New RIBA exhibition explores extraordinary buildings across Britain that overcame complex issues

Difficult Sites: Architecture Against the Odds explores some remarkable feats of architectural achievement in the face of tricky and uncompromising sites and locations across Britain.

Featuring works by some of history’s most renowned architects, including Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, Neave Brown, and Lord Norman Foster, alongside leading contemporary practices such as Tonkin Liu, KnoxBhavan, and Carmody Groarke, this free exhibition showcases a spectrum of complex, unusual, and dynamic builds undertaken from 1900 to now.

Image: Alexandra Road Estate, Camden, London: Martin Charles, RIBA Collections

Spanning private homes, cultural sites, commercial centres, housing estates, and more, Difficult Sites: Architecture Against the Odds looks at over 20 buildings that made unique use of design, layout, materials, and processes as a direct response to site constraints and limitations.

Distributed across three thematic sections – Difficult Landscapes, Difficult Urban Spaces, and Difficult Reworkings – the projects present an eye-opening and inspiring study into how resilient and creative practitioners realised the seemingly inconceivable.

Through models, drawings, photography, and plans, visitors will get insight into how these creative visions were brought into being against the odds.

Image: Water Tower, Tonkin Liu, External - Dennis Pedersen

Project highlights include:

Difficult Landscapes
Creek Vean House – a highly influential example of British modernism built into the steeply sloping banks of a Cornish river; Stoneywell – a 2-storey, 11 room Arts and Craft cottage wrapped around a rock on an uneven slope; The Eden Project – an eco-attraction built on a vast disused, clay quarry.

Difficult Urban Spaces
28 ½ Lansdowne Crescent – a family home built on a narrow gap of 13 feet and 3 inches; Alexandra Estate – a low-rise high-density scheme stepped back like a ziggurat and backing directly onto the main Euston railway line; The British Library – negotiating a complex site over two tube lines running underneath along with extensive restrictions from the local council.

Difficult Reworkings
The Weston Tower – the first structural addition to Westminster Abbey since 1745, with a rotated square motif inspired by the adjacent Henry VII Chapel; Astley Castle – a contemporary house inserted behind the crumbling walls of a ruined medieval fortified manor; The Magna Science Adventure Centre – an early example of a redundant industrial site being skilfully transformed into a cultural destination.

Image: Magna Science Adventure Centre (2001), Rotherham - Wilkinson Eyre Architects

RIBA President, Muyiwa Oki, said: “Difficult Sites: Architecture Against the Odds celebrates the pioneering spirit that lies at the heart of great architecture. These projects and their architects push the boundaries of what architecture can achieve. As environments become more changeable and the needs of societies grow and evolve, navigating challenging sites will become ever more important for architects and clients.

"This exhibition offers fascinating and important case studies of exceptional creative vision and technical innovation, continuing RIBA’s legacy of championing architecture and its place in shaping the future.”

Difficult Sites: Architecture Against the Odds is at RIBA Architecture Gallery, 66 Portland Place, London, from 11 October 2024 to 29 March 2025.