A comprehensive girls' school in south London has won this year's RIBA Stirling Prize, the UK's most prestigious architectural award.
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), the designers behind Burntwood School in Wandsworth, picked up the prize for the UK's best new building at a ceremony last night in London.
The architects introduced eight new buildings to the campus, which was originally designed by Sir Leslie Martin in the 1950s. Two larger buildings feature colourful murals and a vast amount of natural light and air.
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The RIBA judges said that the school was the "clear winner" as it was the "most accomplished" of the six shortlisted buildings and demonstrated the "full range of the skills that architects can offer to society".
They added: "It encompasses great contemporary design and the clever reuse of existing buildings as well as superb integration of artwork, landscaping and engineering. It is a genuine collaborative project. There was a wonderful working relationship between the head teacher and the architect: a true partnership of equals."
Other shortlisted contenders included the Stockwell Street Building at the University of Greenwich by Heneghan Peng Architects and Maggie's Lanarkshire, a cancer care clinic in north Lanarkshire, by Reiach and Hall Architects.
RIBA Stirling Prize 2015: praise for 'bling free' buildings shortlist
16 July
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the shortlist of six buildings competing for this year's Stirling Prize. The buildings include a Manchester art gallery, a cancer care centre in Scotland and an apartment complex in London.
The Stirling Prize is awarded by the RIBA in recognition of buildings that have made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year. Four of the six shortlisted buildings are located in London.
The projects that made the shortlist are:
Burntwood School by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
Darbishire Place, Peabody housing by Niall McLaughlin Architects
Maggie's Lanarkshire by Reiach and Hall Architects
NEO Bankside by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
University of Greenwich, Stockwell Street Building by Heneghan Peng Architects
The Whitworth by MUMA
Jane Duncan, president elect of the RIBA and chair of the Stirling Prize jury, told the BBC, that this year's entries were "careful" and "respectful of their communities" but missing the "flamboyance" of previous years, when buildings such as the Shard were nominated.
The £15m redevelopment of the Whitworth art gallery in Manchester, however, was described as a "tour de force" by the prize's organisers. The extension has already seen the gallery win the £100,000 Art Fund prize for museum of the year earlier this month.
Commentators celebrated the toned-down list of nominees.
“Three cheers for excellent ordinary architecture,” says Jay Merrick in The Independent. Five of the six buildings shortlisted for the Oscars of British architecture, he says, “haven't got a trace of designer bling about them”. Merrick concedes “there is a faint odour of political correctness" about the selection, but argues that “the key thing is that most of them serve ordinary people, and ordinary daily life”.
Merrick notes that one of the buildings, NEO Bankside, has a big price tag, £140m, but the rest are low-cost, or very low-cost, buildings. “The message sent by this shortlist is a good one,” he adds, “that there is no reason why ordinary building types can't be well designed and well built.”
In the architecture and design magazine Dezeen, the RIBA president Stephen Hodder, who himself won the prize in 1996 for his Centenary Building at the University of Salford, said that the shortlisted projects “are each surprising new additions to urban locations”. Their stand-out common quality, he said, “is their exceptionally executed, crafted detail".
Hodder praised the “simple palette of materials” used on the Maggie's cancer care centre and the “well-executed” detail of NEO Bankside.
This year's winner will be announced in central London on 15 October.
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