A building designed to inspire and help educate UWE Bristol students studying architecture and product design, has won the public sector building 2011 award, from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
Stride Treglown, the Bristol-based architects behind the building, were also been nominated for two other awards for it – the Constructing Excellence Award and the Green Gown Award.
The Architecture and Product Design Building is an astonishing collaboration featuring skilled teamwork drawn from UWE Bristol alumni.
The UWE Bristol project management team, the architects and the construction project management team who worked on the building all had UWE alumni at the helm.
Students using the building are so proud of it they made their own YouTube film to promote it to the world.
Matt Tarling from Stride Treglown is delighted with this recognition by RIBA for the building and said: “It was a full team effort and we co-ordinated a whole series of internal disciplines to deliver this building on time – including planning consultants, landscape architects, BREEAM assessors, interior designers, access and inclusion specialists and a construction design management co-ordinator.
“The success of the resulting building is brilliantly illustrative of a fantastic collaborative working ethos between our teams and UWE Bristol Faculty of Environment and Technology academic team and the Estates team. The old adage that you can never deliver a great building without a great client is exemplified perfectly here.”
UWE Bristol Professor of Architecture Richard Parnaby added: “Our striking new building is a great setting for design teaching – lots of natural light, adaptable spaces and easy access to the IT network. The design is based on sound environmental principles and uses the latest green technologies demonstrating our commitment to inspire students to design for a truly sustainable future.”
The BREEAM rating of ‘excellent’ was achieved for the overall environmental performance of the building that included a heating system fuelled by bio-fuel made from recycled cooking oil, a ground coupled ventilation system. Other sustainable features include high levels of natural daylight, straw bale modcell cladding, sophisticated lighting controls and tile cladding with 94% recycled content.
A total of 54 projects entered the RIBA South West and Wessex Town and Country Design Awards in five categories. The UWE Bristol Architecture and Product Design Building won the Public Sector category announced on Tuesday night at the M Shed in Bristol.
