RIBA International Prize 2018 Shortlist, Architecture Award Winner, Global Buildings, Architect

RIBA International Prize 2018 Shortlist News

Royal Institute of British Architects Architectural Awards: Shortlist News

23 Nov 2018

Children Village in Brazil by Aleph Zero + Rosenbaum Wins RIBA International Prize 2018

RIBA International Prize 2018 Winner

12 Sep 2018

RIBA International Prize 2018 Shortlist

RIBA International Prize 2018

The four buildings in the running for the RIBA International Prize 2018 are to be announced today  (Wednesday 12 September 2018). The prestigious prize, awarded every two years, rewards the most  inspirational and significant new buildings across the globe and celebrates international architectural  talent. The shortlist for the RIBA International Prize 2018 is:   

Central European University
photo © Tam Bujnovszky

Central European University (Phase 1), Budapest, by O’Donnell + Tuomey  A new university campus in the heart of Budapest that successfully links old buildings and  courtyards to create vibrant new spaces. 

Children Village
photo © Leonardo Finotti

Children Village, Brazil, by Aleph Zero + Rosenbaum  A new boarding school on the edge of the Amazon offering education and accommodation to  the children of rural farm workers. 

Toho Gakuen Gchool of Music
photo © Harunori Noda

Toho Gakuen School of Music, Tokyo, by Nikken Sekkei  A new virtuoso music school designed to visually connect, rather than isolate, practising  musicians.

II Bosco Verticale
photo © Giovanni Nardi

II Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest), Milan, by Boeri Studio  The second of two residential towers in Milan in which trees and humans coexist, designed to  set a new standard in sustainable housing. 

The four buildings have been selected following a rigorous judging process, from a long list of 20  exceptional new projects in 16 countries.    

The shortlist will now be finally judged by a distinguished Grand Jury chaired by Elizabeth Diller,  partner of acclaimed US firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and including Joshua Bolchover, Co-Founding  Director of Rural Urban Framework; Gloria Cabral, Partner of Gabinete de Arquitectura; Peter Clegg,  Senior Partner of Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and Kazuyo Sejima, Founding Partner of SANAA.   

RIBA President Ben Derbyshire said:    
“The marker of a truly successful building is the positive contribution it makes to its local context and  people. All four of these projects thoroughly demonstrates visionary, innovative thinking and excellence  of execution, and positively impacts the communities they have been designed for.    

Whilst these four buildings are in different time zones and continents, like all great architecture they  share common qualities, of particular note is their sensitivity to their local environment and their  responsiveness to the particular needs of the people that will use them. I am pleased that three of the  four projects are education buildings, providing innovative and inspiring spaces for young people to  live, learn and achieve their potential. The fourth scheme is a bold approach to the greening of high  density urban housing that is already inspiring other cities.     

I look forward to seeing which building the distinguished Grand Jury selects as the winner later this  year.” 

Details of the four buildings shortlisted for the RIBA International Prize 2018 are:   

Central European University
photo © Tam Bujnovszky

Central European University – Phase 1 
As part of a major redevelopment of the Central European University, the architects have added a new  limestone-clad building to a street in the heart of Budapest. Drawing on the city’s unique vernacular,  the new design skilfully knits together several historical buildings and courtyards to create an internal   sequence of spaces and routes. The project brings a total of 35,000m² of new space to the inner-city  campus, and consists of a new library, an auditorium, teaching and learning facilities, study rooms,  and a café. 

Irish architects Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey of O’Donnell + Tuomey said: ​“We are delighted to  see the CEU on the shortlist for the RIBA International Prize. This has been a special project for us. An  open campus for a liberal-minded university, the project took us on a journey of discovery into the  architectural, cultural and urban morphology of Budapest, involving us in sometimes sympathetic,  sometimes controversial discussions with the city authorities during the design process. We wanted  the building to fit into its context, but to fit in by standing out. Now that its built, the project seems to  be widely accepted and well understood as belonging to its place, a new part of the old city.”   

Children Village
photo © Leonardo Finotti

Children Village 
Children Village, located in a rural area on the outskirts of the Amazon, provides boarding  accommodation for 540 senior school children at the Canuanã School. Largely made from  locally-sourced timber, the Brazilian architects exploited the abundant natural resources surrounding  the site in an innovative way, thus promoting both economic and environmental sustainability.   

A variety of interacting spaces – from dormitories and reading spaces to balconies and hammocks –  were designed together with the students in order to improve their quality of life and refine the bond  between them and the school. Children Village is an exemplar of how architecture can stimulate its  users, as well as the surrounding community, in a region rich in natural resources but poor in  educational opportunities.   

Gustavo Utrabo and Pedro Duschenes from Brazilian architecture practice Aleph Zero said: “To be  recognized by one of the leading architectural associations in the world reveals the work’s coherence  and indicates that the issues raised, while deeply linked to the local situation, reverberate with a broad  spectrum of current political, economic and social challenges.”    

Toho Gakuen Gchool of Music
photo © Harunori Noda

Toho Gakuen School of Music 
Toho Gakuen School of Music is a famous music college in the suburbs of Tokyo. This new open-plan  campus replaced an earlier building on the site, which had a conventional arrangement of cellular  practice rooms along a corridor with no natural light. Conversely, this virtuoso piece of architecture  has an almost village-like quality with independent teaching spaces, neat communal spaces, and lots  of natural light thanks to exposure to the exterior.   

Guided by the imperative of optimum acoustics, the Japanese architects have ensured that each  lesson room has a proportion and size requested by each instrument, and is arranged with a void  space in between, such as a corridor, to provide acoustic separation. As a result, music from each  room can be heard in the corridor, but in the rooms there is silence.   

Tomo Yamanashi of Japanese architecture practice NIKKEN SEKKEI said: “We are greatly honoured  that Toho Gakuen Music School has been shortlisted for the 2018 RIBA International Awards. The  work aimed at breaking away from the typical model that can be seen in standard music schools,  where lesson rooms are placed along gloomy internal corridors. We are looking forward to seeing how  our challenge of creating a new natural scenery from the overlapping of many kinds of parameters –  perhaps a very Japanese approach to using computational design – is evaluated in the UK.”

II Bosco Verticale
photo © Giovanni Nardi

Vertical forest (II Bosco Verticale) 
Vertical forest is the second of two residential towers in Milan representing a new approach to high  rise buildings in which trees and humans coexist. The project consists of two towers of 80m and  112m, planted with almost 17,000 trees, shrubs and plants. This provides the equivalent greenery of  20,000m² of forest and undergrowth.   

A project of urban reforestation, Vertical Forest has wide-reaching environmental benefits. Not only  does it increase biodiversity by repopulating the city’s flora and fauna, but it even creates its own  microclimate to filter fine particles and improve air quality. The building also presents a smart solution  to control urban expansion, with each tower constituting the equivalent of a peripheral area of single  family houses and buildings of around 50,000 sqm.   

Stefano Boeri, Gianandrea Barreca, Giovanni La Varra of Italian architecture practice Boeri Studio  said: “​We are thrilled to have been shortlisted for RIBA International Prize 2018. The RIBA judges  buildings on their technological innovation and social value as well as by aesthetic qualities, and we are  delighted that Vertical Forest is seen to represent these values. Since its completion, the Milan Vertical  Forest has become the prototype for numerous buildings around the world that now host living nature  on their façades. We are happy that architects and engineers all over the world are recognising the  challenge of climate change and embracing a radically new and sustainable model of urban  architecture to create the city of the future.” 

Announced in late November 2018, the 2018 RIBA International Prize will be awarded to a building  that exemplifies design excellence, architectural ambition and delivers meaningful social impact. The  prize is open to any qualified architect in the world, for a building of any size, type or budget.    

In 2016, the inaugural RIBA International Prize was awarded to Grafton Architects for their outstanding  university building, UTEC (Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología) in Lima, Peru.

Website: RIBA International Awards 2018

RIBA International Prize 2018 Shortlist images / information from Royal Institute of British Architects

Location: London, England

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