The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) National and International Awards for architectural excellence were presented on 27 June in London.

The twenty six RIBA Award winners (16 in the UK and 10 in the EU) range from an Alpine cable railway to Wembley National Stadium, from a beachside café in West Sussex to the BMW events centre in Munich. Transport in its many forms is well represented as are a variety of arts centres. The architects whose work has been honoured this year range from up and coming young practices like Gumuchdjian Architects to international practices such as Coop Himmelb(l)au, Zaha Hadid Architects and David Chipperfield Architects. Also represented this year are small multi-disciplinary firms such as John Pawson and the Heatherwick Studio, who bring together architects, designers and engineers in collaborative teams.

The 16 buildings that have won RIBA National Awards are:

* Accordia, Cambridge by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios/Alison Brooks Architects/Macreanor Lavington

* Adelaide Wharf, Hackney, London by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
* BBC Scotland at Pacific Quay, Glasgow by David Chipperfield Architects
* East Beach Cafe, Little Hampton, West Sussex by Heatherwick Studio

* Hilton Tower, Manchester by Ian Simpson Architects
* Lawn Tennis Association’s National Tennis Centre, Roehampton, London by Hopkins Architects
* Manchester Civil Justice Centre, Manchester by Denton Corker Marshall

* North Wall Arts Centre, St Edward’s School, Oxford by Haworth Tomkins
* Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney by Reiach and Hall Architects

* Royal Festival Hall, London by Allies and Morrison

* St Marylebone Church of England School Performing Arts Facility, London, by Gumuchdjian Architects

* Terminal 5, Heathrow Airport, by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
* The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry by Stanton Williams
* The Sackler Crossing, Kew, Surrey, by John Pawson

* Wembley National Stadium, London, Foster + Partners/HOK Sport
* Westminster Academy at the Naim Dangoor Centre, London, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

The 10 RIBA European Award winning buildings are:

* Am Kupfergraben 10, Berlin, Germany by David Chipperfield Architects

* Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena Station, Amsterdam, Netherlands by Grimshaw/ARCADIS Architecten
* BMW Welt Event, Exhibition and Automobile Delivery Centre, Munich, Germany by Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wolf D Prix, W. Dreibholz & Partner ZT GmbH

* Carabanchel Social Housing, Madrid, Spain by Foreign Office Architects

* Empire Riverside Hotel & Brauhaus, Hamburg, Germany by David Chipperfield Architects

* Lufthansa Aviation Center Frankfurt a.M, Frankfurt, Germany by Ingenhoven Architects
* Nord Park Cable Railway, Austria by Zaha Hadid Architects

* The Royal Playhouse, Copenhagen, Denmark by Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitektfirma

* The Sleeping Giant, Co.Dublin, Ireland by O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects
* University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland by Wilkinson Eyre Architects

The Stirling Prize shortlist will be drawn from the sixteen RIBA National Award winners, and the RIBA European Award winners who are eligible for the prize. The shortlist will be announced on Thursday 17 July. The RIBA Stirling Prize in association with The Architects’ Journal is awarded to the architects of the building that has made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year. The £20,000 prize will be presented in Liverpool on Saturday 11 October 2008 and broadcast on Channel 4 on Sunday 12 October.

Speaking at the awards dinner, RIBA President Sunand Prasad said:

“RIBA awards are only made to buildings that really work for their users. They are a studied response by architect and lay judges not only to the submitted material but most importantly to tours of buildings conducted by the clients and architects of the schemes. 

The RIBA’s National Awards represent the best of this year’s RIBA Awards and are selected by the Awards Group on the basis of reports-back from the visiting juries. The Awards Group, having already visited the shortlisted European schemes, will in July visit all 16 National Award winners before determining a shortlist of six for the RIBA Stirling prize in association with The Architects’ Journal.  These will in turn be visited by a third jury in September.  It is the thoroughness and rigour of the whole process that makes any tier of the RIBA awards scheme so worth winning.  We are very grateful to the AJ for their continued generous support for all the RIBA’s awards programme.”

At the ceremony, the winner of the Lubetkin Prize for the best building outside the EU by an RIBA member and the RIBA Client of the Year were also announced.

The Lubetkin Prize 2008 winner is:

Casa Kike, Cahuita, Costa Rica by Gianni Botsford Architects.

The RIBA Client of the Year 2008 winner is:

Coin Street Community Builders for commissioning projects that include this year’s award winning Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre and other schemes such as the Oxo Tower. Working with practices such as Haworth Tompkins and Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands and under the enlightened guidance of Ian Tuckett, Coin Street Community Builders have shown that genuine community architecture can also be award-winning architecture.

RIBA National Award winners, with the winners of RIBA Awards, are also eligible for a series of special awards to be presented at the RIBA Stirling Prize ceremony. For details of these and all the RIBA Award winners please visit http://www.architecture.com/awards. 

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