The ‘daring’ refurbishment of a business centre on Enfield high street has been crowned the most sustainable scheme in this year’s AJ Small Projects Awards
RCKa took home the £500 AJ Small Projects Sustainability Award for the project which the judges felt had given the existing centre a ‘new lease of life and a new identity’.
The judging panel, chaired by AJ acting editor Rory Olcayto and including sustainability editor Hattie Hartman, DSDHA’s Deborah Saunt, Pocket design director Russ Edwards, Vicky Legrove of Jackson Coles and Paul Reed from competition sponsor Marley Eternit, were impressed by the impact the £240,000 refurbishment had on the existing high street.
The judges said they ‘enjoyed the simplicity’ of the project, which was financed by the Mayor’s Outer London Fund.
‘Who cares about air-tightness? It’s about reviving the high street,’ said Olcayto.
Saunt praised the architects for how they had ‘worked hard with the client to understand where to spend money and add value’.
The top prize was awarded to Carmody Groarke’s temporary Maggie’s Centre in Merseyside.
Now in its twentieth year, the AJ Small Projects Awards have been sponsored by Marley Eternit for five years running.
Last year the award was picked up by Chris Dyson Architects’ 13 Wapping Pierhead, while the Sustainability Prize went to Gillespie Yunnie’s staircase at the Royal William Yard in Plymouth.
The finalists’ designs will all go on display in an exhibition at the Building Centre on Store Street from 18 March to 11 April.
AJ Buildings Library
See photographs and drawings of RCKa’s prize-winning Enfield Business Centre in the AJ Buildings Library
The finalists
£9,000 Bicycle Shelter James Wyman Architects
£26,000 Zuzemberk Market Hall William Burgess and Jack Richards
£27,000 Artist’s Studio Josep Camps & Olga Felip Arquitecturia
£40,000 The Wind Tower MSA-GRUFF
£50,000 MacKenzie Place Sutherland Hussey Architects
£67,000 Garden Gallery Mustard Architects
£80,000 Quadruple 4-Cube Glass Room Andrew Pilkington Architects & Designers
£85,000 Constellations Bar Howard Miller Design
£100,000 Acoustic Shells Flanagan Lawrence
£115,000 Sutherland Avenue MASAA
£125,000 Aberavon Inside Out Architecture
£158,340 Greek Chapel James Gorst Architects
£180,000 Calabria Road Architecture for London
£203,775 The Modern Side Extension Coffey Architects
£205,000 Esher House Groves Natcheva Architects
£217,000 Maggie’s Merseyside Carmody Groarke
£221,350 Sanderson House David Kohn Architects
£225,000 Pobble House Guy Hollaway Architects
£232,000 Ravenswood Maccreanor Lavington
£235,000 Phipp Street Amin Taha Architects
Full list of previous years’ winners
- 1996 Anthony Grimshaw, Garden Gazebo (£60,000)
- 1997/1998 Chris Wilkinson, Princes Club Ski Tow Pavilion (£60,000)
- 1999 Wilkinson King, Glover Flat (£43,000)
- 2000 Hawkins\Brown, 10 Market Stalls (£144,000)
- 2001 Boyarsky Murphy Architects, Holland Park (£120,000)
- 2002 Simon Conder Associates, London House (£98,500)
- 2003 Studio BAAD, TFL international (£217,000)
- 2004 Lucy Begg and Robie Gay, Ola Mae Porch (£3,600)
- 2005 NORD Architects, Bell-Simpson House (£80,000)
- 2006 Paterson Architects, Three Seton Mains (£200,000)
- 2007 Paul Archer, Wallace Road (£250,000)
- 2008 Mole Architects, Japanese Tea House (£7,000)
- 2009 Mitchell Taylor Workshop, Moonshine (£150,000)
- 2010 Haworth Tompkins, The Dovecote Studio(£155,000)
- 2011 Köbberling & Kaltwasser, Jellyfish Theatre(£17,000)
- 2012 Jack Woolley, Old Workshop (£232,000)
- 2013 Laura Dewe Mathews’ Box House (£245,000)
- 2014 Chris Dyson Architects’ 13 Wapping Pierhead (£210,000)
RCKa’s Enfield Business Centre wins AJ Small Projects Sustainability Award
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