Details of the 2009 New Build Awards and Commendations

The judging panel, which was chaired by Peter Pleydell-Bouverie and also included Judy Howles, Simon Lock and Peter Wicks, met on November 4th to consider the ten nominations submitted. Of these five were within Salisbury, and five were outside the city. After considerable discussion, and site visits to short-listed candidates, the judges decided to give Awards to one of the nominations, and to commend four further ones.

Award

Salisbury Law Courts

A major structure on a prominent site, and with a long gestation period, the law courts was clearly the most high profile building on the list, and the judges welcomed the chance to have a tour round it. All that they saw internally bore out the general message of the external impact, that this is a building into which a great deal of thought and care has gone, and which has been executed with an eye to detail and a commitment to quality. The brick had been well chosen and the large areas where it had been used well executed, contributing greatly to the overall success of the front elevation, with its balance between brickwork to left and right and the more contemporary feel of the glazed centre. The latter combined with the toplit upper spine to create a notably light and spacious framework for the interior, providing coherent access to rooms which the judges felt to be well designed and fitted out for their uses within the courts system, achieving an overall effect which was dignified without being intimidating. In its overall design and execution the building seemed to be an outstandingly successful response to its brief, both reinterpreting the needs of the justice system for the 21st century, and setting a benchmark for further developments in this key conservation area location, and the judges had no difficulty in deciding that an award was fully merited.

Commendations (in no particular order)

1. Ebblestone House, Homington

On first sight a building with a fairly traditional approach, Ebblestone House is shown on closer inspection to be a carefully considered design of some originality. It echoes some aspects of early Victorian villas, but achieves its impact without any slavish copying of earlier styles. The unusual plan form creates a variety of interesting effects as the viewpoint varies, with the central octagon expressed to greater or lesser degrees depending on the angle of view. The judges' view was that individual elements such as the chimneys and chimneybreasts added interest to a coherent overall design, and stone and flint were considered to be appropriate choices as the walling materials, with a great deal of care going into the former's detailing and execution. Overall the house was considered to be a successful response to the challenge of creating a substantial replacement house on a sensitive village-centre site, and fully deserving of a commendation.

2. St Edmunds Dance Drama Block, Laverstock

The Laverstock schools site has grown over the years in a fairly uncontrolled way, and the judges agreed that it would probably be unreasonable to expect any new building on it to unify and make sense of the disparate approach adopted in the past. The dance and drama building for St Edmunds School was therefore looked at on its own merits, and was agreed to be a refreshingly clean and straightforward design, expressing its function without any pretentiousness. The ground level brickwork combined well with the horizontal timber boarding of the upper parts, perforated by simple openings which quietly did their job, with an attractive added detail in the open brackets to the overhanging roof. The interior clearly provided valuable facilities in an efficient way, and overall the building was felt to be a positive contrast with the generally rather tired-looking buildings around it, and to have been designed and built to standards which fully justified a commendation.

3. Rose Corner, Nomansland

A new house on the edge of the New Forest, Rose Corner is a building with a relatively conventional approach which nevertheless aims rather higher than the average design for this class of house would be expected to. Good quality bricks and roof tiles complement a form with some low-key echoes of the kind of touches Lutyens added to ancillary buildings to his major houses, unpretentious but distinctive. Internally, the extensive and well-handled use of oak combines with an openness and marshalling of space not generally encountered in a family house of this size, to create well thought out and quietly stimulating living spaces. As they left the judges looked at the relationship between Rose Corner and its neighbouring property, a new house of similar size, and the comparison emphasised the ways in which the former had made a genuine effort to go beyond the current norm. The resulting achievement, unspectacular but real, was felt to make the house well worth a commendation.

4. Office and care home development, London Road, Salisbury

This is a substantial development on the east side of the London Road leading into Salisbury, near the edge of the city, built in phases for different users but designed in a consistent style. The design approach was felt by the judges to be a successful one, combining contemporary detailing of roofs and fenestration with red brickwork which had been well executed across the whole development. Variations in the window details for the care home at the southern end of the site made that a particularly strong part of the complex, while the atrium space within the solicitors' offices at the northern end had been well handled, forming the focus for an interior which clearly responded well to the needs of its users. The development was felt to have made good use of a narrow linear site, and to be a very positive outcome for a strictly commercial project. The buildings maintain high design standards on a main access route into the city, and play an important part in ensuring that the shambles of the Southampton Road access is not repeated, and the judges agreed that a commendation would be an appropriate recognition of this.