Do you like your bricks in red, brown or grey? And do you prefer your buildings in north, south or east London? Those are some of the limited choices facing the judges of this year’s RIBA Stirling prize for the country’s best building, in one of the most homogenous and metrocentric shortlists in the award’s 27-year history.
Looking at the six contenders, you would be forgiven for thinking British architecture had converged into a polite beige consensus. There is a neat grey-brick courtyard housing scheme in Clapham, impeccably detailed by Sergison Bates architects. A bit further east, in Blackheath, is an elegant day centre for older people by Mae architects, channelling Scandinavian vibes with timber and rusty brown brick. To the north, in Somers Town, Adam Khan’s housing and children’s centre stands as a jaunty redbrick castle, while on the banks of the Thames, Witherford Watson Mann has exposed the crumbly 18th-century brick vaults of the Courtauld Institute of Art, in a meticulous work of invisible mending.
