Northumbrian University’s £7m Computer and Information Sciences Building has been crowned Newcastle’s best new building at the city’s celebration of architecture and environmental design.
The biennial Lord Mayor’s Design Awards shines a light on the buildings and projects that are making an outstanding contribution to the appearance and life of their communities, across eight categories.
This year’s winners include a sporting arena, two cinemas, a school’s investment in the arts and the transformation of the Bigg Market, as judges from Newcastle City Council, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Northumberland and Newcastle Society and the Royal Town Planning Institute singled out 11 projects.
Northumbria University’s Computer and Information Sciences Building - dubbed the low carbon ‘living lab’ - took the prize for best new building, ahead of The Biosphere laboratory and office space at Newcastle Helix.
The multi-million-pound regeneration of the Bigg Market took the landscape prize, while Newcastle University’s Armstrong Courtyard and its Martin Luther King Jr. statue were highly commended.
Volunteers from the Star and Shadow cinema took home the sustainability award and were praised for transforming an unloved building into “a characterful community venue” that reuses insulation and furniture from their previous home, and which is powered by solar panels.
Everyman Cinema on Grey Street won the refurbishment trophy for the transformation of the former Legends nightclub into a subterranean boutique cinema, which judges said has created something “aspirational” and which “enriches the cultural offer of the city.”
In the conservation category, Newcastle University’s work to turn its King’s Road Boiler House into an events space was held up as an example of true conservation, “where the changes have been so sensitive that they look natural and as though they have always been there.”
The conversion of a former synagogue into 10 apartments at Byzantine House, on Eskdale Terrace in Jesmond, was commended for retaining original features like mosaic floors and stained glass.
Meanwhile, the Rose Auditorium at Sacred Heart School in Fenham won the small scale prize ahead of the Picton Manor redevelopment of a Georgian Terrace on Ellison Place.
The final award of the evening, the Lord Mayor’s Special Award, went to the the Eagles Community Arena, which had won the community value and social accessibility category earlier in proceedings.
The Eagles Community Foundation was praised for taking professional basketball very successfully to the Elswick area “when it would have been easy to choose elsewhere.”
And the judges were impressed that the purpose-built arena had a flexible layout in order to provide benefits for the wider community, hosting everything from social events for the elderly, to sports coaching for young people, meetings for local businesses and formal dinners.
Coun David Cook, Lord Mayor of Newcastle, said: “It is inspiring to see such a wide range of projects putting environmental and community considerations right at their heart.
“I am pleased to see everything from the sensitive conservation and restoration of our historic buildings to major new builds among our winners, and I hope they will provide shining examples for others to follow.”
