As we kick off 2024, Architecture Today editor Isabel Allen reflects on the highlights of 2023 and looks forward to the year ahead.
Photograph by Timothy Latim
A highlight of 2023 was seeing the Architecture Today Awards grow from a new idea in 2022, to a fixture in the architecture world’s calendar in 2024. Launched to celebrate projects that demonstrate long-term performance in social, cultural and environmental terms the awards encourage reflection, shared learning and research.
We published the inaugural line-up of winners in May, with new beautiful building-in-use photography by Timothy Soar in the magazine and online but also, crucially, video presentations by the architects and clients detailing the way the projects have performed over time and the lessons that have been learnt.
This year saw a fantastic crop of entries, with 32 finalists presented their projects to an expert jury at the live finals, and 12 winning projects announced in November at a party at Tower Hamlets Town Hall. 2023 also saw the launch of a new category, the Student Prize, in association with VMZINC, for the best student project that addresses the retrofit or repurposing of an existing building and/or explicitly addresses longevity and reuse
Shortlisted projects included Brutalist icons Park Hill in Sheffield and the Barbican; Stirling Prize winner Burntwood School in Wandsworth, London and a clutch of less well-known gems including South Norwood Library in south London, and the odd surprise including Westlake Brake, a rammed earth house in Devon. We are in the process of pulling together an archive/learning resource of building-in-use presentations on the winners, and can’t wait to see the entries for 2024.
Our other big launch was School of Specification. An online platform providing detailed information on technical, legal, regulatory and practice issues, SOS harnesses the very best expertise from across the construction industry. Over the past year we have worked with partners ranging from Kings College London’s Centre of Construction Law and Dispute Resolution, construction lawyers Forsters, Mayer Brown and Faithful & Gould and engineers Webb Yates, Morph Structures and Atelier One to provide members with information which is accessible, informed and bang up to date.
Together, the Architecture Today Awards and School of Specification reflect a determination to support architects and the wider construction industry in its efforts to reassess priorities, share learning and work together towards a more equitable, resilient and sustainable future.
Which brings us onto our newest launch – the Regenerative Architecture Index (RAI). Launched in partnership with UK Architects Declare, the Index rejects the notion of ranking practices by profitability and size, instead benchmarking participating practices on their regenerative policies, actions and working practices. Its aim is to share best practice, celebrate success, and communicate this work to the wider construction industry to raise awareness and act as a catalyst for regenerative practice across the industry. The RAI 2024 will launch with a call for entries in January 2024. Watch this space.
My picks of 2023:
Photograph by Nick Kane
WongAvery Gallery, Cambridge, by NÃall McLaughlin Architects
John Pardey welcomes NÃall McLaughlin Architects’ exquisite music practice and performance space for Trinity Hall, Cambridge, to a small pantheon of modernist projects that can be considered total works of art.
Photograph by Timothy Latim
32° East Arts Centre, Kampala, by New Makers Bureau and Localworks
Timothy Latim admires the way London-based New Makers Bureau and Ugandan multidisciplinary firm Localworks have delivered a contemporary take on vernacular forms and construction techniques.
Read Timothy Latim’s review of 32° East Arts Centre
Photograph by Gareth Gardiner
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London
Ian Volner unpicks the technical virtuosity, madcap curatorship, and a remarkable eye for detail that combine to secure the Soane Museum’s status as architecture’s intellectual funhouse.
Photograph by StaÌŠle Eriksen
Fohlenweg House, Berlin by O’Sullivan Skoufoglou Architects
Marwa Elmubark explains how a house on the edge of Gruneswald Forest outside Berlin was inspired by Charles Moore’s aedicular houses built in California in the early sixties.
Photograph by Anna Positano
Cornigliano Community Centre, Genoa by Dodi Moss and SAB
Jacopo Gresleri applauds the transformation of the site of a disused confectionary factory into a welcoming community centre.
Read Jacopo Gresleri’s review of Conigliano Community Centre
