Riba 2013 award winner

On September 24th 2012, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain marks the official opening of the University of Aberdeen New Library in Scotland. The building, won in an architectural competition in 2005 by schmidt hammer lassen architects, is replacing the University’s former library from 1965 – the Queen Mother Library. The 15,500 m² new library, which provides a 21st century learning and research environment for students, university staff, visitors and the public, is a positive example of how architecture can make a difference. Since the building was put into service in September 2011, the statistics have shown a significant increase in the use of the library, and more than 700,000 visitors have entered the building this first... More

In accordance with the Danish design tradition, Frederiksberg Courthouse is the result of a rigorous and pragmatic process, where the challenges of the programme and the site were the creative point of departure. The successful result is an elegantly curved building, classical yet modern. The design strategy takes its signal from the neighboring neo-classical courthouse designed by Hack Kampmann. To ensure a respectful dialogue with Kampmann’s building only parts of the building plot of the 5,000 m2 site was exploited and the new courthouse is kept lower against Kampmann’s building towards east while rising against the taller buildings towards south. This resulted in a compact structure of 5,500 m2 designed at a respectful angle of 45... More

BRIEF As a child’s first main setting outside the home, the primary school is a formative experience: socially; and emotionally as well as educationally. It’s role as a transitional environment, acting as an intermediary in preparing the child for the adult world suggests that the school’s range of spaces and the movement between them is key to support the associated spectrum of developing experiences: from dynamic engagement and negotiation of the whole school community; to quiet spaces for both focused learning and more personal contemplation and recovery. The single storey existing school, lacked this range and was hindered by insufficient space, and a poor quality environment. Having been built in the 1970s, to replace the original... More

The brief for SOAR Works was to provide a cost-effective flagship building of workspaces intended for a variety of existing and new businesses from within and around Parson Cross, and comprising new-build offices, workshops, business incubator and drop-in workspaces, artists’ studios and meeting rooms, along with support services and community facilities. Part of the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative, the project encourages a new culture of entrepreneurialism by nurturing new and exciting businesses and pathways into employment. It is also provides revenue to sustain the work of Southey and Owlerton Area Regeneration (SOAR), a community regeneration charity that provides a range of services designed to improve a person’s health, well-being... More

The Jerwood Gallery is a £3.3m new-build art gallery on the Stade in Hastings, part of a wider masterplan to develop a new public space and community uses on a former coach and lorry park occupying a pivotal seafront site. Hastings has a growing artistic community but is also one of the most deprived towns in the UK and the wider Stade project aims to assist in economic regeneration, through more year-round tourism and higher-income visitors, as well as culturally and socially through creating a facility that will bring national-quality arts experiences to all the community. It also aims to raise internal and external perceptions of the town through creating a new focus for civic pride and identity. The site sits at the foot of the me... More

The practice's redevelopment of Darwen Vale High School has created a new campus for the 1200-place community school, sensitively merging the existing grammar school with a new 8,000sqm contemporary building. The new three-storey structure is located behind the original 1930s grammar school building and was conceived as a bold, fluid form, that partially wraps around the existing structure. By demolishing a group of tired buildings and replacing them with this new structure, the school has consolidated its building stock, bringing together a previously disparate campus. The retention of the 1930s E-shaped school building, now the only significant surviving inter-war building in Darwen, is an important part of the scheme. The grammar... More

John McAslan + Partners has completed the Cofely Energy Centres for the 2012 London Olympics which presents power generation as a new kind of presence in two east London communities. The Energy Centres will be technically advanced, environmentally considerate, and be embedded in the community rather than hidden from it. The design of the Energy Centres at King’s Yard and Stratford City responds strongly to a primary contextual issue. Both sites are in significant ‘gateway’ positions. The Stratford City Energy Centre is clearly seen from Stratford town centre and housing estates east of the Olympic site; and the King’s Yard Energy Centre dominates views from Victoria Park, Hackney Wick and parts of Bow. The Energy Centres are important... More

Brief Services - GP surgeries, dentistry, childrens’ services, sexual health, midwifery, primary care and community health services and facilities. The centre also provides a base for Lambeth’s School Nurses, Health Visitors and District Nurses and the Council’s Adults and Community Services team. Summary Akerman is as much about the street and the city as it is about a building. Emphasis is placed on the extent to which the Centre can take on the mantle of a civic building in its internal morphology, its outward scale, form and materiality and in the contribution it makes to the public realm. The integration of artworks into the facades and foyer by Daniel Sturgis and Paul Morrison is important. Context & Design Myatts Field is a... More

A prototype low energy house located on a brown-field site. It’s simple sculptural form consists of three cantilevered (or slipped) boxes, the uppermost sheathed by a translucent glass screen. This upper box houses living space and connects to a ‘sky garden’. The middle box houses sleeping and bathing, with the ground box given over to a multi-purpose space. This arrangement allows flexibility for future adaptation and uses. The house is designed to CSH level 5, and features include triple glazing, rainwater harvesting, green roof, and PVT’s combined with a solar assisted array/ heat pump, seamlessly integrated into the Architecture. Caption SLIP HOUSE, Brixton.   Occupying one of four plots forming a ga... More

Jesmond Gardens Primary School is a new 315 place school (with 26 full time nursery places) designed by ADP for Hartlepool Borough Council, replacing, as part of the Council’s Primary Capital Programme, an existing Victorian school built on a nearby site. The 2,055m2 school follows a transformational ethos for its pedagogy where children experience ‘stage not age’ learning allowing them their highest personal development. Within the main part of the school, children enjoy a great variety of open, agile space. ADP designed ‘learning bases’ fitted with acoustic curtains that can be easily drawn, dividing a group of up to ninety children into smaller configurations as required. This allows pupils of similar abilities to be taught collecti... More

Alison Brooks Architects approached Galliford Try Partnership in May 2007 to develop a schematic masterplan and land bid at the Newhall development, South Chase Lot 3. The site brief was based on the Newhall Regulating plan with a minimum 78 units of housing including, villas, terraces and apartment buildings. Following a successful tendering process in September 2007 Galliford Try and ABA were selected to develop the site. The resulting development consists of 84 units across four building types; 5 Apartment buildings; 14 Villas; 29 Courtyard Houses and 7 Terraced Houses totalling 84 units, 26% of which are affordable. Masterplan and Planning History ABA's masterplan responds to the site’s Design Code as well as Lot 3's prominent corn... More

The new visitor's centre at Stowe Landscape Gardens has been honoured with a Wood Award for the public buildings category in 2012. More

In 2004 Future Systems won an international competition to design a new museum in Modena, Italy. Dedicated to motor racing legend and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari (1898 – 1988), the museum comprises exhibition spaces within the early nineteenth century house where the motor racing giant was born and raised, and its adjoining workshop, as well as a separate, newly constructed exhibition building. Following the death of Jan Kaplicky in 2009, the office of Future Systems was dissolved ¹. Andrea Morgante, formerly of Future Systems and now director of Shiro Studio, was appointed to oversee the museum's completion. The new building has been constructed to Kaplický's original design– it is sensitive to the existing historical context, combines... More

Teulada-Moraira is an unusual urban center. Although it is divided into two separate physical units, Teulada and Moraira, these belong to a single administrative entity. Located in Alicante, in a valley that descends from the mountains to the sea, the city takes full advantage of the two realities, earth and sea, which define its environment and serve as visual references. As part of a new urban development, the Municipal Auditorium rises in Teulada, the higher part of the city. From this point, and over the valley sprinkled with small white buildings, one can see the town of Moraira by the sea. Such a unique location makes the building work as a link between two urban centers that are physically separated but share territory, landscape... More