RIBA Stirling Prize 2017

MLA are delighted that their City Campus project for the City of Glasgow College has been shortlisted to the last six for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2017. Following immediately from the shortlisting in 2016 for the College’s Riverside Campus this is a tremendous accolade for the practice and a tribute to the hard work and talent of the design team.

The project was designed and delivered by an architectural collaboration between MLA and Reiach and Hall Architects with Graven providing significant contribution to the interior design. Delivered through the SFT’s NPD procurement process this project shows that great architecture can be produced on a limited budget in extremely tight timescales. The project was delivered by a joint venture between Sir Robert McAlpine and FES and the engineering was designed by ARUP and Hulley and Kirkwood. Rankin Fraser were the landscape architects.

Great credit goes to the City of Glasgow College for their vision and strength of purpose in procuring a pair of college buildings that not only signal their ambition but also provide a significant contribution to Glasgow’s architectural fabric.

The award winner will be announced on 31st October 2017.

The RIBA judges said:

‘There is an astonishing scale and complexity to the brief for this project and considerable architectural skill is demonstrated in its realisation; not just in resolving the brief, but in the contribution to the city – in massing, composition and the generosity of the public route through the grand stepped atrium space. This architectural skill extends beyond the cityscape through to the detailed care taken in the organisation of student spaces, encouraging social interaction across disciplines, to the considered approach to materials and detailing.’

Ollie Wainwright of the Guardian said:

‘Arranged around a vast atrium and an external courtyard, with a high street frontage and a big public staircase spilling on to a planned park, this gleaming temple to practical skills has the noble civic presence worthy of a small national parliament.’

‘A project of mind-boggling complexity and astonishing ingenuity, this city centre campus – previously scattered across 11 buildings – brings innumerable different departments (each with hugely demanding technical requirements) together for the first time, allowing new collaborations between students and staff. These unwieldy, contractor-led, public-private financed projects too often result in grim sheds, but this project – together with its Riverside cousin, shortlisted last year – shows how they can be generously designed, finely built and stand with a civic presence. It is a testament to a client with real vision’