Shortlists for five RIBA special awards 2007

Some of the most groundbreaking new buildings across the UK have been shortlisted for five Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) special awards. The shortlists were drawn from the RIBA Award and RIBA European Award-winning buildings announced earlier this year.

The RIBA special awards honour the best buildings with special emphasis on: sustainable and inclusive design; conservation; exemplary school design; and exceptional projects with smaller budgets.

The RIBA/English Partnerships Sustainability Award is made for the building that demonstrates most elegantly and durably the principles of sustainable architecture.


The 2007 shortlist has been announced as:

- Environmental Research Institute, Cork by Bucholz McEvoy Architects
- RSPB Environment & Education Centre, Purfleet, Essex by van Heyningen and Haward Architects
- Cork City Council, New Civic Offices, Cork by ABK Architects
- Upper Twyford Barn, Hereford by Architype

The winners will be announced on Saturday 6 October 2007.

The winner in 2006 was Niall McLaughlin Architects with the building ARC.

The building itself is an education tool, it overtly expresses the processes that enabled it to function, both structurally and environmentally. The building is like a metabolism, it's expression falls between botany and geology.

The building's structure takes its cues from the estuarine nature of the landscape around Hull. The building floats on a raft of timber floor cassettes supported by pre-cast concrete pad foundations bearing down onto the hardcore and estuarine mud found on the site. The building is formed from a kit of parts that can be assembled and re-assembled on future sites.

The building is powered by renewable energy sources and an array of wind turbines and photovoltaics stand outside the front of the building like a mechanical garden.