Casa Kike in Costa Rica wins prestigious International architecture award

Date:

27 June 2008

Press office contact:

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

Casa Kike, a private house in Cahuita, Costa Rica by Gianni Botsford Architects has scooped the Royal Institute of British Architects' (RIBA) prestigious Lubetkin Prize, sponsored by Mercedes-Benz (UK) Ltd and supported by The Architectural Review, for the most outstanding work of architecture outside the European Union by an RIBA member.

The presentation of the prestigious Lubetkin Prize formed the climax of the RIBA National and International Awards dinner and ceremony, held at the London Park Lane Hilton Hotel tonight (Friday 27 June 2008), during the London Festival of Architecture. Winners of the RIBA National Awards and RIBA European Awards were also announced at the ceremony.

Speaking about the building, the Lubetkin Prize judge and RIBA President, Sunand Prasad said:

"The RIBA's Lubetkin Prize is now in its third year. Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Mercedes Benz, whom we welcome as our new partners, we are able to extend the same scrutiny to awards outside Europe as we have long applied nearer home. This year's judges visited a gallery in the United States, a private house in Costa Rica and a British High Commission in Uganda and survived to report back to me and a panel of two other architects – Glenn Howells and Denise Bennetts – on what they had seen. My congratulations to Gianni Botsford, whose house for his father, shows that sometimes the best architecture can be small in scale but big in architectural ambition. All the shortlisted schemes show how innovative and inventive RIBA members' work can be on an international stage. We are also grateful for the continuing support of our media partners the Architectural Review, whose editor Paul Finch was one of the creators of this important international award."

Casa Kike beat off stiff competition from two other outstanding international buildings, New British High Commision, Kampala by Cullum & Nightingale Architects and the Akron Art Museum, Ohio by COOP HIMMELB(L)AU.

The three shortlisted buildings were seen by a visiting jury comprising Niall McLaughlin, architect and chair of the RIBA Awards Group and Tony Chapman, RIBA Head of Awards, who reported to the full jury which included architects Sunand Prasad, RIBA President, Denise Bennetts and Glenn Howells.

The prize is named after the world-renowned architect Berthold Lubetkin (1901-1990). Lubetkin's daughter Sasha presented the winning architects with a unique cast concrete plaque, based loosely on her father's design for the Penguin Pool at London Zoo, commissioned by the RIBA and designed and made by the artist Petr Weigl.

The RIBA welcomes Mercedes-Benz (UK) Limited as the first sponsor of the RIBA International Awards and Lubetkin Prize. The Architectural Review is the Media Partner.

Notes to editors

1. For further information and images contact Beatrice Cooke in the RIBA Press Office, 020 7307 3813 or beatrice.cooke@inst.riba.org|

2. The prize is named in honour of Berthold Lubetkin, the Georgia-born architect who worked in Paris before coming to London in the 1930s to establish the influential Tecton Group. He is best known for the two Highpoint apartment blocks in Highgate and the Penguin Pool at London Zoo.

3. The RIBA welcomes Mercedes-Benz (UK) Limited as the first sponsor of the RIBA International Awards and Lubetkin Prize. The Architectural Review is the Media Partner.

4. InterfaceFLOR, leading manufacturers of modular commercial flooring, are Associate Sponsors and The Architects' Journal is the Media Partner for the RIBA National and European Awards. Ibstock Brick Limited are generous sponsors of the Awards in the RIBA Regions. The pre-Dinner reception is sponsored by Solution Recruitment. Conqueror paper generously supplied by Arjo Wiggins Ltd.

5. The RIBA Trust also wishes to thank Matt Hill, Jack Newton, Ben Nicholls, Steve Westcott and Chris Wilkinson for designing the installation in the Grand Ballroom at the London Hilton for the Dinner. Thanks also to Carl Robertshaw of Kite Related Design for realising the group's ideas and supporting the project by fabricating and installing it.

6. The RIBA Trust manages the cultural assets of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), including the internationally recognised collections of the British Architectural Library. It is the UK's national architecture centre, delivering the RIBA Awards and RIBA Stirling Prize (broadcast on Channel 4); the Royal Gold Medal; International and Honorary Fellowships; RIBA partnership in architecture festivals such as the forthcoming London Festival of Architecture; and a full programme of lectures, exhibitions, tours and other events; and an education programme.

7. The cast concrete Lubetkin Trophy is designed and made by artist Petr Weigl. For more information on his work go to www.petrweigl.com|

Full citation follows:

Casa Kike, Cahuita, Costa Rica

Architect: Gianni Botsford Architects

Client: Keith Botsford

Structural Engineer Tall Engineers

Contractor: Lechenne Construction

Contract value: £55,000

Date of completion: April 2007

Gross internal area: 120 sq m

Casa Kike is a small scheme punching way above its weight. Too many schemes get lost in second thoughts. Here success is dependent on the absolute simplicity of the initial diagram and a refusal by the architect to over-complicate it. Two buildings, each a parallelogram, are orientated so their sides are parallel to the boundaries of the site, the glazed ends (and here's the clever bit) are then twisted away from the meridian so as to catch the northerly sea breezes.

The house is built on 1.2 metre piles of the hardest of hard woods, Cachà, which is so dense that it sinks in water. As a result it is also termite proof, an important factor in these parts. The point about the house is books (17,000 of them) so the fact that the books and the structure are brought together in what are in effect structural bookcases is highly appropriate. The two pavilions are linked by a raised walkway which is long enough so that the smaller building is not in the wind shadow of the bigger one.

Issues of sustainability are impossible to ignore in Costa Rica, which has one of the best track records in this regard in the world. You cannot so much as take out a dead pine without government permission. So sourcing the three hardwoods needed for the house's construction was problematic. At one point work stopped for three weeks while they awaited another delivery of the raw timber for the 10 metre long main roofbeams.

For all the timber pyrotechnics of the roof structure and the irregularity of its shape, it is a calm and comfortable place to be. The project shows what can be achieved with a modest building type and a simple brief when placed in the hands of an imaginative and assured architect.