In-Between, a contemporary take on the traditional terrace built between existing houses in North London, designed by Annalie Riches, Silvia Ullmayer and Barti Garibaldo, has won this year's AJ First Building Award in association with Robin Ellis Design & Construction. The announcement was made tonight at a special awards ceremony for The RIBA Stirling Prize in association with The Architects' Journal at the Old Billingsgate Market in the City of London.
The AJ First Building Award in association with Robin Ellis Design & Construction rewards the best example of a first stand-alone building by a British architect practising within the European Union. This is the fourth year the prize has been awarded.
Robin Ellis presented the architects with a cheque for £5,000.
Speaking about the building, the judges said:
"This modest and ingenious development in a discreet corner of London brings a smile to the faces of all who see it. It is by two architects and a designer, who met during their diploma course at the University of North London (now London Metropolitan). Two years later they embarked on a communal project to design and build their own houses. They found a backland site 'in-between' two rows of terraced houses but were told initially by planners that a bungalow was the only suitable building type. It took a year to get planning consent, but they were helped by new government density guidelines which enabled them to achieve their ambition of re-interpreting the English terraced house. It then took another year to raise the finance through a self-build mortgage. Then each of them took a year out to project-manage subcontractors and to work on the build, developing useful carpentry and plumbing skills in the process.
"There is of course a cost penalty to designing a non-uniform terrace, but designers aren't going to go to all this trouble to end up with a standard house. The balance they struck was to build a very simple-shaped terrace volume in reconstituted timber frame, a technology that allows ready personalisation within. The terrace is divided into three identical volumes – one house with workspace, one two-bedroom house and two studio flats - by structural studwork party walls, each with a 47 square metre internal footprint. This framing allows the south wall of the terrace to be fully glazed using lightweight polycarbonate sheeting and glass. Insulation is variously recycled newspaper and sheep's wool. The roof is sedum. The result is essentially symmetrical but as with Georgian terraces especially, a uniform façade can conceal variety behind. Having jointly designed the envelope, individual briefs as well as individual architectural preferences came into play. In fact the architect/client/builders deliberately established idiosyncrasies peculiar to each unit that would express their own personalities. The playing through of this idea, with both charm and simplicity (combined with the constraints of a tight budget), has resulted in a delightful scheme. It is a reminder of the value of direct architectural design – in contrast to the work of some architects who try too hard to be too clever with quotes, gambits and tricks.
"In working out these briefs each house is in some ways strikingly different - in being single or double aspect, making circulation discreet or centre-stage, how much the timber frame is featured, choice of flooring materials and more. The dominant southerly orientation shapes all the layouts. The fact that the unit at the far end of the block is in the form of two flats, demonstrates that it is still possible to provide amenable living space at very low cost in a new-build project.
"The exaggerated grainy aesthetic of the reconstituted timber and the general lightness of the envelope gives the building a certain graphic, even pictorial quality. These are by no means typical architects' houses – there are a number of rough edges and corners – but these are no ordinary architects and their general sincerity, as well as their clear intelligence, shines through.
"They have produced three different units within the uniform frame of a terrace, inventive, full of light in their more public spaces, eminently liveable, an implied criticism of the uniformity of conventional terraced housing. Almost a demonstration project, it risks a queue of student visits.
"This terrace of innovation and delight was unanimously agreed to be the winner of the AJ First Building Award. The scheme is an expression of collaboration within tight constraints. The struggle has been worth it: low budget, but rich in terms of space, light, ambition and resolution. A sophisticated debut."
In-Between beat off competition from two other buildings: Black House, Cambridgeshire by Mole Architects, and Double House, London, by Woolf Architects.