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London's best new and future leisure projects celebrated in awards ceremony
A scheme by architecture firm Nex for a green-topped cafe overlooking the London running track where Roger Bannister trained for his famous four-minute mile has won the Unbuilt Hotels & Hospitality category at the 2017 New London Architecture Awards.
The competition celebrates the best new and proposed projects that enhance London’s leisure offer for tourists, business people and Londoners in the capital.
The Cadogan Café will be located in the largely Grade II-listed Duke of York Square, adjacent to the main thoroughfare to the Saatchi Gallery and set slightly back from the King’s Road. It has just commenced construction, and will complete in late 2018.
Designed to “champion the best of modern design in harmony with its heritage and surroundings,” Nex said the café will include the UK’s first glass facade that can be lowered into a single storey basement during fine weather, to create an open-air space. There will also be a circular green roof terrace open to the public and overlooking Bannister’s track.
Nex was awarded the project by property manager and developer Cadogan, which owns a 93 acre swathe of Chelsea and Knightsbridge, following an international architecture competition.
The built winner in the Hotels & Hospitality category was local studio LTS Architects and client King's College London for their Borough High Street Hotel, which comprises a 100-room hotel, three retail units and a gym for the students of the college.
Architects Stanton Williams and the King's Cross Central Limited Partnership received a commendation for The Lighterman bar and restaurant.
Meanwhile, London mayor Sadiq Khan awarded the special Mayor’s Prize to the Central Parade Creative Hub in Waltham Forest by Gort Scott Architects for LB Waltham Forest. He said the transformation of a 1960s former council office into a mixed-use creative area for a variety of independent retail, co-working, studio and exhibition spaces was “a unique and valuable new asset for the local community and for people working in the creative industries.”
Sadie Morgan, founding director of dRMM and member of the National Infrastructure Commission, won the New Londoner of the Year award “for her work in championing the importance of design at the very highest political level.”
From a shortlist of over 150 projects, a total of 31 winning schemes were celebrated across all sectors of London’s built environment. The other leisure winners were:
CULTURE & COMMUNITY
Unbuilt Winner
• Portobello Scheme, W10 by Stiff+ Trevilion Architects for Westway Trust
Built Winner
• Tara Theatre, by Aedas Arts Team for Tara Arts
WELLBEING
Unbuilt Winner
• Go Cycle: Kingston Station, KT1 by Buro Happold Engineering, Sarah Wigglesworth Architects, OKRA Landscape Architects and TOMATO for RB Kingston upon Thames
Built Winner
• New Cancer Centre at Guy's Hospital, SE1 by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Stantec for Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust
PUBLIC SPACES
Unbuilt Winner
• West End Public Realm, WC1, WC2, W1 by DSDHA for LB Camden
Built Winner
• Woodhouse Urban Park, NW6 by Erect Architecture and Allen Scott for LB Brent
Commendation
• Peckham Rye Station Square, SE15 by Landolt + Brown for LB Southwark
RETAIL
Unbuilt Winner
• Bruce Grove Yard, N17 by Landolt + Brown for Network Rail & LB Haringey
Built Winner
• Deptford Market Yard, SE8 by Pollard Thomas Edwards and Farrer Huxley Associates for U+I & LB Lewisham
Commendation
• 131 Sloane Street, SW1 by Stiff+ Trevilion Architects for Cadogan Estate