AYA 2023 shortlists: Private Housing Architect of the Year

Earlier this year BD announced all the architects who made it on to the shortlists for our prestigious annual Architect of the Year Awards.

Now we are shining the spotlight on each category in turn and publishing a selection of the images that impressed the judges.

This year’s judges include: Jo Bacon, partner, Allies & Morrison; Murray Kerr, director, Denizen Works; Dav Bansal, partner, Howells; Kay Hughes, design director HS2; Peter Caplehorn, chief executive, Construction Products Association; Peter Fisher, director, Bennetts Associates; Anna Hollyman, Senior Sustainability Advisor, UK Green Building Council; Marta Galinanes Garcia, director, AKTII; Darryl Chen, partner, Hawkins\Brown; Lee Higson, director, Eric Parry Architects; Maria Joao Reis, senior associate, Maccreanor Lavington

Today’s shortlist is Private Housing Architect of the Year Award.

Howells

Three Birmingham projects include the city’s tallest inhabited building. The Mercian is a 42-storey homes-for-rent tower that operates entirely on renewable energy. Howells has designed the Brick House terraced housing typology for the emerging Port Loop neighbourhood while the proposed Octagon will be the world’s first purely octagonal high rise residential building. The entry also features a proposed 26-storey coastal development in Perth, Western Australia.

HTA Design

Lyons Dock, a 251-home development at Greenford Quay in London’s Ealing, was delivered in just 18 months using Vision Modular’s volumetric system. At Elephant Park, the practice completed the mixed tenure City Lights Point for Lendlease in Southwark. Two consented schemes in the entry include 552 new homes at Darwin Green in Cambridge for Barratt David Wilson Homes, due for completion in 2024.

JTP

Place-making schemes include the first phase of Alconbury Weald, the residential transformation of a former airfield in Cambridgeshire. In Chelmsford, a golf course has been redeveloped as the Channels new housing development while in London’s Canning Town, JTP masterplanned the residential redevelopment of Brunel Street Works. The Green Quarter, a new urban neighbourhood on the former Southall Gasworks site in west London, is due to complete in 2035.

Patel Taylor

The entry features two London projects. Patel Taylor’s masterplan for London Dock transforms 6ha of Wapping docklands. Eleven new buildings include housing typologies of towers, linear and terraced blocks, with ground floor commercial and community uses. At Waterloo, 8-13 Casson Square is a 32-storey building at Southbank Place, providing 301 homes above retail units and a new Waterloo underground ticket hall.

Peak Architects

A disused cattle and poultry barn has been transformed into a terrace of five homes at Hillview Farm in Sheffield. The houses are arranged around a central mews courtyard. Also in Sheffield, the practice has completed four, five bedroom houses in Whirlow and is on-site with an 11-unit apartment building on Glossop Road. In Matlock, the Riber View development created 51 units on a former workshop site.

Squire & Partners

The Broadway, a 1million sq ft development in Westminster, draws inspiration from the Art Deco architecture of Charles Holden’s nearby 55 Broadway. The mixed-use scheme comprises two podiums of three, 14-19 storey buildings each. The entry features two other London projects - the 51-unit Lancer Square, also in Westminster, and Landmark Pinnacle, a 75 storey tower at the western end of Canary Wharf.

Stolon Studio

Featured projects reflect the practice’s belief in ‘sociable’ architecture that helps new communities to thrive. Penrose Mews in west London includes both private and shared outdoor spaces while Kaolin Court in south east London creates nine homes around a shared outdoor amenity. At the seven-home Stables Yard in Beckenham, dining areas open onto a shared deck to encourage interaction.

A proposed riverside scheme in Littlehampton completes the entry.