Now all this year's RIBA Regional Awards have been published, how do the figures compare? Isabelle Priest assesses the largest and smallest, highest and lowest, most and least densely distributed accolades
Welcome to the RIBA Regional Awards 2024. Over the past several weeks we have been showcasing the projects that have made it through the shortlisting stage and won a RIBA Regional Award. This year, there are 111 winners across the 13 RIBA nations and regions, with London split into five further areas.
Alongside featuring each winner in synopsis in our print coverage, and online including the full judges citations and complete sets of images and drawings online, we have our exclusive analysis of the awards in numbers by region. This uses behind-the-scenes data of costs and costs per m2 so you can compare the kinds of construction values that achieve RIBA Regional Awards location by location, as well as whether a practice with offices within the region of the project is more likely to win an award than others without, and more.
First, a few of 2024’s bigger trends. Whereas usually one region easily tops the total number of winning projects, this year the regions are relatively bunched together. The area with the most awards is London South West with 12 winners, followed by RIAS/Scotland with 11 and South West with 10. At the other end of the spectrum, North East has the fewest awards with four, followed by Yorkshire, East Midlands, West Midlands and RSAW/Wales all with five.
The next headline is the number of regions with £1 billion-plus total contract values. For the first time there are three, all in London. London East tops the charts with a spend of £18.8 billion followed by London North with £2.9 billion and London South West with £1.5 billion. These are respectively bought about by three huge projects: the Elizabeth Line, King’s Cross masterplan and Battersea Power Station Phase Two. The lowest spending region by a margin is South West with a total contract value of £21.6 million. London South East is where you will find the project with the lowest contract value nevertheless – although which is confidential.
In terms of cost per m2, this year East has the highest average per project at £7,438/m2, followed unusually by Wales at £4,703/m2. The former is skewed by one particularly expensive project that is double the cost per m2 of any other project featured. By contrast, Scotland has achieved the most with the lowest average cost per m2, coming in at £2,316/m2.
Then what does it say that Southwark of all countries and boroughs has the most awards with 10 alone? The next nearest are Somerset, Wandsworth and Cambridge. Are there particularly exciting architects operating there or adventurous planners that exert high quality?
Finally, for another year in a row, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios wins the practice with the most RIBA Regional Awards 2024, this time jointly with Allies and Morrison. Both practices have notched up three. Congratulations to them, as well as all the winners this year. There are a further 12 firms that win two. We’ll leave you to delve deep into the awards in full to discover which those are.