Residential Designed to Fight Social Isolation Secures Leading Building Design Award
An modern version of the traditional almshouse, deliberately created to tackle solitude, has won a prestigious architecture accolade for Britain's finest modern building.
This new almshouse, which offers affordable units for over-65s in the Southwark area, has been granted this year's Stirling Prize by the Royal Institute of British Architects.
This development, situated in the Bermondsey district, boasts 59 apartments along with collective amenities, featuring a rooftop garden, central courtyard and shared kitchen.
The Stirling Prize judges said it "creates an ambitious standard for public housing among the elderly".
The architectural team the creative minds have crafted "excellent" and "considerate" spaces to establish atmospheres that genuinely support their residents", as stated by a jury member.
This structure was commended for its "generous" homes, terracotta-paved corridors with benches and greenery, and a pond that gives the building the "sense of a woodland oasis".
That produces an "aspirational residential setting" that stands "sharply opposed to the clinical atmosphere often associated with older people's residences".
The prize-winning development was erected on the grounds of an former residential facility by a philanthropic group, which subsidises the flats for residents on low incomes.
Almshouses were traditionally built from the Middle Ages to offer philanthropic accommodation for those in difficulty.
This development outperformed a range of other contending projects and architectural works to claim this year's Stirling Prize, including the refurbishment of the Big Ben tower in London to a recent fashion college campus, a lab building and an "inventive" residential expansion.
These additional contenders comprised:
- The renovated historic clock tower
- Another architectural project
The award is presented to the building judged to be "the most important of the year for the development of architecture and the urban landscape", and is judged on criteria including architectural concept, innovation and distinctiveness.
It is Witherford Watson Mann's second occasion as winning architects, a dozen years after they were picked for their plan for a pioneering contemporary holiday home within the historic Astley Castle in Warwickshire.
A important transport project - the city's east-west rail line - won the renowned award the previous year.
Other previous honorees of the prize - initially awarded in 1996 - feature Liverpool's performance space, coastal landmark and the government structure in Edinburgh.
