The 2018 Brick Awards have been announced at a ceremony celebrating the best use of brick in the built environment.
Projects of the highest calibre are routinely entered by architects and contractors and this year was no exception.
The title of Supreme Winner fell to the exemplary Storey's Field Community Centre & Nursery in Cambridge. Designed by architects MUMA, this outstanding community facility also won the Public and Outdoor Space categories.
The Storey’s Field Community Centre and Nursery serves the new community of Eddington on the North West Cambridge Development. The 100-place Nursery is arranged around three sides of a landscaped courtyard.
The courtyard is contained by a brick paved cloister and provides a sheltered play garden for the Nursery children, solving the need for security without fences. On the fourth side, the civic scaled Community Centre, addresses the new local centre. The project bowled over judges with its playful use of brick and stunning attention to detail, finish and form.
The task of shortlisting fell to a panel of experienced architects, planners, specialist brickwork contractors, developers and other design and brick experts, who produced a final shortlist of 108 entries. Domestic projects were then visited and reported back to the judging panel as whole for debate.
Found among the winners is Red House, which picked up the award for Individual Housing Project. This development lives up to its name and is a magnificent addition to the terrace lined street it’s located on, matching red brick and red mortar to become a statement property and a delight to behold.
In the larger residential categories Gospel Oak Infill Housing won the prize for Small Housing Development and the award for Large Housing Development was collected by Royal Albert Wharf. Gospel Oak Infill Housing is a small project of five new homes in Camden and is an inspiring example of a local authority enhancing their housing stock and significantly improving the urban realm through the development of carefully designed schemes on under-used plots of their own land.
The larger Royal Albert Wharf seeks to enhance the East Beckton community by delivering an integrated, high quality and sustainable residential led, mixed use development, using a variety brick to successfully break up the massing.
Claiming the prize for Innovation was Coate St a house built on a narrow plot completed with a unique mix-material façade. Blending glazed brick and polished stainless steel, Coate St is a unique property that not only stands out but complements the varied language of the Kennington street on which it sits. Fusion Brickwork was crowned winner of the Craftsmanship category for their incredible attention to detail on Harpsden Wood House in Henley. The privately owned property has become a labour of love for the owner and the brickwork is an impressive demonstration of the preservation of true craft.
This year’s judges were highly impressed with the winner of the Education category, Marlborough Primary School. The project creates an inclusive and inspiring 21st Century learning environment and replaces a Victorian school which had stood on the site since 1878. The masonry detailing on the school was developed to evoke the massing and solidity of Victorian architecture with the expressed brick reveals, rooftop playground walls, deep brick soffits and characteristic stone banding all serving to convey an impression of solidity and permanence.
The
Worldwide category of the Brick Awards is always a hotly contested category
with entries from all over the globe and projects in the UK not using British
brick. This year saw APT no 7 in Iran crowned winner with its intricate
built-on-site brick façade. Alongside this, Rwanda Cricket Stadium was
commended for its playful ‘bouncing’ roof.