5 Innovative Academic Facilities Win RIBA National Award 2021

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has recently revealed the 54 winners of the 2021 RIBA National Awards for architecture. Running since 1996, RIBA National Awards lookout for the UK‘s best new buildings and notice rising economic and architectural trends in the UK.

There are a good number of well-designed school and university buildings that are powerful investments in the future, and I am sure they will inspire young people, their teachers and communities.
—Said RIBA President, Simon Allford

All winners of this year’s National Awards highly focus on the excellence and sensibility of the UK’s modern architecture. The winning projects are of promising variety; ranging from clever interventions done to valuable historic buildings to newly built architecture that responds very well to its context, and everything in between

This year’s RIBA National Awards winners have proposed a noticeable interest in academic and cultural facilities; resulting in promising “investments in arts and culture” and “state-of-the-art higher education facilities and schools”.

5 Innovative Academic Facilities Won RIBA National Award 2021

• Prof Lord Bhattacharyya Building by Cullinan Studio

Courtesy of Nick Hufton

This project is of a consistently high standard throughout. The brief for the project was complex in bringing together academic and industry research in the same building together to foster innovation and collaboration. A showcase for pioneering technology and learning, this building is a fantastic example of highly engineered architecture with sustainability credentials that could have achieved BREEAM Outstanding had there not been a conscious and informed decision not to.

Courtesy of Nick Hufton

Courtesy of Cullinan Studio

Despite its large scale this building displays an elegance and lightness of touch, with rigorous detailing at both a micro and macro scale. This building, and its surrounding landscape is the product of a successful relationship between the client, architect, and the wider design team.

• Lower Mountjoy Teaching and Learning Centre by FaulknerBrowns Architects

Courtesy of Jack Hobhouse

The Lower Mountjoy Teaching and Learning Centre provides an inclusive and welcoming environment for teaching and learning, which was clearly the focus throughout the design process. This is a substantial building in volume, but a clever and layered design approach has resulted in it feeling appropriate in its context where it could easily have felt imposing.

Courtesy of Jack Hobhouse

Overall, this is a highly accomplished building. Restrained and sophisticated whilst also providing a welcoming environment and flexibility of use in a changing world of education. It is an outstanding addition to the university and the city.

• Royal Academy of Art By David Chipperfield Architects

Courtesy of Simon Menges

To unlock the masterplan, the architect has sensitively refurbished key spaces, opened up previously closed-off areas, reactivated zones for the public, and, critically, plotted a new circulation route to connect the Piccadilly and Burlington Gardens entrances. The key strategic interventions were to reassign a brick-vaulted corridor previously used for storage and install a new contemporary in-situ concrete covered link bridge to resolve the differences in levels and axes.

Courtesy of Simon Menges

From the initial masterplan approach to the minutest nosing details, and from sympathetic conservation to the judicious insertion of crisp new elements, the architect’s attention to detail and subtlety of interventions is an exemplar for the refurbishment and repurposing of historic buildings.

 

• Kingston University London – Town House by Grafton Architects

Courtesy of Ed Reeve

Grafton Architects have designed a purposefully democratic and open space, as its name suggests: Town – referring to the building’s civic dimension, and House – reflecting a sense of home and belonging. Half of the students at Kingston are the first in their family to attend university and this building sends an important message to them, their educators and the local community, that this is a place where everyone is welcome and valued.

Courtesy of Dennis Gilbert

Kingston University Town House is theatre for life – a warehouse of ideas. It seamlessly brings together student and town communities, creating a progressive new model for higher education, well deserving of international acclaim and attention.
—Said Lord Norman Foster

• Centre for Creative Learning, Francis Holland School By BDP

Courtesy of Nick Caville

The architect describes the library space as ‘magical’ and invokes an image of children learning under the canopy of a great toadstool plucked from the pages of Alice in Wonderland. Every detail of the roof and its meeting with the perimeter is elegantly worked to marry the demand for daylight in a such a tight space with a strong poetic ambition. Sculptural rooflights punctuate the various reading zones within, flooding each space with daylight and connecting the library to the outside world. Elsewhere, the detailing is restrained and well executed, allowing the roof structure room for expression.

Courtesy of Vanessa McKinley

Courtesy of BDP

This is a complex brief on a challenging site, executed with love and care to create something enduring and special. The result is both unpretentious and rich. A careful palette of materials is brought together in sumptuous detail to realise a clear poetic concept with admirable success.

The RIBA) Awards have been running continuously since 1966, apart from 2020, when due to the COVID-19 pandemic they were postponed. The 2021 RIBA UK Awards (including Regional, National, and the RIBA Stirling Prize) have been selected from the shortlist for the 2020 RIBA Regional, RIAS, RSUA, and RSAW Awards.

No matter the shape, size, budget, or location, RIBA Award-winning schemes set the standard for great architecture all across the country. RIBA Awards are for buildings in the UK by RIBA Chartered Architects and RIBA International Fellows. Entries are to be submitted to the region or nation in which the building is situated. Winners are considered for the RIBA Stirling Prize.