYK : : : , : m 2
RIBA Awards 2012 Housing
Housing 1
AWARDS KEY:
X
NATIONAL
X
INTERNATIONAL
X
EU
W
ith housing minister Grant Shapps locked in a PR battle with his Labour shadow Jack Dromey last week over the health of the UK house building sector – the blue corner says it’s a record year, red says it’s a shambles – RIBA has made at least one thing clear: design quality in this sector is atrocious. The evidence? Just four UK national awards this year (there are more international winners in 2012: five) and at least one of these – Glen Howell’s Triangle development in Swindon for Kevin McCloud – wouldn’t have happened without a celebrity on board. Tony Fretton and Sergison Bates fly the flag in Europe with excellent schemes in Holland and Switzerland, but wouldn’t it be nice if they had similar work here, too?
ST PANCRAS CHAMBERS, LONDON 1 RHWL ARCHITECTS AND RICHARD GRIFFITHS ARCHITECTS
RWL
: : : : , m This scheme completes the campaign led by Sir John Betjeman and Nicholas Pevsner that saved Sir George Gilbert Scott’s building from demolition in the 1960s and marked a watershed in conservation history. The adapted internal spaces make perfect sense; the original carriage drop-off has been internalised to create the hotel reception and a function room. English Heritage insisted the integration of en-suite bathrooms not be detrimental, so they form diminutive structures within the original room interiors. ..
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RIBA Awards 2012 Housing
3
2
2. PHILIP VILE 3. UNION NORTH 4.PAUL RAFTERY
4
2 PEABODY AVENUE, LONDON SW1 HAWORTH TOMPKINS : : : . : ,m Peabody Avenue has been returned to its prewar state. The new five-storey high blocks, set around three vertical circulation cores, are built in warm, yellow stock bricks with windows set well back to acknowledge the robust nature of the existing Avenue. To the rear, generous balconies cantilever from the circulation walkway and enliven the view from the railway and embankment. The new building displays the strength, resilience and confidence of the existing and is an exemplar of good housing and of place-making. ..
3 SAXTON, LEEDS UNION NORTH : : : : ,m This refurbishment of two derelict council housing blocks offers a paradigm for regeneration, which combines both social and environmental sustainability. Intensive consultation has led to a genuinely mixedtenure scheme, with the number of homes on the site rising from 214 to 410. The existing structure, lifts and stairs have been re-used, and a new steel structure has been added to the outside to provide the increased density and allow the building to be clad in a highly insulating but very elegant new skin. ■
4 THE TRIANGLE, SWINDON GLEN HOWELLS ARCHITECTS : : : . : ,m This project is an exemplar for low-cost, environmentally responsible social housing. The houses are a thoughtful re-interpretation of the terrace vernacular. The terrace is articulated with chimney-like ventilation stacks and well-proportioned windows, while gabions modify the visual impact of the car. The balance of public, communal and private spaces is a great success, highlighting the importance of good public realm design in creating sustainable communities and desirable homes. ■ ( ..) ..
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5. AARON POCOCK 6. ALAIN GRANDCHAMP 7. ALBERT LIM
5
7
5 THE TROIKA, KUALA LUMPUR FOSTER + PARTNERS : : : : , m This daring attempt to find a new functionally driven form for high-density urban living in tropical climates combines apartments, offices, shops and restaurants in three unequal towers clustered around an enclosed courtyard. The twisting geometry of the towers responds organically to the neighbouring buildings, solar orientation and distant views. With shade and wind-driven ventilation providing the only natural means of tempering the excessive heat, the apartments are designed so they can be naturally ventilated when the weather allows. ..
6 URBAN HOUSING AND CRÈCHE, GENEVA SERGISON BATES ARCHITECTS WITH JEAN-PAUL JACCAUD ARCHITECTES : : - : . : ,m The building lies in the existing urban structure of arcades, covered walkways and alleys with various routes cutting through the dense city block. The entrance to the crèche allows views into the rear courtyard – a shaded and secure play area for children. The apartments are organized around the site’s perimeter, with central halls connecting rooms in a continuous spatial sequence.
7 SOLARIS, SINGAPORE TR HAMZAH AND YEANG : : - : . : , m Ken Yeang’s approach to designing buildings to cope naturally with extreme climates is hugely important. Solaris is two large buildings – one of seven and one of 14 storeys – linked by a generous daylit and naturally ventilated atrium with rooflights that close automatically when it rains. This is a green building in every sense of the word. A narrow landscaped ramp, more like a stony country path, wraps itself around the building for 1.5km, rising from ground level up to a roof garden with dramatic views of a third of Singapore.
RIBA Awards 2012 Housing
9
8
8. ALBERT LIM 9. KERUN IP 10. PETER COOK
10
8 ONE KL, KUALA LUMPUR SCDA ARCHITECTS : : : : ,m This residential tower is shaped like the letter C in order to make the best possible use of a tight urban site. The missing fourth elevation attracts the wind, with negative pressure pushing it up through the void, thereby cross-ventilating the structure through the cuts made by the terraces and pools. The dual aspect of each apartment brings other advantages. Light is pulled into all the rooms and creates what is likely to be, in an architectural sense, the most interesting space – the void with its dramatic escape stairs. ..
9 INNHOUSE, KUNMING INTEGER INTELLIGENT AND GREEN : - : - : : ,m The architects have responded well to the idyllic mountain context, breaking the boutique hotel into carefully sculpted pavilions. Slatted vertical cedar timber covers much of the exteriors, with slats spaced out where they appear over windows. The project has good sustainability credentials for a luxury hotel. It uses locally sourced timber and other materials, has low U-values and windows are placed to minimise heat gain and thus cut down on the air-conditioning.
10 SOLID 11, AMSTERDAM TONY FRETTON ARCHITECTS : : : . : ,m The client sees his projects as ‘providing a need, not a profit’; they are designed to last for a century and so have to be adaptable to the needs of unknown occupants. Spaces were auctioned on the basis of what users would bring to the mix and include restaurants, boutique hotels, a dentist, a hairdresser and artists, alongside regular residential uses. What Tony Fretton has achieved is to deliver a building with endless possibilities by providing light, tough and, in some places ingenious, spaces. ..
H27D, KONSTANZ 11 KRAUS SCHOENBERG ARCHITECTS
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11. IOANA MARINESCU
: + : : : m H27D is an elegant mix of sensitivity to context and technical prowess. Walls made of lightweight concrete blocks preclude the need for additional thermal insulation. The apartments are ingenious; a typical plan has small bedrooms with a linking balcony overlooking the street, and a large open-plan L-shaped living/kitchen/dining area behind. This clever mixed-use scheme (a clothes shop occupies the ground floor) was achieved for a mere €1,428 per square metre.
THE CUBE, BIRMINGHAM MAKE (above top) : / : / : : ,m 2
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BERMONDSEY ISLAND, LONDON SE16 URBAN SALON (above) : : : : ,m 2
WEST OAK FARM, STOCKSFIELD SPENCE AND DOWER (above) : : : : ,m 2
LEFT TOP: HOLLY EVE WATSON LEFT BELOW: TOM MANLEY RIGHT: RICHARD GIBSON ARCHITECTS
TOP: FIRST HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHY BOTTOM: GARETH GARDNER
RIBA regional winners
FORE STREET, GLASGOW HYPOSTYLE ARCHITECTS (left) : : : . : GRÖDIANS, LERWICK RICHARD GIBSON ARCHITECTS (above) : : : . :
RIBA Awards 2012 Leisure
Leisure 1
AWARDS KEY:
X
NATIONAL
X
INTERNATIONAL
X
EU
T
hree leisure buildings are good enough for national RIBAs this year. But they are all in London. This is becoming a trend (of the eight winners last year, only one was outside London or the South East). Unsurprisingly, the Olympic stadium by Populous has bagged a gong, but so has David Morley’s much smaller, much quieter outdoor pool project for The Hurlingham Club in Chelsea. The best of the bunch however – and the best of Stanton William’s three winning projects this year – is the Hackney Marshes Centre souped-up changing rooms for weekend footballers with a restaurant, terrace and community rooms. Rogers Stirk Harbour’s bullring in Barcelona, revamped as a shopping centre, and Idom’s arena for Bilbao were the only other winners RIBA judged to be suitably architectural.
RORY OLCAYTO
1 OLYMPIC STADIUM, LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC PARK E20 POPULOUS
1. MORLEY VON STERNBERG
: : : : , m Central to the vision for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are facilities that provide not only world-class Olympic venues, but also form a legacy of sustainable facilities for future use. Thus the stadium can be reduced from 80,000 seats in Games mode to just 22,000 in its legacy role. The bowl of the stadium provides clear sightlines and an intimate relationship with the events. With its expressive and identifiable crown of rooftop floodlights, it has already become a landmark on the skyline of the capital. ( ..) ..
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RIBA Awards 2012 Leisure
2. JAROSŁAWWIECZORKIEWICZ 3. HUFTON + CROW 4. JORGE ALLENDE 5. DAVID CARDELUS
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2 THE HURLINGHAM CLUB OUTDOOR POOL, LONDON SW6 DAVID MORLEY ARCHITECTS
3 HACKNEY MARSHES CENTRE, SOUTH MARSH, LONDON E9 STANTON WILLIAMS
: : : : m The new changing room building is larger than its 80-year-old original and adopts an elongated tear shape; it reprises its predecessor with long horizontal proportions, blue painted clapboard walls with white doors and accessories such as the clock and life-saving rings. This reinterpretation of a traditional lido building is, however, given additional interest by the new roof, made up of a series of elegant, metal-clad vaults, which float at a constant height above clerestory glazing.
: : : : , m Hackney Marshes is the home of amateur Sunday league football in London. The centre provides a ‘community hub’ comprising changing rooms, a café and an education facility for players and the public. The restrained palette of rubble-filled gabions and Cor-ten steel makes reference to the historic uses of the site, while the building’s linear form creates a gateway to the park. Sliding perforated Cor-ten screens ‘lock down’ the centre at night, enhancing its sculptural presence in the marsh landscape.
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4 BILBAO ARENA AND SPORTS CENTRE IDOM : : : : , m This 20,000-seat professional basketball stadium and community sports centre is perched on a grassy outcrop, its veil of green painted steel ‘leaves’ hanging five metres beyond the world-class arena inside. This creates an exterior service zone (like the branches of a tree) for the building’s accessible array of air-handling equipment. In total contrast, the sports centre is a cave carved from the ferrous rock. Low-level pool lighting and dark materials give this ‘local public amenity’ space an aura of five star hotel glamour and tranquillity. ..
5 LAS ARENAS, BARCELONA ROGERS STIRK HARBOUR + PARTNERS
5
: : : : , m This is a radical transformation of a redundant bull-fighting arena into an enormous leisure and entertainment complex. The brick elevations are clasped by concrete beams, supported by raking legs. Inside, concrete columns support radial cantilevered steel cinema pods. More characteristic yellow steel legs support a 100m-diameter dish with a laminated timber gridshell roof. Skirting this structure is a cantilevered public ‘plaza in the sky’, with bars and restaurants enjoying wonderful panoramic views of Barcelona. A veritable tour de force. ( ..)
MINT HOTEL TOWER OF LONDON, LONDON EC3 BENNETTS ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS : : ’ : : , m
CANADA WATER LIBRARY, LONDON SE16 CZWG : : : . : , m
LEE VALLEY WHITE WATER CENTRE, WALTHAM CROSS FAULKNERBROWNS ARCHITECTS : : : : , m
VICTORIA LEISURE CENTRE, NOTTINGHAM LEVITATE ( far right) : : / : : , m
FOUR SEASONS HOTEL SPA, LONDON W1 ERIC PARRY ARCHITECTS : : : : , m
CORINTHIAN CLUB, GLASGOW G1 GROUP : : : . :
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: : : m
HERIOT’S UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR SPORT & EXERCISE, EDINBURGH LDN ARCHITECTS ( far left) : - : : : , m
THE SEAGULL AND THE WINDBREAK, BOSCOMBE A:B:I:R ARCHITECTS : : : . : , m
LOCH LEVEN BIRD HIDE, KINROSS ICOSIS ARCHITECTS : : / : , : /
M&S SIMPLY FOODS, SHEFFIELD LEWIS & HICKEY : : : . : , m
SLEEPERZ NEWCASTLE CLASH ASSOCIATES : : : . : , m ROCKSALT RESTAURANT, FOLKESTONE GUY HOLLAWAY ARCHITECTS : : : : m
MARTINE HAMILTON KNIGHT
PAUL ZANRE
RIBA regional winners
MARQUIS HOTEL & RESTAURANT, NEAR DOVER GUY HOLLAWAY ARCHITECTS :
RIBA Awards 2012 Public
Public
AWARDS KEY:
T
his sector is home to the best British architecture this year (strictly speaking, it’s a little broad to call it a typology) and this is reflected in the number of buildings – 15 in the UK – deemed good enough for a RIBA Award. There are some genuine greats among them, with the Lyric in Belfast probably the best in show, although if we include the EU winners too, Robin Lee Architecture’s Wexford County Council HQ together they would have to be considered as serious Stirling contenders. Chipperfield’s double is to be expected – the Hepworth and Turner Contemporary make for a cracking pair. But even after site visits to Wakefield and Margate, a lingering doubt remains: his overseas work is better. Fosters’ Sperone Westwater gallery in New York stands out internationally.
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NATIONAL
X
INTERNATIONAL
X
EU
2 1. ANDREW LEE 2. RICHARD DAVIES 3. O’DONNELL + TUOMEY 4. HÉLÈNE BINET 5. DAVID GRANDORGE
1
X
1 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND, EDINBURGH GARETH HOSKINS ARCHITECTS
2 GARSINGTON OPERA PAVILION, OXFORD ROBIN SNELL ASSOCIATES
: : : . : ,m The completion of the second phase of the masterplan has expanded the gallery spaces, restored much of the original architect’s intent and improved access and visitor facilities. This 0 museum now fully merits its national epithet. The big moves are deftly delivered and the adaptation is sensitive and intelligent, enhancing both the building and the objects displayed within. Fully accessible with a welcoming new ground floor entrance, the whole design encourages visitors to see every part of this important collection. ( ..)
: : : . : ,m In the great English tradition of distrust of the new, followed by rapid assimilation into permanency and subsequent listing, Garsington’s design concept is based on a demountable 600-seat ‘temporary structure’. It should come down every autumn, but the landowner likes it so much they want to keep it up. Nonetheless, it is made of transportable elements requiring one cherry picker to put it together. Garsington is a great Fun Palace, that Cedric Price can now smile down on. ( ..) ..
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3 LYRIC THEATRE, BELFAST O’DONNELL + TUOMEY : : : . : ,m The steeply sloping river frontage within a tightly knit fabric of terrace houses presented a considerable design challenge: how to squeeze a large public facility into a domestic environment? The architects have managed to fit the volumes needed to accommodate the auditorium, studio and rehearsal room with ease. The dramatic entry stairs and the tactility of the interior lead to the enveloping, dark and dramatic space of the theatre itself. The long-anticipated completion of the Lyric has been more than worth it. ( .) ..
4 HOLBURNE MUSEUM, BATH ERIC PARRY ARCHITECTS : : : . : ,m This intelligent project has recovered a lost connection between the city and an 18th century pleasure garden. Glimpsed from a distance through the trees, there is an unexpected ethereal quality to the extension to Eric Parry’s museum. The use of materials and layering to the facade, creates a sophisticated play of shadows, light and reflection, which is both beautiful and unique. It has created a building of true character, underpinned by careful historical research and analysis and is very much of its site. ( ..)
5 CAISTOR ARTS AND HERITAGE CENTRE, LINCOLNSHIRE JONATHAN HENDRY ARCHITECTS : : : , : m The project to convert a dilapidated Methodist chapel into an arts and heritage centre was the initiative of a group of local people in search of a place to house a collection of local artefacts. The closure of the library and the potential for a small gallery and café changed the brief to one for a new social hub for the village. The detailing is simple, well made and deeply considered and the overall impression is both restrained but welcoming – a delightful experience.
RIBA Awards 2012 Public
7
6. PAUL RIDDLE 7. TODD ARCHITECTS 8. EDMUND SUMNER
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6 WHITE CUBE BERMONDSEY SE1 CASPER MUELLER KNEER ARCHITECTS : : : : ,m This is a brilliantly simple and appropriate use of a former industrial building as a super-cool gallery. The internal spaces are structurally and environmentally independent, formed to give the correct conditions for all possible displays. All walls register as flat white planes and shadow gapped throughout. The floor is immaculately finished, polished concrete. The ceiling over the circulation area comprises light tubes set in black mesh, while the gallery lighting gives a shadowless, even quality to best illuminate the displays. ( ..) ..
7 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND (PRONI), BELFAST TODD ARCHITECTS : : : : This concrete citadel is a repository of history and is clearly organised between its functions of collection, preservation, storage and access. The abundance of natural light and the calm, polished feel of the interior lend it an inviting yet hushed air. Not only is the building sustainable but, it also treats this approach as a given by prioritising the quality of use, space and light, suggesting the days of conflict between architectural quality and the environmental are well behind us. ■
8 BFI MASTER FILM STORE EDWARD CULLINAN ARCHITECTS : : : : ,m This building might be described as a Modernist machine for preserving culture. These film stores protect 190,000 canisters of unstable nitrate film and 240,000 acetate reels at minus 5°C and at a fixed humidity. The archive could have been a serviceable oblong of concrete bunkers equating form with function – but this is more ambitious. In plan, elevations and material detailing, the archive’s design draws from a stripped down industrial Modernism, yet also radiates a very particular kind of 21st century finesse and environmental efficiency. ( ..) ..
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RIBA Awards 2012 Public
9 TURNER CONTEMPORARY, MARGATE DAVID CHIPPERFIELD ARCHITECTS
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9. IWAN BAAN
: : : . : ,m Sat on the edge of the North Sea, the understated but carefully articulated white panelled exterior is unapologetically fortresslike and protective of the jewels within. Deceptively simple, this is a curator’s dream. 10 years in the making, it is beautifully controlled sequence of galleries of a standard that persuades custodians of national and international collections to readily lend artworks. The addition of the gallery leaves Margate’s knotted handkerchief and ice cream image firmly behind. ( ..)
RIGHT: GAUTIER DEBLONDE BOTTOM : SALLY ANN NORMAN
LEFT: NMM RIGHT: DAVE MORRIS
ANGELO HORNAK
RIBA regional winners
ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL CHURCHYARD, LONDON EC4 MARTIN STANCLIFFE ARCHITECTS (above) : ’ : ’ : : /
SAMMY OFER WING, NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM, LONDON SE10 PURCELL MILLER TRITTON (above right) : : : : ,m 2
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LINLITHGOW BURGH HALLS MALCOLM FRASER ARCHITECTS (right) : : : . : SCOTSMAN STEPS, EDINBURGH MCGREGOR BOWES + HAWORTH TOMPKINS WITH MARTIN CREED ( far right, top) : : : , : / DUNMURRY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH HALL BLACK DOUGLAS : : : :
THEATRE ROYAL, NEWCASTLE SANSOME HALL ARCHITECTS (right) : : : . : ,m 2
DOUAI ABBEY MONASTERY AND LIBRARY, BERKSHIRE DAVID RICHMOND AND PARTNERS : : :. : ,m 2
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RIBA Awards 2012 Public
12
10. ANDREW LEE 11. WILL PRYCE 12. DRMM ARCHITECTS 13. IOANA MARINESCU 14. FJMT 15. TOM POWEL
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11
10 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, EDINBURGH PAGE\PARK ARCHITECTS
11 ST PAUL’S HAMMERSMITH, LONDON W6 RICHARD GRIFFITHS ARCHITECTS
: : : . : ,m This is a highly intelligent re-working of a fine but flawed building. The architects have added discreet access ramps and made two new openings into the linear entrance hall. The insertion of a glass lift and mezzanine re-organises the space into a legible en-filade sequence. The pay off for these alterations is a series of five interlinked, roof-lit galleries, which significantly improve the quality and quantity of hanging space. The new insertions create something even better than its original architect’s vision. ( ..)
: ’ : : : ,m The spiritual life of the Grade II*-listed church having been revived by the arrival of a congregation from the evangelical Holy Trinity Brompton, it fell to the practice to revive and expand the fabric. Having done repairs, the architects then proposed a new church to the west of the existing one. Externally, the building references its listed neighbour but it is not deferential. Internally, an in-situ concrete frame is exposed throughout, with a flush glazed slot in the atrium providing light to the basement.
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12 FESTIVAL HOUSE, BLACKPOOL DRMM ARCHITECTS : : : : m Blackpool is a town in need of regeneration, and a key to achieving this is to build upon the history of the town as a centre for entertainment and holidays. The structure of this wedding ceremony hall-cum-tourist information centre consists of prefabricated cross-laminated timber panels manufactured off site. This is clad in golden stainless steel shingles above a plinth clad in stepped concrete blocks containing recycled and phosphorescent glass which catches the light. It is also rated BREEAM excellent. ..
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13 BROCKHOLES VISITOR CENTRE, PRESTON ADAM KHAN ARCHITECTS
14 AUCKLAND ART GALLERY / TOI O TAMAKI FJMT WITH ARCHIMEDIA
: : :. : , m The visitor centre at Brockholes is a cluster of buildings set in a lake on a floating pontoon, which responds to changing water levels in the flood plain. The architect has broken down a sizeable scheme into a simple and engaging village – a restaurant, shop, exhibition hall, education centre, and conference centre – designed to celebrate the natural world. Each cube or rectangle of accommodation has a barn-like roof creating an animated skyline floating above the lake. ■
: : : : ,m The Auckland Art Gallery – Toi o Tāmaki – wanted to double its gallery space by restoring and adapting its historic galleries and creating a new exhibition area. A series of emblematic, sculpted tree-like canopies, whose soffits are of geometrically cut timber from massive Kauri trees, enclose the forecourt, atrium and gallery areas. The result is a delightful sequence of transparent, naturally-lit galleries in which internal and external views provide rich backgrounds for the art and enhance the visitor experience.
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15 SPERONE WESTWATER, NEW YORK FOSTER + PARTNERS : : : : ,m By day, this private gallery, just 7.6 metreswide by 30.5 metres-deep, is as tough as any in New York’s Bowery. A slender milled glass fortress, it has the air of fine steel, By night, its transparency shines through, not least in the moving room. Also acting as the goods lift, it is a six by three metre gallery space that can be parked at any of the four floors of galleries above the entrance level. Foster + Partners have created a conventional gallery topped with two ‘his and her’ floors reflecting the different styles of the two owners. ( ..)
RIBA Awards 2012 Public
CENTRE POMPIDOU-METZ 16 GUMUCHDJIAN ARCHITECTS
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16. DIDIER BOY DE LA TOUR
: : : : ,m The building’s success derives from its precise conceptual response to the difficult brief, which called for three flexible rectangular galleries 90 metres by 15 metres. They are are expressed as exuded tubes, stacked above each other and pointing in different directions, with solid side walls and glazed end walls giving panoramic views to the outside. A vast naturally ventilated and unheated public space for events and displays and enclosed by polycarbonate walls is oversailed by a great woven timber roof canopy, like a Chinese hat. It is a building like no other.
EGYPT GALLERIES, ASHMOLEAN MUSUEM, OXFORD RICK MATHER ARCHITECTS (above) : : : . : ,m 2 FORT NELSON, FAREHAM, HAMPSHIRE PRINGLE RICHARDS SHARRATT ARCHITECTS (right) : : : : ,m 2
TYNTESFIELD HOUSE REPAIR AND REFURBISHMENT, WRAXALL, SOMERSET RODNEY MELVILLE & PARTNERS : : : : ,m 2
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G-LIVE PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE, GUILDFORD AUSTIN-SMITH:LORD : : : . : ,m 2 MAIDSTONE MUSEUM EAST WING HUGH BROUGHTON ARCHITECTS (right) : : : : ,m 2
LEFT: TIM STUBBINGS RIGHT: HOWL ASSOCIATES
LEFT: EDMUND SUMNER RIGHT: HUFTON + CROW
RICHARD BRYANT
RIBA regional winners
THE MARLOWE THEATRE, CANTERBURY KEITH WILLIAMS ARCHITECTS (top right) : : : . : ,m 2
WYRE FOREST CREMATORIUM, WORCESTERSHIRE HOWL ASSOCIATES (right) : / : : : ,m 2
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RIBA Awards 2012 Public realm
Public realm
AWARDS KEY:
X
NATIONAL
X
INTERNATIONAL
X
EU
PAUL RIDDLE
1
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1 EXHIBITION ROAD, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON SW7 DIXON JONES : : : : ,m 2 Dixon Jones won the design competition to integrate vehicle and foot traffic and provide an attractive pedestrian environment without unduly compromising the road’s role as a key transport link. As a result of long consultation with disability groups, colour, texture and scale inform users of the extent and margins of the 4m-wide ‘safe areas’ with continuous strips of ‘corduroy’ paving and drainage grilles contrasting with the background grey and diagonal pink granite setts. Street clutter has been reduced to a minimum. ( ..)
RIBA regional winner
LCC
G
iven the amount of time architects spend discussing the public realm – the ‘space in between buildings’, their influence on shaping it, making it better, enhancing the feel of our towns and cities, doesn’t seem to be very strong. At least not if you take the RIBA Awards as a marker of quality. Exhibition Road by Dixon Jones is a worthy winner, although at £20 million, you’d expect it to be good (and, given its context among some of London’s finest museums, the built-in aesthetics worked in its favour). There’s a wider factor to be considered here, however, and one you’re no doubt familiar with. This is a typology and sector seriously lacking in smart clients. So, three cheers for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
BOW RIVERSIDE, LONDON E3 ADAMS & SUTHERLAND ( ..) : : : . : ,m 2
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Amazing Amazing performance Amazing Amazing performance needed Amazing performance Amazing
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Amazing Amazing performance Amazing needed Amazing performance needed performance performance performanc needed performance performance needed needed needed needed needed needed We are looking for a creative designer to work with us on the provision of a performance pavilion in New Milton, Hampshire.
Situated on the south coast and on the edge of the New National Park, Milton has designer a population to of over We Forest are looking forNew a creative work with us 23,000 and the performance pavilion will be at the heart of on the provision of a performance pavilion in New We the aretown’s looking for a creative designer to work with us activities.
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RIBA Awards 2012 Schools
Schools
AWARDS KEY:
B
uilding Schools for the Future may be well and truly dead but AHMM’s Kirk Balk Community College in Barnsley, one of the last of them to complete, has landed a RIBA in 2012 in what is clearly a very thin year for good school design. Hopkins has done a lovely extension to the Henrietta Barnett School, the Sunday Times State School of the Year 2011-12, and Cottrell & Vermeulen’s brick expressionism at Brentwood School is equally charming. But, with just three award-winning schemes, it’s unlikely this typology will provide a Stirling Prize Winner to repeat last’s year’s shock success for Zaha Hadid’s Evelyn Grace Academy. The education minister’s still-withering tone in regard to architect-designed schools and the focus on re-using existing buildings for his free schools plan are undoubtedly other factors in this year’s poor showing.
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NATIONAL
X
INTERNATIONAL
X
EU
2
1. PAUL RIDDLE 2. TIM SOAR 3. RICHARD BRINE
1
X
1 BRENTWOOD SCHOOL, BRENTWOOD, ESSEX COTTRELL & VERMEULEN
2 KIRK BALK COMMUNITY COLLEGE, BARNSLEY, SOUTH YORKSHIRE ALLFORD HALL MONAGHAN MORRIS
: : : : , m The three buildings in this project unfold as a sequence of spaces for learning, socialising, and gathering: a new sixth form block, a remodelled Victorian vicarage, and a new assembly block. Drawing inspiration from the existing Victorian vicarage, the new design is expressed in a language that is both contextual and contemporary. The sculpting of the roofs creates non-standard, domesticscaled classrooms, filled with natural light, reminiscent of the gabled roofs of the Victorian vicarage yet with added playfulness. ( .)
: : ’ : . : , m Aware of the wilful form-making that has characterised a large number of BSF projects, the architects proposed a solution that comprised two simple geometric forms: triangle and rectangle. In the wrong hands, this approach could have been leaden, here it is endlessly subtle. The sloping, hilltop site is cleverly used to generate complex, often top-lit, interior spaces with exceptional views. This is made possible by the large space at the centre of the triangle, which gives a high level of visual inter-connectedness. ( ..) ..
3 HENRIETTA BARNETT SCHOOL, LONDON NW11 HOPKINS ARCHITECTS
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: : : : , m Any change to a Lutyens Grade II*-listed building was going to be controversial and 17 schemes were previously rejected. The practice drew up a masterplan for the whole campus, stipulating much smaller buildings with external circulation along colonnades at two levels. Each new L-shaped wing extends directly from the cross-axis of the Lutyens buildings. The buildings are constructed with lime mortar brickwork and clay-tiled roofs – a timely reminder of the value of carefully designed educational environments.
RIBA regional winners UPPINGHAM SCHOOL SPORTS CENTRE ORMS ARCHITECTURE DESIGN : : : . : , m BRIGHTON ALDRIDGE COMMUNITY ACADEMY FEILDEN CLEGG BRADLEY STUDIOS : : : : , m ■ ENDEAVOUR PRIMARY SCHOOL, ANDOVER HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL : : : . : , m FOREST PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL, SOUTHAMPTON HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL : : : . : , m
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SKIDELSKY BUILDING, BRIGHTON KIRKLAND FRASER MOOR : : : : , m SIMON SMITH BUILDING, BRIGHTON ALLIES AND MORRISON : : : : m KINGS COLLEGE LIBRARY, TAUNTON MITCHELL TAYLOR WORKSHOP : : : . : m SHERBORNE MUSIC SCHOOL ORMS ARCHITECTURE DESIGN : : : . : , m COLSTON’S GIRLS’ SCHOOL WALTERS AND COHEN : : : : , m
RICHARD ROSE MORTON ACADEMY BDP : : : . : , m
SOUTH NORWOOD HILL CHILDREN’S CENTRE, LONDON SE25 ERECT ARCHITECTURE : : : , : m
ST CHRISTOPHER’S THE HALL SCHOOL, BROMLEY RALA : ’ : : : m
BUSHBURY HILL PRIMARY SCHOOL RRCHITYPE : : : : , m ■ CLIFFE HILL PRIMARY SCHOOL AEDAS ARCHITECTS : : : : , m
ANDREW LEE
HEATHFIELD PRIMARY SCHOOL HOLMES MILLER (right) : : : . : , m
RIBA Awards 2012 Workplace
Workplace 1
AWARDS KEY:
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NATIONAL
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INTERNATIONAL
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EU
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hen it was Stirling Prizeshortlisted last year, The Angel Building by AHMM, one of nine RIBA Award winners in 2012, saw this most commercial of typologies celebrated at the highest level. It could happen again this year, because there are some very good buildings in the mix. OMA’s One New Court in the City of London, delivered by the Dutch firm alongside Allies & Morrison, Reiach & Hall’s Dundee House and Eric Parry’s New Bond Street project are among the best commercial projects completed in the UK these past few years, while Foster’s new facility for McLaren just dazzles. Slowly but surely this typology, long neglected by studio tutors in schools across the UK, is becoming more interesting in terms of good architecture.
1 14 GEORGE STREET & 50 NEW BOND STREET, LONDON W1 ERIC PARRY ARCHITECTS
1. TIM SOAR
: : : : ,m This project was far more complex than simply inserting two office buildings into a varied urban context. The rhythm and scale of the St George Street terrace has been referenced with ‘rooms’ behind the facade based on the line of party walls and with profiled plaster ceilings instead of a more commercially usual soffit. 50 New Bond Street is more modest in scale. Its distinguished facade features curved bay windows that project between faience panels, contributing to the street’s visual liveliness. ( ..) ..
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RIBA Awards 2012 Workplace
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2. NIGEL YOUNG/FOSTER + PARTNERS 3. PHILLIPE RUAULT 4. JILL TATE 5. DAVE MORRIS 6. JONATHAN LEIJONHUFVUD 7. ANDREW LEE
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2 MCLAREN PRODUCTION CENTRE, WOKING, SURREY FOSTER + PARTNERS
3 ROTHSCHILD BANK NEW COURT, LONDON EC4 OMA WITH ALLIES & MORRISON
: : : : ,m From the photos, some might say: ‘It’s just a box’, but that’s like dismissing a Fabergé as ‘just an egg’. The 300,000 cubic metre ‘box’ nestles successfully in the surrounding landscape and the production centre itself a seven metre-high white curvilinear space. Through meticulous attention to every detail, the design effectively conveys a strong sense of the quality of the product assembled within, and, in doing so, subtly contributes to selling it to the prospective buyer. ( ..)
: : : : ,m This, the fourth iteration of the Rothschild’s London home consolidates the bank’s previously dispersed facilities within one building while making some important urban moves. The new building is organised into a central cube surrounded by three adjoining annexes and a rooftop tower which houses a function room, and creates a rooftop loggia and garden. The central cube is supported on one side by pilotis creating a cloistered edge to St Swithin’s Lane while allowing views of a previously hidden Wren church. ( ..)
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4 THE TOFFEE FACTORY, NEWCASTLE XSITE ARCHITECTURE : : : . : ,m 2 The derelict toffee factory has been reincarnated as managed work space for the creative industries and is fully let. This landmark regeneration has become a significant addition to Newcastle’s architectural legacy. The demands of energy conservation have led to a chequerboard of insulation alternating between inside and out, so you are always aware of the original structure. The insertion of a first-floor external walkway plays on the industrial heritage and removes the need for a third fire escape staircase. ■ ..
5 DUNDEE HOUSE, DUNDEE, SCOTLAND REIACH AND HALL ARCHITECTS
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CHRISTIAN RICHTERS
: : : . : ,m Set within a previously run down part of the city centre, this building, which combines an historic printing works with an HQ for the City Council, is designed as a catalyst for new development. Behind the historic façade are set seven storeys of modern office space. The access spines on each floor, in unembellished concrete, signal the transition from the historic to the new, generating an easily understood and navigated internal layout. Large open-plan floor plates, interspersed with breakout areas and lightwells, encourage cross-disciplinary working. ( ..)
RIBA regional winners
TEA BUILDING, LONDON E1 ALLFORD HALL MONAGHAN MORRIS : : : : ,m 2
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DELLOW DAY CENTRE, LONDON E1 FEATHERSTONE YOUNG ( ..) : : : : m 2 BSKYB SKY STUDIOS, HARLEQUIN 1, ISLEWORTH ARUP ASSOCIATES (above) ( ..) : / : : : ,m 2 ■
6 GUANGZHOU INTERNATIONAL FINANCE CENTRE, GUANGZHOU WILKINSON EYRE ARCHITECTS : : : : ,m The main tower is 66 floors of offices and 38 floors of a Four Seasons hotel arranged around a dramatic tapering atrium. The beauty of its diagrid structure lies in its inherent stiffness, which in turn gives it its strength. Each diamond is 54m or 12 storeys high, reducing the amount of steel required for the construction by 20 per cent. This is a hugely complex project that appears to be extraordinarily simple. ..
7 WEXFORD COUNTY COUNCIL HQ, WEXFORD TOWN ROBIN LEE ARCHITECTURE / ARTHUR GIBNEY AND PARTNERS : : : : ,m 2 This is the last and most successful of the local government buildings built in Ireland over the last decade. An internal plaza that delights in shade and light unites the six departmental buildings separated by sheltered lushly planted outdoor courtyards. A glazed skin wraps the whole building, providing shelter from the wind so that windows opening into it admit tempered air. These strategies help drive a carefully considered natural ventilation scheme in what is a relatively deep plan building. ( ..)
SEVERN TRENT WATER REGIONAL OFFICE, SHELTON GLENN HOWELLS ARCHITECTS : : : : ,m 2 BEACON HEATING, CAPEL IWAN, CARMARTHENSHIRE NIALL MAXWELL : : : : m 2 ROYAL OPERA HOUSE BOB AND TAMAR MANOUKIAN PRODUCTION WORKSHOP, PURFLEET NICHOLAS HARE ARCHITECTS : : : : ,m 2
The SAPA technical essay, RIBA Awards 2012
The bigger picture
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ou might well ask why, as in previous years, the AJ has accompanied most RIBAAward winners with a typical external view, seen at eye level by someone standing close enough to see detail, but far enough away to be able to read the overall building form. Why not a typical floor plan, section, or aerial axonometric instead? Aren't we missing an opportunity to show the bigger picture by using images that reveal a project’s inner workings in a more abstract, diagrammatic way? Shouldn't we listen to Le Corbusier's dictum that the plan is the generator or attempt to show what Loos referred to as the building's raumplan? Surely the interior of a building is most crucial. Actually, these external views are the bigger picture. More than anything else, it is the building's envelope that communicates its essence most directly and comprehensively. All well and good, you say, but don't these views emphasise superficialities? Are we victims of a pathologically image-conscious and brand-fixated epoch? Clothes make the man, some say, but it’s much more satisfactory if people shine through their clothes rather than hiding behind exteriors. It's certainly true that some building envelopes are crudely emblematic, but it's also true that those with simple
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shapes and wallpaper-like facades can combine to form compositions that just feel right, perhaps as external rooms or corridors, to use Camillo Sitte's analogy. Interestingly, there is less architectural wallpaper on show among this year's RIBA Award-winners than in the past. Make's Cube in Birmingham is one of the exceptions, although it is also an example of a building with a strongly patterned facade that, nevertheless, offers glimpses of what lies behind. In any case, it’s debatable whether all buildings should reveal their interiors. Alvar Aalto, for one, had no time for this dogma. He was far too subtle to insist that the external walls of perimeter staircases in his buildings should be glazed. Putting building performance to one side, opaque envelopes are OK. But, then, so is transparency. Notwithstanding Ken Shuttleworth's breast-beating recantation after years as a glass facade man and the doom, gloom and pepper pot facades predicted in the wake of the last round of energy conservation restrictions imposed by Approved Document L, the all-glass facade is alive and well. Although some designers are increasingly wary of formulaically and uncritically rolling it out as a panacea to give commercial clients ‘what they want’, Wilkinson Eyre's Guangzhou International Finance Centre and
1. Wilkinson Eyre’s Guangzhou International Finance Centre 2. Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel by OMA. 3. O’Donnell + Tuomey’s Lyric Theatre, Belfast 4. David Chipperfield Architects’ Turner Contemporary
CHRISTIAN RICHTERS
More than the plan, more than the section, and even more than form, the envelope is central to how a building communicates, writes Felix Mara
OMA's Maggie's Centre in Gartnavel testify to the ongoing popularity of the glass facade. Devices such as twin walls and heavily insulated roofs and floors help ward off the threat of increasingly stringent standards and rising energy costs. Here, the ideal of the flush glass facade continues to flourish, invigorated by inventions such as the toggle fixing ..
PHILIPPE RUAULT
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O’DONNELL + TUOMEY
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RICHARD BRYANT
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and bolt connections embedded in glass panels. Many of this year's winners, for example BFLS's Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, juxtapose transparency and opacity and, as Stanton Williams' Eton Manor and Sainsbury's Laboratory at the University of Cambridge demonstrate, the art of facade composition is thriving. ..
The architects of some of this year's winners avoided cloaking their buildings in mantels of over-cladding, choosing to articulate structural elements and, in some cases, component volumes instead. O’Donnell + Tuomey used brickwork, with interstitial glazing to articulate the volumes of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, revealing the
complex geometry of its internal spaces, whereas projects such as Sergison Bates' urban housing and crèche in Geneva, express their structural frame. Others, like Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners' Las Arenas in Barcelona, have a rich layering of structure, circulation, services and envelope components, while Eric Parry Architects' Holburne Museum in Bath uses glazed ceramic ribs to create facade texture. The level and quality of tectonic invention in these envelopes is extraordinary, not least in Feartherstone Young's resourceful Dellow Day Centre and David Chipperfield Architects' Turner Contemporary, an altogether more opaque structure, clad in precisely detailed acid-etched low-iron glass. Research indicates that people respond most positively to detail at this scale. Moving from pure architectural expression to building performance, this year's winners demonstrate impressive levels of achievement, for example in improved standards, increased airtightness and construction logic. Although they rely on established products, these technological advances are driven not simply by wondermaterials, but also by developments in digital design, ambitious legislation, quality assurance procedures and examples set by pioneers like Foster and Grimshaw. The technology used in projects such as Glenn Howells Architects' Triangle in Swindon impresses not just at the level of metrics, but also because their high performance standards and the way they are achieved are themselves expressive and part of their character. 15 years ago, many of these projects would have ended up in dreary, biscuit-coloured brickwork in response to pressure from sceptical Design and Build contractors. Now, many of these contractors are working with architects to achieve ambitions targets in the use of off-site fabrication and the quality of envelope design, enabling a healthy pluralism in tectonic facade expression. SAPA is a world leader in aluminium profiles, building systems and heat transfer strips. www.sapabuildingsystems.co.uk
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Ian Martin
As one era draws to a close, the same era begins all over again MONDAY. Mixed emotions at the last ever meeting of the Olympic Rebadging Task Force. Sadness, yes – the attendance allowance has been pretty generous for the past six years. But also pride. Our task force has met all the targets we set for ourselves, and that means a lot to us. Specifically, sizeable farewell bonuses. There’s tremendous esprit de corps as chair Suzi Towel leads us first in prayer, then in secular reflection, then a Mexican wave. As we have done since time immemorial (2006) we all shout ‘yay!’ at every mention of the Olympics (yay!). Alas, in London you’re never more than six feet away from a rat-faced blogging cynic. There’s been a lot of negative backwash lately about the narrative integrity of the opening ceremony for the Olympics (yay!) and very hurtful that negative backwash has been, too. Our main task today is to rebadge the opening ceremony so that it ‘holds together in the comment sections of the media’. There’s a short pause while we all think about this for a bit. Then Canella Bagshawe from the Department for Culture Media and Sport has her first genuinely inspired idea in six years: ‘We should take a few days over this. No point in rushing, and they’re obliged to pay us however long it takes, right? We are talking about the Olympics…’ Yay! Suzi shushes everybody while she checks with Games HQ. Her face is grave but her thumb is up.
in the media. Danny Boyle’s crack team of imagineers and dreamweavers have been working on this for ages. At the moment it goes: Act One: We’re in some long golden summer of antiquity. The stadium is carpeted in astro-sward. Rustic extras in agricultural blouses loll about, sharing an organic ploughman’s lunch and texting one another. Playlist: Purcell, medley of chillout dance anthems. Act Two: A thunderstorm. Lightning. Belching mills appear. The sward is obliterated by pop-up ash heaps and cobbles. A steam engine appears, spreading chaos. Martin Amis is in the cab, smoking roll-ups and drawling jokes about anal sex through his CND megaphone, ruining everything. Playlist: martial brass-band classics. Act Three: The calm after the storm. Bits of the old industrial landscape are now treasured ruins. The sun is filtered through strange atmospheric muslin. In the middle, a Lake of Anxiety – everyone in it together but not enough lifeboats. Flashes of the huge, world-beating creative potential for which Britain has been potentially famous forever: haute couture, a sensory garden, a DJ wearing one headphone ‘on the decks’, football-shaped football fans, a surviving Beatle, a parade of games developers, flag-waving civil partners. Playlist: Chariots of Fire, Cockney rappers, a naked Women’s Institute choir led by Gareth Malone singing Walking On Sunshine.
TUESDAY. Task force swansong, continued. Agreed we should make more of Dame Zaha being at the opening ceremony. Architectural Olympics. Yay! Like all internationally renowned designers who have built their reputations in this country, Dame Zaha is virtually unknown here. She is, after all, an architect. In the honours table she’s up there with Judi Dench and Helen Mirren; in terms of popular recognition and celebrity she’s on a par with a Preston lollipop lady. But Zaha’s a key figure in the epic spatiality of the Olympics – yay! – and it seems a shame to waste the opportunity, so we decide to ask her to wear a massive hat. Will that be enough? We adjourn for lunch. In the afternoon, we decide she should wear a massive hat and carry a jewel-encrusted staff. And be accompanied by baby dragons.
THURSDAY. Still brainstorming. We’ve put up a notice saying: DO NOT DISTURB, WE ARE REIMAGINING THE OLYMPICS (YAY!) and have ordered in some boutique fish and chips.
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HANNA MELIN
WEDNESDAY. We’re on to the opening ceremony itself. None of us can really work out why it’s not ‘playing well’
FRIDAY. Breakthrough! Swap Acts One and Three and we’ve got a proper happy ending. A bucolic future. Nobody over-thinking things, life just one eternal pastel-coloured picnic, like Jehovah’s Witnesses have in their literature. It’s getting pretty emotional now. A Mexican wave and suddenly we’re all singing Jerusalem and tearing up a bit. SATURDAY. Any other business: invoicing. Hugs and fistbumps all round. Goodbye, Olympic Rebadging Task Force. Suzi’s already plotting a Eurovision resort on the south coast. SUNDAY. Closing ceremony in the recliner. ..
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