Goldsmith Street: According to ‘Passivhaus’ Standards

The Royal Institute of British architects (RIBA) annually announces recipients of prestigious awards at both national and regional levels in various categories, including the Sustainability Award. In 2019, 11 projects received this award, five of which won the RIBA National Award, and two of them were nominated for the Stirling Prize. And for the first time (!) the winner of the UK’s highest architecture award was the Goldsmith Street social housing project, designed by Mikhail Riches and Cathy Hawley in accordance with the strict environmental standards of the ‘Passivhaus’.

London firm Mikhail Riches has triumphed in this year’s RIBA Stirling Prize, taking home the United Kingdom’s most prestigious architectural award for its council housing scheme in Norwich. Remarkably, this marks the first time that the prize has been won by a social housing project, a fact that hopefully signifies a pivotal moment for this oft-neglected sector.

The project’s street-facing aesthetic is its most obvious strength: cream-colored bricks frame windows with smartly detailed bris soleils; trash bins are cleverly hidden within perforated brick alcoves; roofs with elegantly steep pitches are covered in glossy black tiles.

 Materials provided by The Royal Institute of British Architects
Photo: © Tim Crocker

Full content of this issue you can read here

The full version of the article can be read in our printed issue, also you can subscribe to the web-version of the magazine