2012 RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist announced

Date:

22 July 2012

Press office contact:

Beatrice Cooke
T: +44 (0)207 307 3813
E: beatrice.cooke@riba.org

The shortlist for the prestigious 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize, revealed today (22 July 2012), celebrates the best of new British architecture. The shortlist features six exceptional and completely different buildings from across the country which will now go head to head for architecture’s highest accolade and a £20,000 prize from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The RIBA Stirling Prize is now in its seventeeth year; the 2012 winner will be announced at a special event in Manchester on Saturday 13 October.

The seemingly simple yet highly innovative London Olympic Stadium, the thoughtful and intimate Maggie’s Cancer Centre in Glasgow, the stunningly original Hepworth Wakefield gallery in Yorkshire, the beautifully detailed and rule-breaking Sainsbury Laboratory for plant science in Cambridge, the New Court Rothschild Bank in London that rises high whilst opening new views at street level, and the crafted and careful reincarnation of the Lyric Theatre on a small suburban site in Belfast are all in the running for the 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize.

The buildings on this year’s shortlist are all highly-crafted buildings and use rich materials, with exceptional attention to every detail. These are buildings that clearly value the individual and visitor’s experience; from the very personal and peaceful Maggie’s Cancer Centre to the new Olympic Stadium, which despite its enormity has an atmosphere of intimacy for every spectator.

Heritage and education are strong themes in this year’s shortlist with the success of the Sainsbury Laboratory housing Darwin’s collection, New Court’s careful integration of the Rothschild’s art collection into its design and both the Lyric Theatre and Hepworth Wakefield skillfully creating exceptional new homes for regional arts.

The six buildings competing for this year's title (including betting odds from William Hill) are:

1. The Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire by David Chipperfield Architects (William Hill odds: 3/1)

David Chipperfield Architects are the only previous RIBA Stirling Prize winner amongst this year’s shortlisted architects, having won in 2007 for the Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach, Germany. This is the eighth time that David Chipperfield Architects has been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize, and the third year running; they now match Foster + Partners who have also been shortlisted for the prize eight times.

- The Hepworth Wakefield is characterized by a series of 10 small, irregular, trapezoidal blocks that make up the structure of the gallery, giving it a sculptural appearance, in reference to its contents.

- From the outside, the gallery is interesting to look at from any angle with the smaller blocks complementing the scale and form of the existing industrial buildings on the site. Inside, the ten blocks create a series of relaxed and intimate exhibition spaces, with great flow and movement between interconnecting rooms.

- The building responds imaginatively to its riverside location. Being at the head of the river divide, two sides of gallery are river facing. The gallery rises straight from the river and the whole building is reflected in the water. Carefully placed windows offer strategic views.

- The gallery sources renewable energy in the form of heating and cooling from the river’s flow.

- The distinctive dusky mauve colour of the concrete gives the building a unique identity.

2. London Olympic Stadium by Populous (William Hill odds: 5/1)

This is the first time that Populous has been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize

The stadium has been designed so that it can be taken down and reused in another location – or taken apart and made smaller.

- The design team aimed to create the most sustainable Olympic stadium to date, reducing the amount of steel and concrete needed, making it one of the lightest stadia of the modern era.

- It has a sunken arena so the ground level entrance is actually half-way up the stadium – reducing the number of stairs spectators have to climb to the upper tiers.

- The stadium is surrounded by water, so once visitors have shown their ticket and crossed the bridge they are more free to move around than at most stadiums.

- There is a spirit of fun - they have designed a space to create an amazing atmosphere, where every seat has a great view.

3. The Lyric Theatre, Belfast by O’Donnell + Tuomey (William Hill odds: 4/1)

O’Donnell + Tuomey are a Dublin-based practice. This is the fourth time they have been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize and their second year running: last year their An Gaelaras cultural centre in Derry was shortlisted.

- The architects have responded superbly to considerable challenges, including the building’s small, awkwardly irregular and steeply sloping site.

- The distinctive red ‘Belfast brick’ echoes the existing south Belfast residential landscape.

- The architects have created an exceptional auditorium – aiming for the seating to be twisted ‘like the crease of a hand’ so that people could see each other and to save actors from performing to a symmetrically divided audience. The auditorium has a special, sculptural interior and incredible acoustics.

- The extensive use of glass maximises the presence of natural light in the public spaces and ensures that the magnificent view of the river can be enjoyed to its full potential.

4. Maggie’s Centre, Gartnavel, Glasgow by OMA (William Hill odds: 9/2)

This is the second time that OMA has been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize and it is the only practice to have two buildings on the 2012 shortlist. In 2007 OMA’s Casa da Musica in Portugal was shortlisted. Rem Koolhaas, who founded OMA, had known Maggie Keswick Jencks (after whom the Maggie’s Centres are named) since the 1960s. Lily Jencks, Maggie’s daughter, was the landscape designer on the project.

The building succeeds in the central aim of all Maggie’s Centres – to create an environment of practical and emotional support for people with cancer. They aim to kindle a sense of curiosity and imagination - to be grand in ambition but small in scale.
The distinctive ‘doughnut’ shape of the centre allows for all the rooms to surround an internal landscaped garden.
Located in a natural setting, like a pavilion in the woods (in fact, the old hospital carpark, now landscaped) the building looks both out to the woods and into the garden giving it a sense of being extroverted and introverted.
There are no corridors or isolated rooms, but a series of interlocking spaces with a clever use of sliding walls to open and close areas, offering flexibility.

5. New Court, London by OMA with Allies and Morrison (William Hill odds: 4/1)

OMA’s second building on this year’s shortlist. Allies and Morrison has previously been shortlisted twice for the prize.
Rothschild’s Bank have been on the same site since 1809. In replacing their previous 1960s building, the architects created an imaginative solution to a very constrained site (part of the Bank Conservation Area).
The new building opens up views to a Wren church by cleverly creating a pathway towards the church and generous sight lines from the pavement.
The architects have created a synthesis between an office and a museum. New Court is a showcase for the Rothschild art collection, aspects of which have been carefully incorporated into the design of the building.
The building has a superb attention to detail; the materials used create a strong sense of understated elegance.

6. Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge by Stanton Williams (William Hill odds: 7/2)

This is the first time that Stanton Williams have been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize.

The laboratory is carefully designed to complement its setting – the relationship to the surrounding 19th century, Grade II listed garden is central to the building’s identity.
It cleverly mixes the private and the public – the security and complex scientific needs of a laboratory with a public botanic garden café.
The architects have created a stimulating working environment to attract world-class scientists, including sociable spaces and smaller meeting points alongside research spaces.
It is a highly energy efficient building – rainwater is collected from the roof and stored in two huge tanks which irrigate the garden’s glasshouse and plant chambers.

RIBA President Angela Brady said:

'The annual RIBA Stirling Prize celebrates architectural excellence and this year we have an incredibly strong list of contenders. All of the shortlisted buildings demonstrate the essence of great architecture; they are human-scale buildings, places to inspire, entertain, educate and comfort their visitors and passers-by. Every building not only works beautifully from within but has a superb relationship with its surroundings, with a strong interplay between the two. They don’t shout ‘look at me’ and even the tallest building, New Court in the City of London, has created good views for passing pedestrians, meeting the challenge of delivering good urban design in an historic area. The 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize judges have a difficult job to select a winner from this pool of great talent. I can’t wait to see which project they choose.'

The 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize judges who will visit the six shortlisted buildings and meet for a final time on the day of the presentation (13 October) to pick the winner are: Sir Nicholas Grimshaw (Chair) – architect and former president of the Royal Academy; Sir Mark Jones - Master of St Cross College Oxford, and former Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum; Joanna van Heyningen - architect, van Heyningen & Haward Architects, UK; Hilde Daem - architect, Robbrecht + Daem, Belgium and Naomi Cleaver - designer, writer and broadcaster.

Previous winners of the RIBA Stirling Prize include: Evelyn Grace Academy (2011) and MAXXI Museum, Rome (2010) both by Zaha Hadid Architects; Maggie’s Centre at Charing Cross Hospital, London by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (2009); Accordia housing development by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios/Alison Brooks Architects/Macreanor Lavington (2008); The Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach am Neckar, Germany by David Chipperfield Architects (2007).

The Observer is national media partner for the 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize; The Architects’ Journal is the trade media partner for the RIBA Stirling Prize.

For detailed information about the RIBA Stirling Prize and its history, go to www.architecture.com/ribastirlingprize|.

Notes to editors

For further press information and full citations please contact Beatrice Cooke in the RIBA Press Office – pressoffice@riba.org|

or 020 7307 3813/07805 173681

Images of all the shortlisted buildings are available via this link:

https://www.box.com/s/6f8871ae79f26091c775|

The RIBA Stirling Prize is the UK’s most prestigious architecture award. It is given to the architect of the building thought to be the most significant of the year for the evolution of architecture and the built environment. For detailed information about the RIBA Stirling Prize and its history, go to www.architecture.com/ribastirlingprize|.

The shortlisted buildings will be judged on a range of criteria including design vision, innovation and originality, capacity to stimulate engage and delight occupants and visitors, accessibility and sustainability, how fit the building is for its purpose and the level of client satisfaction.

Judges citations for each shortlisted building are included below :

The Hepworth Wakefield

Gallery Walk, Wakefield

Architect: David Chipperfield Architects

Client: Wakefield Council

Structural Engineer: Ramboll UK

Services Engineer: Ramboll UK

Contractor: Laing O'Rourke Northern Limited

Contract Value: £22.8 million

Gross internal area: 5,232 sq m

Date of completion: May 2011

On arrival you are drawn across an elegant bridge surrounded by strange river craft and motley industrial buildings. The gallery works beautifully with this varied and gritty context, both suggesting it belongs and at the same time is something rather special. Its scale changes as you approach and enter it, big and dramatic where it needs to be, but welcoming where it doesn't. The carefully cast dusky mauve concrete forms make you want to stroke them as you get closer.

What appears to be a fairly random set of boxes in plan soon reveals its logic inside, with the shop, cafe, education room and offices on the ground floor radiating out from the entrance space. In the first floor galleries the circulation pattern changes subtly from radiating to radial as the promenade takes you through a series of galleries with deep walls concealing the ventilation services.

The galleries are daylight through slit rooflights and carefully placed windows which frame views of Hemsley Moor, the Town Hall, the Weir and the Chapel on the Bridge.

The building gives a sense of being made specifically for the work of Hepworth whilst at the same time being very much of Yorkshire, grounded and granite like. An affirming project on every level.

London Olympic Stadium

Queen Elizabeth Park, London E20

Architect: Populous

Client: Olympic Delivery Authority

Structural engineer Buro Happold

Services engineer: Buro Happold

Quality surveyor: Arcadis and CLM

Landscape architect: Hyland Edgar

Acoustics consultants: Vanguardia

Contractor: Sir Robert McAlpine

Gross Internal Area: 46,830

Contract Value: Confidential

Date of completion: March 2012

Central to the vision for 2012 London Games is to create facilities that provide not only world class venues but also form a legacy of sustainable facilities for future use by the City.

The design of the new Stadium embraces this ambition, creating a world class venue seating 80,000 spectators for the main track and field events and ceremonies, which is then capable of being transformed into a smaller scale venue. The design clearly expresses the main elements of the stadium, distinguishing between the white main structural elements, the black secondary structures and the precast concrete of the seating tiers and plinth to create a striking and legible ensemble. The demountable nature of the structures is expressed through the simple and elegant detailing of its many connections and components.

The organisation focuses very much around the ease of movement of the large numbers of people who will use the stadium during the Games. Spectators approach and move into the building from an arrival plinth that screens all of the ‘back of house’ activities below and enables level access around the full perimeter of the stadium. The bowl of the stadium provides for clear sightlines throughout and a surprisingly intimate relationship with the events for a venue of this scale.

Lyric Theatre

Belfast

Architect: O’Donnell + Tuomey

Client: Lyric Theatre

Contractor: Glibert Ash

Structural Engineer: Horgan Lynch

Services Engineer: IN2 Engineering

Cost: £18 million

Gross internal area: 5,026 sq m

Date of completion: May 2011

On a steeply sloping river frontage within a tightly-knit area of brick terrace houses the new Lyric Theatre is a striking new home for a theatre with a unique status in Belfast – this is Northern Ireland’s only repertory theatre. The architects respond to the considerable design challenges of its location with gusto. This is a public facility in a domestic environment and requires large volumes to accommodate the auditorium, studio and rehearsal room; it meets that challenge admirably. The line of brick terraces seems to flow into the façade, drawing the visitors inside and upward.

The theatre is modest and self-confident, deferential and assertive. The dramatic entry stairs, the areas for gathering, the tactility of the fittings all lead to the enveloping, dark and dramatic space of the timber-lined, intimate 380 seat auditorium. The quality of the interior spaces, its sensitive response to a challenging site and the expansion of the Lyric’s ability to function literally behind the scenes make this a stunning accomplishment and a pleasure to spend time in. In its acoustics, in the quality of its backstage as well as its front of house facilities the new Lyric has drawn praise from many international performers and given Northern Ireland a national theatre of its own.

The building culminates in the fourth annexe, a ‘sky pavilion’ lifted above the cubic office volume to create a rooftop loggia and garden. This disengaged volume contains a series of meeting, dining and function rooms offering panoramic views across the City.

Maggie's Gartnavel

Glasgow

Architect: OMA

Client: Maggie Keswick Jencks Cancer Caring Centres Trust

Structural engineer: Sinclair Knight Merz

Services engineer: KJ Tait engineers

Landscape: Lily Jencks with Harrison Stevens

Contractor: Dunne

Contract value: Confidential

Date of completion: October 2011

Glasgow’s new Maggie’s Centre, like its sister projects, sets out to provide space where people can feel welcome, at home and cared for; a haven. The architect has sited the building on a slight rise, but cleverly cut it into the slope so that on two sides it looks at banked landscape. It is mostly surrounded by fairly dense tree planting, like a large cabin in the woods.

The entrance space reveals that the single-storey building is a doughnut with a fully-glazed internal walls overlooking a grassy mound. Simultaneously one is aware of a series of interlocking rectangular spaces that lead away in a jagged circle, giving a sense of permeability and promenade and most-tellingly avoiding that bane of hospital architecture – the corridor.

At the same time, there are a number of spaces for personal privacy and interaction, discrete counselling rooms or private nooks and corners, some of which have involved local artist/artisan design and fabrication. Generally there is a surprisingly rich variety of materials and skills on display here, with a particularly pleasing flush inlaid timber/concrete ceiling.

The plan looks haphazard, even chaotic, and there is a medley of different spaces and materials, but this is a masterful composition of highly-efficient spaces.

New Court St Swithin's Lane London EC4

Architect: OMA with Allies & Morrison

Client: Rothschild

Contractor Lend Lease

Structural Engineer: Arup

Services Engineer: Arup

Fit-out architect Pringle Brandon

Cost Consultant: Davis Langdon

Landscape: Charles Funke Associates/Inside Outside

Gross Internal Area: 19,125 sq m

Contract Value: Confidential

Date of Completion: October 2012

This new corporate headquarters, the fourth iteration of the Rothschild’s London home since 1809, consolidates the Bank’s previously dispersed facilities within one building but also makes a number of important urban moves. It reinstates the historic visual connection between St Swithin’s and Christopher Wren’s neighbouring Church of St Stephen Walbrook, hidden from public view by the previous New Court developments.

The new building is organised into a central cube surrounded by three adjoining annexes and a rooftop tower. It is lifted on pilotis above street level to allow views of church and churchyard through a covered entrance square. This sequence of new public realm and vistas gives a quiet public presence to this previously private institution.

The attention to detail and combination of materials used throughout the building gives a sense of understated elegance. This is heightened by the considered contrast of carefully displayed original artefacts alongside the quirky use of super-scale graphics drawn from the Rothschild’s collection of fine and decorative arts.

Sainsbury Laboratory

Bateman Street, Cambridge

Architect: Stanton Williams

Client: University of Cambridge

Structural Engineer: Adams Kara Taylor

Services Engineer: Arup

Contractor: Kier Regional

Contract Value: £69.0m

Gross internal area: 11,000 sq m

Date of completion: January 2011

An architectural promenade forms the heart of a building which celebrates botanical research through interaction, communication and a connection with nature. From the front to the back, the building progresses from a grand, colonnaded façade to an open balcony and glazed public café, set within a Botanic Garden.

At ground level the entrance gently ramps down through the auditorium and meeting areas. At the upper level the scientists work on illuminated stages, with research and write-up areas forming the ends of two promenades, flanked by small spontaneous brainstorming spaces.

Sustainability through flexibility in long-term use is achieved through an adaptable façade behind the limestone pillar façade, enabling the research spaces to grow and change as required by the scientists. Despite the high energy demands of laboratories, the building has achieved a BREEAM excellent rating, aided by 1000 square metres of photovoltaic panels and extensive natural lighting even in the laboratories. These top-lit labs are arranged on one floor in an L-shape, encouraging interaction between scientists.

This building is an exciting new typology, with spaces for research juxtaposed with those for education, the private and the public and the highly-technological nurture of nature with the simple enjoyment of an extended botanic garden.

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