Assemble, the architecture-ish collective known for their direct action urban interventions, has just won the prestigious Turner Prize. Working "across the fields of art, architecture and design," they are the first non-artists, in the strictest sense, to win the prize, and the first whose work so directly contends with the urban environment.

Specifically, Assemble was praised for their work in Toxteth, Liverpool, that involved using design to improve the living conditions and the houses of a derelict area called Granby Four Streets.



"[Assemble] draw[s] on long traditions of artistic and collective initiatives that experiment in art, design and architecture," the judges stated. "In doing so they offer alternative models to how societies can work. The long-term collaboration between Granby Four Streets and Assemble shows the importance of artistic practice being able to drive and shape urgent issues.”

With their Granby Four Streets project, Assemble created a showroom to display products made by local residents, trained and employed in a workshop where they fashion objects from demolition waste. These items, such as bookends and doorhandles, are then sold, with the money put back into the project.



The approach for the Granby Four Streets project, according to Assemble's website, "is characterised by celebrating the value of the area’s architectural and cultural heritage, supporting public involvement and partnership working, offering local training and employment opportunities and nurturing the resourcefulness and DIY spirit that defines the four streets."

The judges included the curator and critic Jan Verwoert; the Warsaw Museum of Modern Art director Joanna Mytkowska; the director of the Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Kyla McDonald; the director of Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Alistair Hudson; and the director of Tate Britain, Alex Farquharson.

Related:

• Architecture as urban regeneration: Theaster Gates, Art + Practice, and Assemble
• Assemble crafts its own model, becomes the first architecture studio to be nominated for Turner Prize
• Chicago Architecture Biennial finalizes list of participants