Clarion Housing Group, 2021 William Sutton Prize, UK Architecture Awards Shortlist, Architects

William Sutton Prize 2021 Shortlist

24 November 2023
William Sutton Prize 2023 winners

5 August 2021
William Sutton Prize for Sustainability and Placemaking

26 Mar 2021

William Sutton Prize 2021 Winner

Modular community housing project named winner of Clarion Housing Group’s William Sutton Prize

A modular housing factory with social purpose has been crowned the winner of The William Sutton Prize for Placemaking and Affordable Housing Design at an awards ceremony which took place virtually the evening of 25th March.

Ecomotive and SNUG Homes’ winning proposal is for a construction and training hub in Bristol that will enable residents to co-produce eco-friendly, modular housing in response to local needs. The project will also provide apprenticeship, volunteering and employment opportunities, as well as self-build training and support for community-led housing initiatives. The aim is to use the £20,000 prize fund to scale up a pilot project established in the Lockleaze area of Bristol in 2019.

Ecomotive and SNUG Homes and illustrates their proposal for a vibrant hub of community participation that co-produces housing in response to local needs:

image courtesy of Ecomotive / SNUG Homes

Highly commended was a proposal by Editional Studio, whose founders were featured in AJ’s ‘40 under 40’, to create a Roving Retrofit Workshop that will work with housing associations and residents to retrofit and upgrade their homes. The £5,000 prize fund will help develop the concept further, enabling residents to reduce their carbon consumption and energy bills through hands-on workshops and go on to train and qualify as green retrofit contractors.

The six-strong shortlist also included projects by Assemble, a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design and art and Space and Motion, a design studio based in South London, which focused on themes such as retrofitting, supported housing and community co-production. These projects were selected from a record-breaking 154 applications, with many of the finalists’ proposals directly responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

Now in its third year, The William Sutton Prize was developed by Clarion Housing Group to celebrate the legacy of its founder, William Sutton, as a 19th century innovator and philanthropist who bequeathed his fortune to improve the quality of social housing.

Home-Made Bristol Ecomotive and SNUG Homes:

image courtesy of Ecomotive / SNUG Homes

It encourages individuals and organisations to present a new concept, service or idea that will benefit social housing residents and communities, with a prize fund on offer to help develop the idea and maximise its impact. The funding is provided by Clarion Futures, the charitable foundation of Clarion Housing Group.

The winning entries were determined by a panel led by Clare Miller, Group Chief Executive of Clarion, and including Biljana Savic, Director of the Academy of Urbanism, and Richard Cook, Group Development Director of Clarion.

Clare Miller, Chief Executive of Clarion Housing Group, commented:
“Retrofitting existing stock and building eco-friendly new homes are challenges facing all housing associations. Our prize-winning proposals from Ecomotive and Editional Studio not only present innovative ways of addressing these challenges, but also provide employment and co-production opportunities for local communities which mirrors our social purpose and ethos at Clarion. It’s been inspiring reviewing our record-breaking number of applications and, as always, my fellow judges and I had a very difficult job choosing our winners. I’m excited to see how they take their innovative ideas to the next level with our support.”

Anna Hope, Director of Ecomotive and SNUG Homes, said:
“We are really honoured to receive this recognition, especially alongside so many other inspiring entries. Receiving this award is a massive boost, and we’re excited to have to start scaling up our co-production hub in Bristol. With Clarion’s support we are looking forward to growing our community of builders, helping to address the climate emergency and building more quality eco homes.”

Biljana Savic, Director of The Academy of Urbanism, said:
“Once again it has been my absolute pleasure to judge The William Sutton Prize for Placemaking and Affordable Housing Design on behalf of the Academy of Urbanism. With good quality homes and places being essential in ensuring strong and resilient communities, it was heartening to observe a strong social and community focus in this year’s shortlisted proposals.

“From the highly commended scheme that tackles the immense challenge of retrofitting the ageing housing stock in a way that puts local residents and homeowners at the heart of the solution, to the winning proposal that creates, in its authors’ words, an “eco-system of community participation based on the co-production of housing to meet real local needs”, the finalists provided a range of inspirational ideas for addressing the affordable housing crisis in the UK and beyond. I hope that the Prize will be a catalyst for these great ideas and I look forward to seeing them come to fruition.”

To find out more about The William Sutton Prize, visit www.clarionhg.com/william-sutton-prize

Background:

The winner of The William Sutton Prize for Social Innovation is The Hackney School of Food: an innovative project that aims to improve the health of children through food education. Chefs in Schools, the LEAP Federation – made up of three state primary schools in Hackney – and Surman Weston want to share the model with other schools to create nurturing environments for children to engage with food and growing.

Highly commended was a proposal by Enable Ability for a new service that helps people with anxiety access health, social care and education services through the use of immersive technology, including virtual tours, walk through videos and virtual reality. During the pandemic, the service has been developed and delivered by young autistic and disabled people, building in lived experience, and the £5,000 prize fund will help roll out the service and develop it further.

The winning entries were determined by a panel comprising:

• Clare Miller, Chief Executive of Clarion Housing Group
• Greg Reed, Clarion Housing Group Board member, Non-Executive Director of the HomeServe Foundation and Former CEO of HomeServe UK
• Peter Fortune, Deputy Leader of the London Borough of Bromley
• Biljana Savic, Director of The Academy of Urbanism
• Peter Holbrook CBE, CEO of Social Enterprise UK
• Richard Cook, Group Director of Development of Clarion Housing Group
• Michelle Reynolds, Chief Operating Officer of Clarion Housing Group

12 Jan 2021

William Sutton Prize 2021 Shortlist News

William Sutton Prize shortlist announced after record-breaking applications

The third year of The William Sutton Prize run by Clarion Housing Group, the UK’s largest provider of affordable housing, has seen a record-breaking 154 applications. Of these, thirteen projects have been shortlisted, with many of the finalists’ proposals directly responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

Six projects* are shortlisted for The William Sutton Prize for Placemaking and Affordable Housing Design focusing on themes such as modular housing, retrofitting, supported housing and community co-production.

The shortlist includes projects by Assemble, a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design and art, Editional Studio Ltd, whose founders were featured in AJ’s ‘40 under 40’ which celebrates the UK’s most exciting emerging architectural talent, and Space and Motion, a design studio based in South London.

A further seven projects** will compete for The William Sutton Prize for Social Innovation, with the shortlist including projects focusing on issues such as food poverty and education, money management for community networks and family support.

The winners in both categories will be announced at a virtual event at the end of March.

The William Sutton Prize was developed by Clarion Housing Group to celebrate William Sutton’s legacy as a 19^th century innovator and philanthropist who bequeathed his fortune to improve the quality of social housing.

It encourages individuals and organisations to present a new concept, service or idea that will benefit social housing residents and communities, with a prize fund of up to £20,000 on offer per category to help develop the idea and maximise its impact. The funding is provided by Clarion Futures, the charitable foundation of Clarion Housing Group.

In the Prize’s third year, the criteria have been updated to reflect new thinking and creativity and include projects or ideas developed during the coronavirus outbreak with potential for long-term impact.

The winning entries will be determined by a panel led by Clare Miller, Group Chief Executive of Clarion, and including Biljana Savic, Director of the Academy of Urbanism and Richard Cook, Group Development Director of Clarion.

The winner of The William Sutton Prize for Placemaking and Affordable Housing Design in 2019 was Jas Bhalla Architects’ proposal for a planning policy that encourages the transformation of nine main roads in Outer London into dense, urban streets through place-based design guidance.

Clare Miller, Chief Executive of Clarion Housing Group, commented:

“When we opened applications for this year’s William Sutton Prize in the midst of a pandemic, we didn’t know what to expect. Several months later, we’ve seen a record number of applications with many showcasing innovative ideas developed to tackle some of the challenges society is facing due to coronavirus – it’s inspirational. My fellow judges and I are looking forward to meeting the creative minds behind our shortlisted projects and deciding on our winners.”

Biljana Savic, Director of The Academy of Urbanism, said:

“This is the third year of The William Sutton Prize and I am excited to see the range and quality of proposals on the shortlist for the placemaking and design category. The proposals re-examine in innovative ways the concepts of home and neighbourhood, reflecting the changing lifestyles, societal needs and trends that were already in train and that the Covid crisis accelerated.

Several of the shortlisted proposals also explore ways of empowering communities through co-creation and self-build models, tackling at the same time the climate change challenge. This is particularly impressive given the constraints around which the participating teams had to work due to the Covid pandemic. I look forward to discussing these inspirational proposals with my fellow judges.”

William Sutton Prize Shortlist Entries for Placemaking and Affordable Housing Design

Malachi Homes

The Salvation Army

A proposal to build new residential centres for former rough sleepers using modular construction, combining innovative construction with access to The Salvation Army’s wide array of support services helping people to tackle the complex reasons for their homelessness, under the name Malachi Homes.

WomenCentre Homes – A Home for the Future

WomenCentre Homes

A new charity launching a community-led supported housing scheme for women in housing crisis in the North of England to provide a suitable, affordable, permanent home with tenancy support, to enable women and their children to settle and thrive within their local community.

The Roving Retrofit Workshop

Editional Studio Ltd

Editional Studio proposal for a project that aims to work with housing associations and residents to retrofit and upgrade their homes by providing access to knowledge, skills and training from an expert design and build team:

image courtesy of Editional Studio

A project that aims to work with housing associations and residents to retrofit and upgrade their homes by providing access to knowledge, skills and training from an expert design and build team. Through hands-on workshops, residents can reduce their carbon consumption and energy bills and go on to train to undertake construction work and qualify as green retrofit contractors.

Home-Made Bristol

Ecomotive and SNUG Homes

image courtesy of Ecomotive / SNUG Homes

A modular housing factory with a mission, combining high quality design, sustainably-sourced materials, MMC housing production, apprenticeship, volunteer and employment opportunities for local people, self-build training and support for community led housing initiatives – creating a vibrant hub of community participation that co-produces housing in response to local needs.

The Terrestrial Town

Assemble

Assemble proposal addressing the interlocking challenges faced by rural communities in Dorset and the rest of the UK: a lack of affordable housing, economic decline and loss of livelihoods and environmental issues linked to climate change:

image courtesy of Assemble

A proposal addressing the interlocking challenges faced by rural communities in Dorset and the rest of the UK: a lack of affordable housing, economic decline and loss of livelihoods and environmental issues linked to climate change.

The Last Mile

Space and Motion

A set of public realm design interventions that address the ‘Last Mile’ logistics challenge of home delivery, combining drop-off lay-bys and delivery lockers with greenery, play areas and opportunities for safe community interaction to tackle social isolation.

William Sutton Prize Shortlist Entries for Social Innovation

Accountable: Money management for community groups

The Social Change Nest CIC

Accountable is an online service that enables community groups with no bank account or legal status to manage their incomings and outgoings. It was born out of the need for communities responding to the pandemic to access funds and collaboratively manage it, and works in a transparent way so to avoid fraud or mismanagement.

Plastic Revolution

Nadine Jenkins

A concept bringing together plastic construction site waste and innovations in plastic recycling to repurpose plastic waste at source, creating products such as tiles, furniture and fittings to be used in the development under construction and providing education, training and employment opportunities.

What’s It Like?

Enable Ability

A new service that helps people who live with anxiety access health, social care, and education services through the use of immersive technology – virtual tours, walk through videos and virtual reality. During Covid lockdown we piloted both the service and our delivery using young autistic/disabled people as part of our specialist work experience program, Inter Activ, and now want to roll this out as a social firm.

Play attention

Beacon Family Services CIC

A proposal for experienced Theraplay® therapists to develop an app to enable parents to access resources and methods to ‘play attention’ to their child using healthy, playful interactions improving emotional wellbeing.

Parenting Apart Programme

The Parenting Apart Programme CIC

A four-week programme that allows parents going through divorce, separation and conflict to explore their family challenges, learn how to communicate and create a ‘Parent Working Agreement’ prioritising their child’s mental health, emotional and physical wellbeing.

Hackney School of Food

Chefs in Schools, LEAP Federation & Surman Weston

An innovative project that aims to improve the health of children through food education. Chefs in Schools, the LEAP Federation – made up of three state primary schools in Hackney – and Surman Weston want to share the model with other schools to create nurturing environments for children to engage with food and growing.

Kitchio

Kitchio Ltd

Kitchio provides healthy, convenient meals to working families through affordable recipe boxes. Recipes are easy to follow, quick to prepare and start at just £1 per portion, providing access to nutrition for low income groups.

The winning entries will be determined by a panel comprising:

Clare Miller, Chief Executive of Clarion Housing Group
Greg Reed, Clarion Housing Group Board member and CEO of HomeServe Group
Peter Fortune, Deputy Leader of the London Borough of Bromley

Biljana Savic, Director of The Academy of Urbanism
Peter Holbrook CBE, CEO of Social Enterprise UK
Richard Cook, Group Director of Development of Clarion Housing Group

Michelle Reynolds, Chief Operating Officer of Clarion Housing Group

About Clarion Housing Group

Clarion Housing Group is the UK’s largest provider of affordable housing. We are committed to playing our part in tackling the housing crisis, both as a social landlord and developer of new housing.

More than 350,000 people call a Clarion home their home. Our mission is to provide and maintain good quality housing for our residents and to build communities through high quality design and placemaking.

We are a social business, reinvesting our profits into building new homes and providing support and opportunities to our residents through Clarion Futures, our charitable foundation.

Web: www.clarionhg.com

Twitter: @Clarion_Group

2021 William Sutton Prize Shortlist News images / information received 120121

Previously on e-architect:

3 Aug 2020

William Sutton Prize

Applications open for third year of Clarion Housing Group’s William Sutton Prize

Last year’s winner project

Jas Bhalla and Nash Adjaye accepting the award from Chief Executive, Clare Miller:

Last year’s winner Jas Bhalla (right) and Nash Adjaye (left) accepting the award from Chief Executive, Clare Miller (centre)