Civic centres in both Newcastle and Sunderland have triumphed in separate awards recognising the UK’s best buildings.
The 2022 RIBA North East Award winners have been unveiled, rewarding a modern makeover for Newcastle’s 1960s-built Civic Centre, along with a family home and a barn conversion.
The three projects have been awarded Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) North East Awards including North Bank in Northumberland by Elliott Architects Ltd, Newcastle Civic Centre by FaulknerBrowns Architects and Shepherds Barn in County Durham by LEAP.
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FaulknerBrowns architects, based in Killingworth, has been involved in work at Newcastle Civic Centre for several years, having initially received approval for the multimillion-pound refurbishment of George Kenyon’s 1968 Grade II star-listed building in 2017.
As part of the plans, council services have been redistributed to promote greater operational efficiency and consolidation, which has allowed space for HM Courts and Tribunal Service to occupy areas of the Civic Centre, optimising building use and generating commercial income for Newcastle City Council.
Hexham company Elliott Architects Ltd designed North Bank, a new build set in a conservation area which has been designed to incorporate and reinterpret elements of rural Northumberland’s historic agricultural barns.
The Shepherds Barn in County Durham by LEAP (Low Energy Architectural Practice) is a retrofit barn conversion undertaken to the EnerPHit (Passivhaus retrofit) standard and designed by Architect and Passivhaus designer Mark Siddall.
Regional jury chair Amrit Naru said: “This year, all the submissions for the regional awards have demonstrated the continuing quality of design seen in the North East. The judges felt the RIBA North East Award winning projects were exemplary in demonstrating sincerity and delight with the very best of design. Each project has its occupants, context and sustainability are at its heart.”
The North Bank building was also given two special awards – North East Conservation Award and North East Small Project of the Year Award – while Shepherds Barn was selected as the RIBA North East Client of the Year and the North East Sustainability Award.
The 2022 RIBA North East Building of the Year, sponsored by Taylor Maxwell, will be announced on May 24 at a ceremony in London and the regional winners will go forward to the national awards which will be announced in June.
Meanwhile, the British Council for Offices’ (BCO) Regional Awards singled out Sunderland City Hall as one of six workplaces across the the North and Northern Ireland.
The new home for Sunderland’s city council took the prize for best corporate workplace, as a building which represents an early-stage catalyst in a phase of transformational regeneration and change for Sunderland.
Judges said the building “provides all the tools for work collaboration and social support, and then wraps them in an architectural and interior design which is embedded in its local context”.
Also highly commended in the corporate workplace was Pipewell Quay in Pipewellgate, Gateshead, the former Baja Beach Club which has been transformed into modern offices for Aspire Technology Solutions.
Thomas Bone, associate director Hoare Lea and chair of the BCO Northern Judging Panel, said: “The pandemic has turbo charged changes that were already occurring in our sector and a number of common themes were evident in all of the categories including rapid evolution, wellbeing, collaboration and innovation to deliver new hybrid ways of working. The high number of entries which were refurbishments, recycled or fit-out projects also shows a growing importance of sustainability in our sector and Sunderland City Hall and Pipewell Quay are a perfect showcase of what the North East region has to offer and what the sector can achieve.”
Northern winners will now compete with those from other regions at the BCO National Awards in October.
