News: the Royal Institute of British Architects in London has announced 52 winners of this year's RIBA Awards, including a faceted auditorium in Alicante, a shimmering seaside gallery and a museum that mimics volcanic formations.
The winners are made up from 43 projects in the UK, including the London 2012 Olympic masterplan, and nine from elsewhere in Europe, from Zaha Hadid's concrete structure for the Montpellier government to a Ferrari museum designed by the late Future Systems architect Jan Kaplický.
A suburban neighbourhood reinterpreting the rural architecture of Essex is one of several housing projects recognised, alongside a row of timber-clad houses that reference local sheds and the overhaul of Sheffield's notorious Park Hill estate.
Other projects featured include a hospice designed to look like an oversized house in London, a towering arts centre in Belfast and a cylindrical chapel in the south of England.
The shortlist for the Stirling Prize, awarded by the RIBA to the most significant contribution to British architecture this year, will be drawn from these winners.
"Risk-taking is not for the faint-hearted in recessionary times, but amongst this year's crop of truly exceptional buildings, I am delighted to see such a variety of projects doing just that," commented RIBA President Angela Brady. "From Jesmond Gardens, an open-plan primary school in Hartlepool with rooms divided simply by acoustic curtains, and the mould-breaking North London day-care hospice modeled on an over-sized house to appeal sensitively to its patients, to the Hive in Worcester, the first library for shared use by both the public and a university."
She added:"Most notably though this year's RIBA National Awards features a selection of really exceptional schools and education buildings, places that properly invest in the future for their pupils - their awards show their ambition to improve our school stock; there may not be too many award winning schools to come for some time."
Here's some more information from the RIBA, followed by the full list of winning projects:
Best new buildings – 2013 RIBA National and EU Award winners are announced
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has revealed the winners of the 2013 RIBA National Awards, the most rigorously-judged awards for architectural excellence. RIBA National Award winning buildings set the standard for good architecture; these are projects that go beyond the brief and exceed the client’s expectation. The shortlist for the coveted RIBA Stirling Prize for the best building of the year will be drawn from the 52 RIBA National and EU Award winners (43 buildings in the UK and 9 buildings elsewhere in the EU).
This year’s award winners range from the UK’s northernmost arts centre in the Shetlands down to Redruth in Cornwall. From a beautifully-crafted chapel in the back garden of an Edinburgh townhouse to the innovative yellow-roofed Ferrari Museum in Italy, from M&S’s new ‘green’ flagship store in Cheshire to the National Trust’s dynamic new visitor centre at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. Well-known ‘star’ architects and smaller architecture practices, some who have never won an RIBA award before, will now be battling it out to make it onto this year’s RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist for the best building of the year.
One third of this year’s UK winners are exceptional education buildings, from small nursery schools to major university campuses. Some of the last Building Schools for the Future (BSF) schools have made the grade this year with winners including St Alban’s Academy in Birmingham and Kingswood Academy in Kingston upon Hull, whose ingenious use of limited space has created exceptional and inspiring facilities for students, not to mention bully-deterring toilets.
Though excellent projects have been delivered at the extreme ends of the scale – notably the 242 hectare Olympic master plan and a small contemporary house in the ruins of the 12th century Astley Castle in Warwickshire - this year’s awards are revealing a notable squeezed-middle, with fewer medium-scale projects amongst the winners, both public and commercial. Many of the winners are publicly, charity or foundation funded, with only one commercial office building in the form of Quadrant 3 on Regent Street in London.
It is pleasing to see some of the best housing winners for some time – the redevelopment of the Brutalist Grade II listed 1960s Park Hill estate in Sheffield, the intelligent Newhall Be suburban development of 84 homes in Harlow and pocket-sized developments in London on difficult sites such as the eight large multi-generational housing association homes on Beveridge Mews in Stepney Green and the highly-detailed private houses at Church Walk in Stoke Newington. These are excellent examples of what new housing developments should be delivering.
Scotland
» The Chapel of Saint Albert the Great, Edinburgh by Simpson and Brown
» Forth Valley College of Further & Higher Education, Stirling by Reiach and Hall Architects
» Mareel, Lerwick Shetland by Gareth Hoskins Architects with PJP Architects
» University of Aberdeen New Library/Sir Duncan Rice Library by Schmidt
» 4 Linsiander, Vig, Lewis by Studio KAP Architects
Northern Ireland
» Giant's Causeway Visitor Centre by Heneghan Peng
» The MAC, Belfast by Hackett Hall McKnight
North east
» Jesmond Gardens Primary School, Hartlepool, Cleveland, TS24 by ADP
North west
» Chetham's Music School, Manchester, M3 by Stephenson: ISA Studio
» M&S Cheshire Oaks by Aukett Fitzroy Robinson
» MMU Business School by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studio
» St Silas CofE Primary School, Blackburn by Capita Symonds
Yorkshire
» Park Hill, Sheffield by Hawkins/Brown and Studio Egret West
» SOAR Works, Parson Cross, Sheffield by 00:/
» Kingswood Academy, Bransholme, Kingston upon Hull by AHMM
West midlands
» Astley Castle, Nuneaton, Warwickshire by Witherford Watson Mann
» Eastside City Park, Birmingham by Patel Taylor
» St Alban's Academy, Birmingham by dRMM
» The Hive, Worcester by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
» Bramall Music Building, University of Birmingham by Glenn Howells Architects
East
» Crowbrook, Ware, Hertfordshire by Knox Bhavan Architects
» Newhall Be, Harlow, Essex by Alison Brooks Architects
South west and Wessex
» Chedworth Roman Villa, Yanworth, Gloucestershire by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
» The Forum, University of Exeter by Wilkinson Eyre
» Heartlands, Redruth by Stride Treglown
South
» Chapel at Cuddesdon by Niall Maclaughlin
» West Wing, Said Business School, Oxford by Dixon Jones
» Stowe Gardens Visitor Centre, Buckingham by Cowper Griffith
South east
» Jerwood Gallery, Hastings by HAT Projects
» Colyer-Fergusson Building, University of Kent, Canterbury by Tim Ronalds Architects
London
» Akerman Health Centre, by Henley Halebrown Rorrison
» Hayes Primary School, LB Croydon by Hayhurst and Co
» Slip House by Carl Turner
» Beveridge Mews, Stepney Green Estate, Hannibal Road, E1 by Peter Barber
» Ironmonger Row Baths, Norman Street, London, EC1 by Tim Ronalds
» Olympic Energy Centre, King's Yard, Olympic Park, E9 by John McAslan
» Olympic Masterplan, E20 by Allies and Morrison
» Lauriston School, Rutland Road, E9 by Meadowcroft Griffin/MLA
» Church Walk, N16 by David Mikhail
» Montpelier Community Nursery, Brecknock Road, N19 by AYA
» North London Hospice, Barrowell Green, N21 by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
» UCH Cancer Care Centre, WC1 Hopkins Architects by Hopkins
» Quadrant 3, Air Street, W1 by Dixon Jones with Donald Insall Associates
The 9 RIBA Award buildings in the European Union are:
» Frederiksberg Courthouse, Copenhagen, Denmark by 3XN
» Sorø Art Museum, Denmark by Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects
» Pierresvives, Montpellier, France by Zaha Hadid Architects
» MBA Building, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Paris, France by David Chipperfield Architects
» House on Mount Anville, Dublin, Ireland by Aughey O'Flaherty Architects
» University of Limerick Medical School and Pergola Bus Shelter, Ireland by Grafton Architects
» Enzo Ferrari Museum, Modena, Italy by Shiro Studio
» Hoflaan House, Rotterdam, Netherlands by Maccreanor Lavington
» Municipal Auditorium of Teulada, Alicante, Spain by Francisco Mangado y Asociados