24 October 2008
Design, place making and the Stirling Prize
What is good design? For me it is what is preferred by the majority of people rather than the elite minority. There are some new home developers including my own company who do give significant attention to design. Architecture isn’t just about the buildings, important as they are, it’s about sustainability, about creating places that people will enjoy and it’s very much concerned with creating sustainable communities that will stand the test of time.
We are delighted that our Cambridge development, Accordia, has just won the UK’s premier architectural prize, the RIBA Stirling Prize. This is of course testament to the design skills of the architects that we employed, but it is also an award for our vision in developing the brief and having the dedication to implement it. Accordia is a community that will prevail and the elite minority, the judges, awarded the prize because they could see the quality of the place making concept that we conceived and worked up with the architects would work well and be attractive to the majority. We see the award of the Stirling Prize, to a housing project for the very first time, as a historic success that brings long overdue recognition of what we have been achieving for a number of years in many other places.
As a society we have many concerns about our living environments and Accordia addresses many of these concerns. I have mentioned place making already but this term should also include the long-term management. If this is not taken into account communities will not look good within a few years of them being built. Place making also has to be inclusive and accommodate the interests of all the residents. In particular children as well as youths are often forgotten in the process. We must not forget that children also have a democratic right to space. Accordia achieves this brilliantly.
Design and layout has got to be taken into account in creating sustainable communities with the range of housing sizes and tenures that is needed to ensure social sustainability. So we need to accommodate one and two person households, families and the elderly, and both those who can afford to buy and those who cannot. Mixed-tenure housing and the way in which housing is integrated is very important in creating sustainable communities. We don’t want the segregation between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ that created so many problems in the past.
Communities need schools, as well as community and recreational facilities. As well as creating these facilities we also need to ensure places in themselves are attractive. Landscaping is important – people enjoy living in green environments that bring people together to create a sense of community. Fundamentally they are nicer places to live.
Our society is becoming increasingly concerned with the energy efficiency agenda so homes must be more energy and water efficient and use eco-friendly building materials. Wherever we can we need to include eco parks, as well as parks where people can play. Moving on from Accordia, the new play environment at Great Notley in Braintree, another of our new community projects has dramatically increased the amount of people who are visiting and enjoying the country park which was created as part of the development.
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14 October 2008
The Stirling Prize - a first for a housing development
I was absolutely delighted that Accordia, our scheme in Cambridge won the Stirling Prize on Saturday night. I was also a little surprised as it wasn't strongly backed in the betting. I know there are some colleagues who wished they'd put £10 on it! The RIBA Stirling Prize is the most highly acclaimed architectural award, and this is the first time it has ever been won by a residential development, so it is a great achievement for the Accordia team.
To win such a prestigious award is testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone involved. Many congratulations to our team led by Chris Crook and assisted, prior to her retirement, by Trisha Gupta, and to the external team of architects lead by Fielden Clegg Bradley with Maccreanor Lavington and Alison Brooks Architects, and the landscape architects Grant Associates.
This is a very welcome and much needed boost for the residential property industry, which is facing tremendous challenges at the moment. Accordia is a landmark development for Countryside Properties and for it to beat off competition from other highly acclaimed buildings across Europe is fantastic.
Ellis Woodman in the Daily Telegraph and Edwin Heathcote in the FT have written some interesting pieces on the Stirling Prize which you might like to look at.
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