Architecture for the common good is not one size fits all
Welcome to the RIBAJ MacEwen Award longlist – our first sift of the best entries to our new prize that sets out to recognise 'architecture for the common good'. That means places (and this includes open space as well as buildings, and refurbishments as well as new build) that are demonstrably of maximum benefit across society. We are seeking out the good and the effective, rather than style statements. Places that improve people’s lives.
This is a journalistic investigation as much as anything. We want to identify good work of this kind, to demonstrate what can be done with the right approach, even on tiny budgets. We did not know, when we launched this, that this would be the year that an architectural collective, Assemble, would win the Turner Prize for a work of what used to be called community architecture, now further dignified as art. What the entries to the MacEwen Award demonstrate is that – unorthodox though Assemble’s practice structure might seem – they are by no means alone in their aims. Our entries also prove that there are many different ways to serve the common good. Not everything here is community-based, for instance, though it is all community-minded.
We named this award after Malcolm and Anni MacEwen – he a campaigning former editor of RIBAJ, she a leading post-war town planner who took a conservation-based approach, both of them involved in rural as well as urban issues. Malcolm changed the way the profession viewed itself, acted, and presented itself to the outside world – not least through his 1974 book “Crisis in Architecture”, admirably published by the RIBA itself and championed by this magazine. Malcolm’s ‘J’Accuse’ was that the profession was in grave danger of becoming entirely self-serving, forgetting the people that places are actually for. Not any more.
Our longlist of 39 projects represents fewer than half of the overall entry. We group them for convenience into seven types, demonstrating a breadth of approach across projects ranging from enlightened housing and public realm improvements through schools and youth centres to cultural buildings. And as the MacEwens would have wished, rural as well as urban communities are represented. Take a look: these represent a kind of architecture that is a world away from the “icon” building. In the New Year we will reveal our shortlist and finally, our winners.
Inclusive housing
Bradbury Place by Design Engine Architects
Mount Pleasant Homeless Hostel by Peter Barber Architects
William Street Quarter by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
Forgebank by Eco Arc Architects
Barking courtyard housing by Patel Taylor
Beveridge Mews by Peter Barber Architects
Learning and doing
Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy by Jestico + Whiles
Westborough Primary School by Cottrell and Vermeulen Architecture
The Westgate School by Hampshire County Council Architects
Good Food Matters Learning Centre by Geraghty Taylor Architects
Ortus by Duggan Morris Architects
Social enterprise
The Foundry by ARCHITECTURE 00
Employment Academy by Peter Barber Architects
Wilton’s Music Hall by Tim Ronalds Architects
JW3 London by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands
Maggie’s Merseyside by Carmody Groarke
Alternative working
Middleport Pottery by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Deborah House by Sarah Wigglesworth Architects
Lantern Community Craft Workshops by CaSA Architects
The Green Man by Black Architecture
Rural initiatives
Balyett-Stranraer Gateways by AHR
Kielder Testing Ground by Newcastle University School of Architecture Planning and Landscape
Welsh Water Visitor & Watersports Centres Llandegfedd Reservoir by Hall + Bednarczyk Architects
Young ones
Oasis by Benjamin Marks and Matt Atkins
The New Generation Youth Venue by RCKa Architects
North Park Hub Olympic Park by Erect Architecture
Viking Way by what if: projects
Hardworking spaces
Croydon South End by We Made That
Walpole Park/Rickyard by Jestico + Whiles
Vauxhall Public Realm Framework by Erect Architecture
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens by DSDHA
King’s Cross Square by Stanton Williams
Of Soil and Water: King’s Cross Pond Club by Ooze and Marjetica Potrč