SOCIAL MEDIA ZEITGEIST

Architectural awards take up a lot of our time here at Beedier – from tracking the entry deadlines and results, to producing a consistent stream of applications for our clients. But it is the RIBA Awards that create the most interest, and it is always fascinating to take a look at which projects have been regarded as successful enough to be shortlisted. It is also a good recap of the projects that have been in the press for the past few years, but there are also new projects that have had the media light shone on them for the first time. We crunch some stats and facts from the shortlist, including the Scottish RIAS shortlisted projects, which were not yet announced at the time of original posting.

Firstly let’s present the most obvious stats – which studios have the most shortlisted projects this year? A total of 33 studios have more than one project in the regional shortlists, and of those 9 have three or more. It is no surprise to see annual RIBA Award overachievers Feilden Clegg Bradley, AHMM, Allies and Morrison, Coffey and Hawkins\Brown at the top of the list. Belfast’s Hall Black Douglas Architects dominates the Northern Irish RSUA Shortlist with four entries. Similarly, Reiach and Hall Architects had a strong showing in Scotland, as they often do, with three shortlisted projects.

And for every prolific award winning practice, there was always a first time. Last year Beedier was very happy to go to the London RIBA Award ceremony at Portland Place with one of our clients, a start-up practice who picked up their first RIBA Award. It was a great night, so we wish everyone in this lest of 49 newcomers to the party the best of luck! We can’t help speculating which of you will go on to pick up regular awards in the future.

We have our eye on Al-Jawad Pike, Bartlett alumni, and ex-Chipperfield architects who are very high on the Beedier Social Media Zeitgeist, but this is their first year of RIBA Award nominations with two housing projects in London. Also, special congratulations to Assael Architecture, a successful award winning studio, who are now in the running to win their first RIBA Award in thirty years of practice for the excellent Sunday Mills Co-living development in Wandsworth.

We took a look at the spread of projects by typology. The good news for small practices is that by far the most successful project typology among the shortlist is the house – from fanciful new builds in beautiful rural settings, to urban infills crammed into dense city plots. It also includes innovative fit-outs of existing apartments, and extensions. High density housing projects account for 23 of the shortlist, and 18 came from projects for University Clients, who have traditionally been a primary provider of RIBA Award winning projects over the years. This year there are a total of nine restored historic churches and new religious centres on the shortlist, some of which are wonderful projects. We would be surprised if at least one of these is not in the selection for the major awards – perhaps Níall McLaughlin Architects & Purcell’s beautiful extensions to the Tower and Faith Museum in Bishop Aukland.

Likewise, small projects account for nearly half of all the shortlist. Big is not exclusively beautiful in the eyes of the RIBA selectors. This year’s projects range from a 22 sqm private pool extension, to mega projects such as Battersea Power Station, and the entire The Elizabeth Line development with four associated stations with separate nominations at Abbey Wood,  Paddington, Tottenham Court Road, and Woolwich. We were particularly happy to see the Kings Cross Masterplan shortlisted, as the final buildings reach completion this year. Beedier’s editor has fond memories of working on the outline planning application for this project over 20 years ago. For this project, we must also congratulate Porthyrios Associates who developed the masterplan with Allies and Morrison, and in doing so have received their first RIBA Award shortlist since 1995.

It is probably no surprise to note that the majority of the shortlisted projects are in urban settings – be that the soft urbanism of Oxford and Cambridge, or tough major inner city developments. But in the UK, we do enjoy a beautiful building in the countryside, and there is plenty of room on the shortlist for projects of a more bucolic nature. There are some fine coastal projects on the list too, including two salt-water bathing pools – the reinvented Jubilee Pool Lido in Penzance by ScottWhitbyStudio, and DLM Architects’ Bathing Pool in Guernsey – two first time RIBA Award nominees.

As always, London projects dominate the shortlist, but if we divide the City into its municipal boroughs, we notice that Southwark still comes out on top for project distribution, followed by Cambridge, including six projects for the University of Cambridge. What are Southwark doing so right when it comes to guiding potentially award winning projects through their planning system? We will ask their Head of Planning, find out, and report back.

The following table presents a full list of this year’s shortlist. Again, we wish every studio and architect the best of luck, and we look forward to seeing you at the award ceremony collecting your certificates.