RIBA Special Awards 2024 winners announced

RIBA unveiled the winners of its four special awards at a live ceremony yesterday evening. 

Shortlists for the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize, RIBA Reinvention Award, RIBA Neave Brown Award for Housing and RIBA Client of the Year were compiled earlier in the year. 

Clementine Blakemore Architects took home the Stephen Lawrence Prize for its Dorset dairy farm Wraxhall Yard. 

> Also read: The Elizabeth Line wins 2024 Stirling Prize

The prize was established in 1998 in memory of Stephen Lawence, a teenager and aspiring architect who was the victim of a fatal racist attack in 1993. It seeks to recognise works led by an early career project architect. 

The winning scheme was a series of ‘highly accessible’ holiday lets converted from the ruins of an old dairy farm. 

Fardaa’s Croft 3 on Scotland’s Isle of Mull earned the RIBA Reinvention Award. Judges looked for buildings that have been “creatively reused” to improve their environmental, social, or economic sustainability, with a focus on retrofitting. 

Located in a remote coastal community on the Isle of Mull in Scotland, Croft 3 is a transformation and extension of a ruined farm building which has been transformed into a restaurant and community space.

Judges described the scheme as an “exemplar low carbon restoration” which maximised the reuse of existing site materials and the use of furniture which was carved on the island from a single tree.

The Neave Brown Award for affordable housing was handed to Al-Jawad Pike’s 11-home social housing scheme, Chowdhury Walk.

Named in honour of the late Dr Abdul Chowdhury who campaigned for additional PPE for frontline workers during the coronavirus pandemic, Chowdhury Walk is part of a programme of new generation council housing by Hackney Council. 

The jury praised the scheme’s attention to detail and the quality of its materials which make the homes feel “uplifting upon entering”.

Shakespeare North Trust and Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council picked up the client of the year award for the pair’s “ambitious” community regeneration project, Shakespeare North, in Prescot.

Designed by Austin Smith Lord, the new theatre building promotes the learning, experimentation, and reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s works and includes an exhibition space, seminar rooms and both indoor and outdoor performance spaces.

Judges said the the architects and clients had “created a cultural and social space that has inspired and invigorated an historic Merseyside town”.

The four special awards were announced yesterday alongside the Stirling Prize, the UK’s most prestigious architectural award for a new building, which was handed to The Elizabeth Line.