The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has named A House for Artists by Apparata Architects as winner of the Neave Brown Award for Housing 2023.
Given in honour of modernist architect and social housing pioneer, Neave Brown (1926-2018), the annual award recognises the UK’s best new affordable housing.
A House for Artists in Barking, East London, is an imaginative response to rising housing costs and a model for community-minded housing design. With 12 homes on the upper floors, the ground floor is a community space, where the artist residents provide a free creative programme for local people in exchange for reduced rent.
Photo: Peter Long
Judges praised Apprata for the versatility the flats allow, creating opportunities for flexible live-work spaces and shared living. With communal entrance porticos and street level courtyard encouraging social bonding, residents have reported an improved quality of life that, coupled with the generous light-filled living spaces and studio provision, has enabled the necessary stability to continue their careers in the arts.
The 2023 Neave Brown for Housing jury was chaired by Alice Brownfield, Director at Peter Barber Architects, Prisca Thielmann, Associate Director at Maccreanor Lavington, and Aaron Brown, son of Neave Brown and Design Director at Smith & Brown Ltd.
Jury Chair, Alice Brownfield, said: “A House for Artists offers an ingenious architectural response to the pressing challenge of increasingly unaffordable city living, demonstrating what’s possible when communities are put first.”
RIBA also named Lighthouse Children’s Home by Conrad Koslowsky Architects as winner of the Stephen Lawrence Prize 2023.
In a leafy Southwest London suburb, this previously derelict 1920s house has been transformed into an arts and craft-style six-bedroom care home; the first created by the Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust.
The panel praised the research that has informed features such as the sensitive consideration of the soundscape, flexible furniture layouts and shared living spaces, all with two exits to avoid feelings of entrapment.
Onion Collective as Client of the Year 2023 for its East Quay project in Somerset. Presented since 1998, the annual RIBA Client of the Year award honours the key role clients play in the creation of great architecture.
East Quay, designed by Invisible Studio and Ellis Williams Architects, is the vision of Onion Collective, a social enterprise. With artist studios and gallery space, the new community-funded project has enlivened a previously derelict boatyard in Watchet, North Somerset.
Praised as an uplifting model for community-led regeneration, the judges noted that the completion of the project was largely due to the combined efforts of Onion Collective and the community; including schools, social clubs and businesses. The success of the development has now encouraged wider regeneration of the surrounding town.
