Read about each of the 35 projects named as finalists in the 2023 Architecture Today Awards for buildings that have stood the test of time using the links below.
Maggie’s Manchester, by Foster + Partners. Credit Nigel Young
The Architecture Today Awards represent a cultural shift away from celebrating newness and towards a focus on longevity. In stark contrast to most awards programmes, the Architecture Today Awards only consider projects that have been in use for at least three years and which can demonstrate a strong track record for delivering on their environmental, functional, community and cultural ambitions.
Supported by Amtico, the Brick Development Association, Leviat and SIG Design & Technology, the over-arching aim of the awards is to engender a focus on building performance evaluation and shared learning that is essential if we are to bring about the step change in performance the industry so desperately needs.
AT’s Awards Committee has shortlisted 32 buildings across ten categories: Residential; Individual house; Education; Healthcare; Hospitality & leisure; Mixed use; Religion & culture; Infrastructure & public realm; Workplace and International. This also year saw the launch of a new Student Prize, sponsored by VMZINC for projects that tackle the retrofit or reuse of an existing building and/or explicitly address issues relating to long term performance, adaptability, demountability and reuse. Three projects from students across three different universities have been chosen as finalists, all of which you see below.
Each project team presented to our expert jury at a day of live crits on 20th September 2023 at 15 Hatfields, the home of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. Read about each project in further detail using the links in the article below.
The winners of the Architecture Today Awards will be announced at a party at Tower Hamlets Town Hall on 23 November 2023.
Education
Burntwood School by AHMM (2014), London SW17. Photograph: Rob Parrish.
St John’s College by Wright & Wright Architects (2019), Oxford. Photograph: Hufton+Crow.
University of Edinburgh, Potterrow Development by Bennetts Associates (2018), Edinburgh. Photograph: Keith Hunter.
Healthcare
Maggie’s Manchester by Foster + Partners (2016), Manchester. Photograph: Nigel Young.
Rushton Street Surgery by Perkins&Will, formerly Penoyre & Prasad (1997), London N1. Photograph: Sunand Prasad.
Hospitality & leisure
Boundary by Conran and Partners (2008), London E2. Photograph: Paul Raeside.
The Macallan Distillery by RSHP (2018), Aberlour. Photograph: Joas Souza.
Mixed use & retail
Butler’s Wharf by Conran and Partners (1991), London SE1. Photograph: Conran and Partners.
East Ham Civic Campus by MICA Architects (2014 + 2016), London E6. Photograph: Philip Vile.
The Canal Building by Child Graddon Lewis (2000), London N1. Photograph: Alan Williams.
Religion & culture
TR2 by Ritchie Studio (2003), Plymouth. Photograph: John McLean.
South Norwood Library by Hugh Lea, Croydon Borough Architects Department (1968), London SE25. Photograph: Michael Heyward.
TNG Youth and Community Centre by RCKa (2013) , London SE26. Photograph: Jakob Spriesterbach.
The Barbican by AHMM (2006), London EC2. Photograph: Timothy Soar.
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, by MICA Architects 1999, 2009, 2011 and 2013. Photograph: Richard Bryant/Arcaid.
Residential
Antony House by FBM Architects (2007), London E5. Photograph: Tim Crocker.
Copper Lane by HenleyHalebrown (2014), London N16. Photograph: Nick Kane.
Park Hill by Hawkins\Brown and Studio Egret West (2013), Sheffield. Photograph: Jack Hobhouse.
Individual house
80% House by Prewett Bizley Architects (2010)London N1. Photograph: Killian O’Sullivan.
Kingswillow by Graham Handley Architects (2019), Cambridgeshire. Photograph: Emma Harper.
New Forest House by PAD Studio (2009), Hampshire. Photograph: Richard Chivers.
Westlake Brake by David Sheppard Architects (1997), Devon. Photograph: David Sheppard.
Infrastructure & public realm
Eccleston Yards by Buckley Gray Yeoman (2018), London SW1. Photograph: Matt Chisnall.
Gasholder Park by Bell Phillips Architects (2015), London N1. Photograph: John Sturrock.
Pudding Mill Lane DLR Station by Weston Williamson + Partners (2014), London, E15. Photograph: Nicholas Guttridge.
Workplace
Next Headquarters by Orms (1987), Leicester. Photograph: Architectural Press Archive/RIBA Collection.
S.I.A. House by Sansome Hall Architects (2005), Milton Keynes. Photograph: Sansome Hall Architects.
Talkback offices by HenleyHalebrown (2001), later, the Mandrake Hotel by Manalo & White (2017) London W1. Photograph: Nick Kane.
Midden Studio by Studio Weave (2018), Kintyre, Scotland. Photograph: Johnny Barrington.
4 Pancras Square by Eric Parry (2017), London N1. Photograph: Dirk Lindner.
International
Umoja House by The Manser Practice (2004), Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Photograph: Peter Cook.
Arijiju House by Michaelis Boyd in collaboration with Nicholas Plewman Architects (2015), Laikipia Plateau, Kenya. Photograph: DOOK.
Student prize
Re-Housing Manchester – The Carbon Conscious Collective, Manchester by Alexandra Francis and Elle Thompson, University of Sheffield.
The New Manor Ground, Oxford by Finlay Walsh, University of Bath.
Fleetwood Food Collective, Lancashire by Jenny Lee, Oxford Brookes University.
