It's a big day in the United Kingdom! The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has just announced the winner of the 2019 Stirling Prize: Goldsmith Street housing by Mikhail Riches and Cathy Hawley!
The project was created for the Norwich City Council and features over 100 two-story buff brick row houses that are bookended by three-story flats, according to RIBA. The homes are divided by generous green spaces including back gardens that feature alleyways where children can play together. The homes are also designed according to the rigorous Passivhaus standards.
See below for selected shots of the project:
Describing the project, RIBA judge and prize chair Julia Barfield referred to the 105-unit housing development as “a modest masterpiece," adding, "It is high-quality architecture in its purest, most environmentally and socially conscious form. Behind restrained creamy façades are impeccably-detailed, highly sustainable homes – an incredible achievement for a development of this scale. This is proper social housing, over ten years in the making, delivered by an ambitious and thoughtful council. These desirable, spacious, low-energy properties should be the norm for all council housing.”
The social housing project beat out five other finalists for the prize, including: The Macallan Distillery by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Nevill Holt Opera by Witherford Watson Mann Architects, Cork House by Matthew Barnett Howland with Dido Milne and Oliver Wilton, London Bridge Station by Grimshaw, and The Weston by Feilden Fowles Architects.
Past winners of the Stirling Prize include Foster + Partners' design for Bloomberg's London headquarters in 2018, dRMM Architects' Hastings Pier in 2017, Caruso St. John's Newport Street Gallery in 2016, Allford Hall Managhan Morris's Burtwood School in 2015, and Haworth Tompkins' Everyman Theatre in 2014.
The Piers Taylor Dezeen piece is good:
The whole country breathed a sigh of relief that the prize didn't go to an "iconic" piece of architecture in a time where more than anything we don't need more iconic buildings. It went instead to a clever, yet ordinary, council housing scheme in the provinces, built for a modest budget that was a fraction of the cost of last year's winner. Not only is the scheme a delight by anyone's standards, it also offers a roadmap for precisely the type of housing the UK needs huge amounts of.
Before, under private enterprise:
From 1979, there was very little government funded council housing built. In its place, private housebuilders began swamping the country with low-density, badly built, and poorly located "executive" rabbit hutches. The housebuilders had two aims: build them cheaply, and maximise profit. One developer told me recently: "Our only responsibility is to our shareholders. Why would we invest anything in design when – due to the housing shortage – any old crap sells."
https://www.dezeen.com/2019/10...
Not unlike what happened in the US:
But the reformers were soon outmaneuvered by the real-estate industry. Developers, real-estate agents, and bankers worried that well-designed and affordable government-sponsored housing would compete with the private sector for middle-class consumers, and warned about the specter of socialism. After World War II, recognizing the pent-up demand for housing and fearing competition from public housing, the industry mobilized a major campaign against the program, promoting government-insured suburban housing instead. With the federal Housing Act of 1949, the industry sabotaged public housing by pressuring Congress to restrict its funding, give local governments discretion over whether and where to locate developments, and limit them to the very poor. Southern senators made sure that local governments had the authority to keep public housing racially segregated.
With limited budgets, and requirements that the cheapest materials be used, many projects were poorly constructed and badly designed—ugly warehouses for the poor that stigmatized “government housing” as housing of last resort.
From a piece on social housing at The American Prospect, where they visit Vienna. Well worth the read.
https://prospect.org/infrastru...
At some point I hope we learn that esthetics matter, that our visible environment affects our well being as much as the quality of the air we all breathe. Take a tour of neighborhoods wherever you live, perhaps go to the places you avoid, as I did when I relocated, to appreciate this.
"There are only two markets, ultraluxury and subsidized housing."
Rafael Viñoly, designer of 432 Park Ave. I believe he was referring to NYC, but the picture has to be the same in varying degrees elsewhere.
I'd like to make another argument. Such projects might be the best place for architecture now to show its strengths. Modest successes can have substantial impact. So many major projects that grace these pages depend on massive funding, often of the speculative sort, and are designed to get attention. And usually they are funky and/or boring. Money and status and media attention are caught in a death spiral.
So many quiet—and relatively inexpensive—details that give this simple facade distinction—the deeper grouting representing the space where there isn't a window, keeping the pattern, the waves of the roofing above a drainpipe? that provides an elegant cornice, the boxing of the windows, the varied and subtle metalwork in the gate, fences, and sun breaks over the windows. The wooden posts are a nice touch.
Only the first row of houses, in the overhead above, is long and uninterrupted, but I assume for a reason, likely to enclose the interior and private spaces. Also space is limited, and drivers need a straight shot to their homes.
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Good God, this is beautiful. Modern, brick, shapely, and serving people
.
7th Oct 2019 — Tweet “I didn’t choose the brickwork or the front door, but it’s clear that someone has. Someone did care that I liked my home. That means a lot to me…” Resident of our Goldsmith Street project for @NorwichCC – shortlisted for the @RIBA #StirlingPrize & #NeaveBrownAward . https://t.co/l0NRhRCgXu
Fantastic. This is exactly what architecture should be about.
This overhead shot shows the layout:
And you can compare their solutions with those surrounding.
The roofs have that shallow pitch for a reason:
To allow winter sun to reach the next row over.
I'd be really curious to hear how this works out for the community. As they say, there is no car traffic on the private/communal space. And there will be eyes on the communal part, where people will meet, kids will play.
Traffic on the streets before house fronts would be minimal, limited to residents coming and going. There is no need to maintain much frontal presence, not in such a site, not the way we live our lives now. I wonder how many cars can be accommodated by the strips however—not the 2-3 car families we have, but then those need to need to be pared down. Amazing how much parking can mar any design.
Winning such a prize has to be incentive for others to follow suit. Let us hope.
Wow, I like this. Not only do such designs elevate the lives of residents, they lift the whole environment.
nice design, but the continuous form is monotonous... needs some differentiation
I won’t argue, but they are a very nice reinterpretation of traditional terrace (row) housing.
Beautiful project. Dignified, a light touch, elegant. I'm interested to see the interiors.
The Piers Taylor Dezeen piece is good:
The whole country breathed a sigh of relief that the prize didn't go to an "iconic" piece of architecture in a time where more than anything we don't need more iconic buildings. It went instead to a clever, yet ordinary, council housing scheme in the provinces, built for a modest budget that was a fraction of the cost of last year's winner. Not only is the scheme a delight by anyone's standards, it also offers a roadmap for precisely the type of housing the UK needs huge amounts of.
Before, under private enterprise:
From 1979, there was very little government funded council housing built. In its place, private housebuilders began swamping the country with low-density, badly built, and poorly located "executive" rabbit hutches. The housebuilders had two aims: build them cheaply, and maximise profit. One developer told me recently: "Our only responsibility is to our shareholders. Why would we invest anything in design when – due to the housing shortage – any old crap sells."
https://www.dezeen.com/2019/10...
Not unlike what happened in the US:
But the reformers were soon outmaneuvered by the real-estate industry. Developers, real-estate agents, and bankers worried that well-designed and affordable government-sponsored housing would compete with the private sector for middle-class consumers, and warned about the specter of socialism. After World War II, recognizing the pent-up demand for housing and fearing competition from public housing, the industry mobilized a major campaign against the program, promoting government-insured suburban housing instead. With the federal Housing Act of 1949, the industry sabotaged public housing by pressuring Congress to restrict its funding, give local governments discretion over whether and where to locate developments, and limit them to the very poor. Southern senators made sure that local governments had the authority to keep public housing racially segregated.
With limited budgets, and requirements that the cheapest materials be used, many projects were poorly constructed and badly designed—ugly warehouses for the poor that stigmatized “government housing” as housing of last resort.
From a piece on social housing at The American Prospect, where they visit Vienna. Well worth the read.
https://prospect.org/infrastru...
At some point I hope we learn that esthetics matter, that our visible environment affects our well being as much as the quality of the air we all breathe. Take a tour of neighborhoods wherever you live, perhaps go to the places you avoid, as I did when I relocated, to appreciate this.
"There are only two markets, ultraluxury and subsidized housing."
Rafael Viñoly, designer of 432 Park Ave. I believe he was referring to NYC, but the picture has to be the same in varying degrees elsewhere.
I'd like to make another argument. Such projects might be the best place for architecture now to show its strengths. Modest successes can have substantial impact. So many major projects that grace these pages depend on massive funding, often of the speculative sort, and are designed to get attention. And usually they are funky and/or boring. Money and status and media attention are caught in a death spiral.
So many quiet—and relatively inexpensive—details that give this simple facade distinction—the deeper grouting representing the space where there isn't a window, keeping the pattern, the waves of the roofing above a drainpipe? that provides an elegant cornice, the boxing of the windows, the varied and subtle metalwork in the gate, fences, and sun breaks over the windows. The wooden posts are a nice touch.
Only the first row of houses, in the overhead above, is long and uninterrupted, but I assume for a reason, likely to enclose the interior and private spaces. Also space is limited, and drivers need a straight shot to their homes.
Compare the above square with:
432 Park Ave
John Hill (@archidose) pointed me (on Twitter) to this wonderful video of all of the nominees presenting their projects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1141&v=pVEix7dSCrU
The more I learn about it the better it is. SO beautiful, deeply considered, and humane.
It's nice to see this humble project get some props. The scale and detailing are indeed humane. No need to be historicist.
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