The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced the winners of the 2016 RIBA National Awards, the most rigorous and prestigious awards for new buildings in the UK.
RIBA National Award-winning buildings set the standard for good architecture. The shortlist for the coveted RIBA Stirling Prize for the UK’s best building of the year will be drawn from the 46 award-winning buildings.
Award winners include a children’s hospital in Liverpool with a striking, undulating grass roof (Alder Hey Children's Hospital), a development of 76 new homes in pastoral Essex that challenges the blight of uninspiring new housing estates by incorporating the character and pattern of the local town (The Avenue), a beautifully-detailed motorway services in the Cotswolds that offers tired motorists a tranquil respite (Gloucester Services), a new shimmering stainless steel library at an Oxford college by the late Zaha Hadid’s firm; and the classy and elegant transformation of a failing secondary and special needs school in south London (ARK All Saints Academy and Highshore School) by the architects of last year’s RIBA Stirling Prize winner.
Other highlights include:
- A blue, cave-like curved steel small pavilion building in Bournemouth, the first dedicated drawing studio to be built in a British art school for a century (Drawing Studio)
- 60 new cost-effective single-storey council homes for elderly and disabled people in Greenwich on the site of former garages – a new model for public housing (Greenwich Housing)
- The conservation and renewal of a dilapidated Grade II* Georgian music hall in London's East End, retaining its cherished atmosphere (Wilton's Music Hall)
- A state-of the-art new college building on the River Clyde that creates a new urban block for Glasgow and generous new civic spaces for the city (Saunders Centre, Science & Technology Building, Glasgow Academy)
- The reinvigoration and extension of a much loved art gallery in York, clad in beautiful tiles, reflecting the ceramic art collection on display in the new roof space gallery (York Art Gallery)
- The bold and colourful re-working of a Victorian inner-city secondary school site in one of the most deprived parts of London (Regent High School)
- An elegant new college on the Wirral that acts as an ‘essay in construction’ for its students by instilling the ethic of quality workmanship - over 300 students from the college helped with its construction (Wirral Metropolitan College)
- A beautifully-crafted new office building in London's affluent St James's Square conservation area that sets a new local benchmark for its enlightened architectural approach and refined use of materials (8 St James's Square).
RIBA President Jane Duncan said: “The RIBA National Awards are a great indicator of UK design, economic and construction trends.
“One stand-out trend from this year’s crop of winners is the huge scale of investment and ambition shown by many of the UK’s universities and colleges; almost one quarter of the winning projects (11 buildings) are in this category. As universities and colleges in the UK are competing for students from here and overseas, it is encouraging to see so much emphasis placed on the power of architecture to help institutions to attract students and stand out from the mediocre.
“I am delighted to see that four fantastic school buildings have made the grade too. Too many of our school and education buildings are in disrepair; with limited funding available to provide our children and their teachers with great learning spaces, every penny spent on schools must deliver maximum value for money.
“I am pleased to see a strong selection of new housing developments amongst our winners, including new models for public housing and semi-rural development. We urgently need new homes, but too often we see projects which have cut corners in quality which fails the people these new homes are meant to serve. I hope these achievements in housing inspire other developers.
“The RIBA National Awards put a spotlight on some of the smaller and unique, but no less ambitious, projects such as the Drawing Studio at Bournemouth University, Gloucester Services or the conservation and reinvigoration of Wilton’s Music Hall. They show that budget, location or many other challenges are no constraints to the production of superb quality architecture as long as you have the commitment of an imaginative and capable architect working with a great client. These 46 buildings are what the best architecture looks like today.”
