The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the Hackney School of Food, designed by Surman Weston, as the winner of the Stephen Lawrence Prize 2022. The award aims to encourage new architectural talent and to reward projects with a budget of less than £1 million. RIBA has also awarded the Neave Brown Award for Housing 2022 to the Hackney New Primary School and 333 Kingsland Road by Henley Halebrown. The award is given in honor of social housing pioneer Neave Brown (1926-2018) and it recognizes affordable housing initiatives in the UK.
The Hackney School of Food, the winner of the Stephen Lawrence Prize, transforms a derelict school keeper’s house and garage into a kitchen school for the pupils of Hackney. Here, children learn to grow, cook and eat food. In addition, the space serves as a community center, where corporate events can also happen, thus providing financial help to the operation. The architectural response to the client’s brief is driven by an ethos of maximizing the educational impact of the initiative.
The existing structures have been adapted using a carefully controlled set of unifying materials. Every intervention was considered in terms of impact, utility, and budget. The architecture also allows for community outreach. The architect has been given a subsequently extended brief to create a toolkit for revamping other unused buildings across the borough in an effort to extend the success of this initiative.
The annual Stephen Lawrence Prize was established in 1998 in memory of Stephen Lawrence, a teenager preparing to become an architect when he was tragically murdered in a racist attack in 1993. The prize offers visibility and recognition to emerging architects delivering quality projects while working with a limited budget.
The success of the Hackney School of Food is not limited to this one site. The architect and client have developed an inspirational blueprint to teach others how to regenerate and enliven their own communities in a similar way. This bold and inventive investment exemplifies the power of architecture to transform not only the building it touches but the community it serves. - Matthew Goldschmied.
The recipient of the RIBA Neave Brown Award for Housing is a hybrid scheme combining a community-led school with 68 apartments on a compact urban site. Half of the apartments are offered below market rates, as the development is owned by an affordable housing charity. Orientation, natural ventilation, and light have been prioritized to create spacious and bright apartments. The architects also had to ensure adequate light and ventilation for the restricted school site and courtyard. The residents of the apartment building are provided with generous outside spaces sheltered by the concrete logia structure that defines the building’s external appearance.
Recently, RIBA has also announced the winner of the 26th edition of the RIBA Stirling Prize. Designed by Níall McLaughlin Architects, the Magdalene College Library was selected from a pool of shortlisted projects. The new building replaces a library gifted to Magdalene by Samuel Pepys 300 years ago and provides the students of the University of Cambridge with a new space that includes an archive and an art gallery.
