The Evelyn Grace Academy, a new secondary school in Brixton, south London, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects has won the RIBA Stirling Prize 2011 for the best new European building built or designed in the United Kingdom. This is the second year running that Zaha Hadid Architects have won the RIBA Stirling Prize; last year they won the award for their MAXXI Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome.
Zaha Hadid portrait by Steve Double © Zaha Hadid Architects
A zig-zag of steel and glass, the Evelyn Grace Academy is squeezed on a tight urban site of 1.4 hectares (whereas the average secondary school is 8/9 hectares). The architects received a complex brief (four schools under a single academy umbrella with the need to express both independence and unity) but were encouraged by the client to ‘think outside the box’. With such a small space and with sport being one of the Academy’s special subjects, the architects needed to be highly inventive. They succeeded, for instance, by inserting a 100m running track into the heart of the site taking pupils right up to the front door. By dramatically celebrating the school’s specialism, the RIBA Stirling Prize judges noted ‘this is a design that literally makes kids run to get into school in the morning’.
The Evelyn Grace Academy is the first school to win the RIBA Stirling Prize, awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects annually, with seven schools shortlisted in previous years. It is the first time that Zaha Hadid Architects have designed a school and their first large-scale project in the UK. Previously, the practice designed a Maggie’s Centre in Scotland and more recently they have completed the Riverside Museum in Glasgow and the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics.
The Evelyn Grace Academy is run by ARK (Absolute Return for Kids) Academy organisation, a charity set up by Arpad Busson, the hedge-fund multimillionaire. ARK aims to offer exceptional opportunities to local children in inner cities with the aim of helping to close the achievement gap between children from disadvantaged and more affluent backgrounds.
However, the decision to award the £20,000 prize to Hadid and to the school was not met with universal enthusiasm. Many architects, including past RIBA President George Ferguson, reacted with shock and even anger, claiming that it was an appalling result and the worst decision given the quality of the other contenders.
Photographs © Luke Hayes
