Ravensbourne wins a RIBA Award for London, 2011
Ravensbourne’s new campus at Greenwich Peninsula is a winner in the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Awards for London 2011, as announced by RIBA today, 19 May 2011. From a shortlist of 55 schemes, Ravensbourne’s building won through in the education and community category in ceremony hosted at the V&A.
RIBA Awards in London 2011 is supported by Design for London, English Heritage and Ordnance Survey.
The full list of RIBA Awards for London 2011 winners can be found on the RIBA website.
Professor Robin Baker OBE, Director of Ravensbourne said:
“We are delighted that Ravensbourne’s new building is a winner in this prestigious awards scheme. We are very proud of our stunning new campus, and for it to be recognised in this way confirms the quality and ingenuity of Foreign Office Architects’ design. This new building has positively transformed Ravensbourne, enabling us to develop both as a higher education institution and as a dynamic destination for innovation and enterprise meeting the demands of the UK economy.”
Alejandro Zaera Polo, Foreign Office Architects said:
‘We are both delighted and humbled by this recognition for a project which we feel is mostly due to the ambition and courage of Ravensbourne, who dared to embody an alternative form of education in design and media, and was prepared to take this ambition into an unprecedented architectural embodiment. All we had to do was to listen to these ambitions and act as an architectural midwife as best as we could into this birth. We hope that our research for this project will open new perspectives to a new breed of higher education facilities. All the crowns go to Ravensbourne.’
Ends/
Notes to editors:
For more information or images contact Mike Althorpe in RIBA London on 020 7307 3659 or email mike.althorpe@inst.riba.org
Ravensbourne contact: Jill Hogan, Head of Marketing and Communications on 07912 999312 Email: j.hogan@rave.ac.uk
Foreign Office Architects contact: Manuel Tavora on 0207 033 6480 Email: mt@azpa.com
The RIBA Awards for London 2011 is supported by English Heritage, Design for London and Ordnance Survey. All shortlisted schemes are eligible for RIBA London special awards. The RIBA London Awards Ceremony takes place at St V&A 19th May 2011. If you would like to find out more about this or book a complimentary press place contact Antonia Faust at antonia.faust@inst.riba.org
RIBA London supports the membership by providing high quality support services, organising regular activities and training. It seeks to increase the political and professional influence of RIBA within the region and works to raise public awareness of architecture as a profession. It encourages improvement in the built environment by delivering cultural activities and by encouraging architectural debate in the public arena. www.architecture.com/ribalondon
Ravensbourne is a world-class digital destination developing talented individuals and leading-edge businesses through learning, skills, applied research, enterprise and innovation. Ravensbourne has recently moved from Chislehurst to a magnificent new building next to the O2. It is a university sector college innovating in digital media and design, with a vocationally focused portfolio of courses, spanning fashion, television and broadcasting, interactive product design, architecture and environment design, graphic design, animation, moving image, music production for media and sound design. It is a centre of excellence, industry accredited and a Skillset Media Academy.
Ravensbourne’s new building, in Penrose Way next to The O2, opened to students at the end of October 2010 following a £70 million investment including £3.5 million from the London Development Agency (LDA), £5.5 million from the Department for Communities and Local Government and further investment from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), Greenwich Council, Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Skills Funding Agency. The European Development Fund also provided £1.5 million to create low carbon incubator space, incorporating new technologies and a suite of environmentally sustainable features. Ravensbourne had been based in Chislehurst in Bromley since 1976.
Founded in London in 1993, Foreign Office Architects (FOA) has emerged as one of the most innovative and creative design firms working today, integrating architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture in a wide range of projects internationally. The project that established the practice’s reputation was the Yokohama Port Terminal in Japan, an imaginative hybrid of non-Cartesian industrial infrastructure and versatile social functionality, which architects and critics have called one of the most influential works of architecture of the last decade. Since then, FOA has amassed a diverse portfolio of built works around the world, ranging from transportation facilities to social housing projects.
Over the years, FOA has won several prestigious competitions and commissions, including the BBC Music Box, for the network’s White City complex, in London; and it was selected as part of the United Architects team to submit a design for the World Trade Center, New York, in the aftermath of the September 11 attack. In 2002, the practice was selected to represent Great Britain at the 8th Venice Architecture Biennale.
Other completed projects for FOA include the John Lewis Department Store and Cineplex and pedestrian bridges in Leicester, UK; Carabanchel Social Housing in Madrid, Spain; the South-East Coastal Park in Barcelona, Spain; the Meydan Retail Complex and Multiplex in Istanbul, Turkey; the Spanish Pavilion at the 2005 International Expo in Aichi, Japan; and La Rioja Technology Transfer Centre, in Logroño, Spain.
English Heritage exists to protect and promote England’s spectacular historic environment and ensure that its past is researched and understood. It is the Government’s statutory adviser on the historic environment. Officially known as the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, English Heritage is an Executive Non-departmental Public Body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). www.english-heritage.org.uk
Design for London is a regional design resource for London. They work on behalf of the Mayor of London. Design for London’s role is to help the Mayor ensure a design led approach to delivering improvements to infrastructure and the built environment in London. They also work with the boroughs and others to support the delivery of good urban change and well-designed projects across London. www.designforlondon.gov.uk
Ordnance Survey is Great Britain’s national mapping agency, providing geographic data, relied on by government, business and individuals. Ordnance Survey data is relied on by us all. If you call for an ambulance or for police assistance, more often than not it’s our data that’s used to find you. When there’s a gas leak or a burst water main, utility companies are planning their response with mapping from us. We are also committed to fostering innovation with our open data initiatives and via the GeoVation community through which we fund new and exciting geography based ventures.
