In association with

RI BA#\! HSBC Private Bank HSBC ~

Contents

FOREWORD 04 Michael Manser OUR FAVOURITE HOUSES 06 Past winners pick the houses that influenced their own work THE SHORTLIST 10

Plans, photos and jury citations for each of the five shortlisted houses THE WINNER 22

Duggan Morris Architects present 3A Hampstead Lane WORKING DETAIL 32

The winning building in detail THE JUDGES 34 Introducing this year's panel

THE ARCHITECTS' JOURNAL Project editor James Pal/ister GREATER LONDON HOUSE Art edi tor Brad Yend/e HAMPSTEAD ROAD Production editor Mary Douglas LONDON NW1 7EJ Des igner Ella Mackinnon

Sub-editor Abigail Gliddon THEAJ.CO.U I< Commercial manager James Macleod

02 MA NSE R MEDAL 20I I

Foreword

These homes are exceptional examples of how cli ents and architects can work together

The 2011 RIBA Manser Medal in association with

HSBC Private Bank MANS ER MEDAL 201 I

HSBC~

The Manser Medal for the best new house or major extension in the UK high lights the extraordinary talent and creative expertise leading the way in arch itecture.

HSBC Private Bank sponsors the award because it reflects our belief that investing in innovative design adds both to the value of the property and the quality of the living experience.

From urban homes squeezed into tight city sites to sweeping woodland hideaways, this year's shortlist demonstrates the trends and qualities that cl ients investing in newly designed private houses seek.

Ultimately, the shortlisted properties are exceptional examples of how clients and architects can work together to create outstanding homes.

Many of our cl ients share our passion for design and architecture.

We provide services to high net worth individuals and their families in over 40 countries and territories across the world. Through HSBC Private Bank subsidiary Property Vision, we are able to offer insight, knowledge and experience in the property market.

This expertise is evident in our partnership with the RI BA; Property Vision managing director Peter Mackie has joined the Manser Medal judging panel for the last two years, alongside Michael Manser and the RIBA's head of awards, Tony Chapman .

Furthermore, the re lationship reflects our shared values and offers us an opportunity to make invaluable connections with and on behalf of our clients .

lt also builds on our wider international sponsorship programme, which includes the annual design fair Design Miami/ Base I, the Pavilion des Arts et du Design in Paris and The Connection Collection, our private col lection of limited ed ition design.

In continuing our commitment to supporting exce llence and innovation in design and arch itecture around the world, we extend our warmest congratu lations to the winner of the 2011 Manser Medal. Declan Sheehan, chief executive officer, HSBC Private Bank (UK)

OJ

Foreword The founder of the Manser Medal explains how it advocates for higher standards in housing design, what was so good about Georgian homes, and why the prize could be as big as the Stirling

As judges, we are looking for

0

an inspirational ~

Not all archi tectural awards are named after dead white male arch itects. Although I plead guilty on the last three counts, I am sti ll actively invo lved wi th the award which bears my name, and keen that it should help raise the standard of housing design. Shockingly, on ly about 20 per cent of UK housing is designed by arch itects, so we have set ourselves a daunting task. But if we can use the Manser Medal to reward the very best and, implicitly, shame the worst, then we wi ll have made a good start.

step forward ~~~~~~~ ------------- G 2002- BROOKE COOMBES HOUSE

2001 Studio Bednarski 2002 Burd Haward Marston Architects 2003 Jamie Fobert Architects 2004 Mole Architects

To sustain the Manser Medal's reputation and to retain the interest of architects, the publ ic and the press, the medal needs something to distingui sh it from the many other housing awards. The buildings we consider are a cut above the rest, in that each has already won an RI BA Award. But the Manser judges are looking for extra qualities that match the architects' intellectual aspirations.

Historically, architecture has always responded to society's needs, coming up with new methods and

MANSER MEDAL 20! I

materials that exploit the latest technical developments, all within the compass of reasonable expenditure. As judges, we are looking for an inspirational step forward, perhaps an experimental approach, certain ly an unequivocal 21st-century solution for 21st­centu ry occupants.

Our aim is to influence both the mass house-bui lding companies and the general public in the direction of better design. There is huge public interest in houses; the amount of media coverage is evidence of that.

MANS E R MEDAL 201 I

The Manser Medal cou ld potentially have as big a following as the Stirling Prize, and so expose the talent of younger practitioners, whose abilities are grossly under-used. Many successful architects begin their careers with domestic projects.

The 18th century produced the finest housing and planning ever seen. lt was design-led, and in the main promoted by architect­developers or aristocrats who had done the Grand Tour and were keen to try out what they had learned on their travels on their own estates.

2005 Robert Dye Associates 2006 Knox Bhavan Architects 2007 Alison Brooks Architects 2008 Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners 2oog Pit man T ozer Architects 2010 Acme

Based on classical geometry but with standard details for doors, windows, stairs and panelling, these plans expressed simple ideas for startlingly modern homes which satisfied increasing ly sophisticated consumers from a range of income groups. Always a desirable purchase, Georgian houses are sti ll are proving as good an investment as ever. But then, as TS Eliot said, 'Only the genuinely new can ever be truly traditional'.

Michae/ Manser CBE, PPRIBA

os

Our favourite houses From Palladio's Villa Capra to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, the one-off house has given countless architects the chance to explore and develop their art. We asked past Manser Medal-winners to tell us about the houses that most influenced them

Studio Bednarski 2001 winner I Merthyr Terrace

Casa Natale di Raffaello, Urbino

Burd Haward Marston Architects 2002 winner I Brooke Coombes House

Traditional Amsterdam canal house

o6

While Farn sworth House, where I was fi lmed two years ago for Dream Homes, is a tempting choice, it is not really a 'house'. Scanning my memories it is Casa di Raffaello in Urbino, which I visited in 1986, that still stands out. Humans have inertia when in motion and we cannot do sharp turns: not many designers think about this. Moving through this house felt so fluid , smooth and natural that I still find it unbeatable, and while relatively sparse it felt homely. But maybe it all was just the enduring aura of the young Raphael. . . Cezary Bednarski

A very hard choice. If pushed, I would say the tradi tional Amsterdam canal house, for hundreds of reasons, architectural and personal. Not strict ly one-offs (though most of them are), I love their squeezed frontages wh ich give brilliant urban density. Their brickwork, fenestration and expressive gables are at once completely individual and part of a whole. Their generous, uncurtained windows allow the streets to extend into the homes, and vice versa. This

0 blurring of private to public continues ~ to the street itse lf, where there are ~ no pavements, raised kerbs or ye llow 0:

!j! lines, just a change in material. 5 Catherine Burd

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Jamie Fobert Architects 2003 winner I Anderson House

Haus Wittgenstein

Mole Architects 2004 winner I Black House

Mackintosh's Hill House, the Eames House

Robert Dye Associates 2005 winner I Stealth House

Hanselmann House, Indiana

In 1926 Ludwig Wittgenstein abandoned his work in philosophy jo help Paul Engelmann design a house for his sister in Vienna. Haus Wittgenstein on the Kundmanngasse has played an important role in my thinking since I first saw it in 1993. Its restrained and austere exterior conceals a rich volumetric interior, both tectonic and clearly based on proportions with an extraordinary wealth of detail. Jamie Fobert

Two greats have remained with me since I was a teenager, but I have visited neither of them, so they remain as much an idea as a place to live; Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Hill House (pictured left and centre), and Charles and Ray Eames' Pacific Palisades. Between the two they still capture my interest in making a house that has a sense of place, tand the thrill of a house that defies convention. Of houses I've visited or stayed in, Glenn Murcutt's Simpson­Lee house is spectacular; it's a house that is designed perfectly for its envi ronment, and is a thrilling space. Meredith Bow!es

This was reportedly the first commission for Michael Graves and in my opin ion never bettered by him. During the New York Five's neo-Corbusian period, the move

into a Terragni-esque 3D grid of space caught my imagination as a young student in the early 1970s. There is a clear narrative to th is project involving an eventual natural landscape outside, a virtual front cubic volume and even a column that is missing but rationally shou ld be there -my first understanding of what an arch itectural metaphor might be. Robert Dye

Knox Bhavan Architects

2006 winner I Holly Barn

Fisher House, Hatboro

Alison Brooks Architects 2007 winner I Salt House

Mies van der Rohe unbuilt country house

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A place still to see is Louis Kahn's Fisher House for its simple yet dynamic plan, exquisite use of materials, detailing and subtle decoration (pictured left and above). Natural materials touch one another gracefu lly to create an elegance and depth of texture. A place I have known and explored all my life is Hodges Place, a Grade-lllisted 17th-century Kentish farmhouse that was first my grandfather's, and is now my mother's. The old house is made from sh ip's timbers; dark, secret and intri guing, it hinges around a wide spi ral ling timber stair concealed behind a door. Sasha Bhavan

I was about 17 when I first saw the plan for Mies van der Rohe's unbuilt brick country house and the idea that walls cou ld be 'freed' from a bu ilding had a huge impact on me. I thought the merg ing of architecture and landscape was incredibly exciting, but was disappointed by the three dimensional expression of the plan. Marcel Breuer brought a humanising quality to Mies' Modernist paradigm; the Geller House (1 945), Robinson House (1 947) and Hooper House (1 947) al l share the en igmatic 'free' plan and spatial continuum, whi le being more spatially experimental than Miesian contemporaries. A!ison Brooks

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Rogers Stirk Harbour+ Partners

2008 winner I Oxley Woods

The Eames House, Pacific Palisades

Pitman Tozer Architects 2009 winner / The Gap House

Azuma House, Osaka

Acme 2010 winner I Hunsett Mill Villa Muller, Prague

I've always been inspired by the Eames House and the legacy ret by the Case Study House programme. The Eames House (pictured left and centre) is a truly great example of architecture that celebrates factory production and the use of manufactured processes. In particular, I love the fact that it was designed through a series of phone calls. This legacy of using prefabricated components is reflected in contemporary architecture in the UK through projects such as the Rogers House in Wimbledon and the Hopkins House in Hampstead. Andrew Partridge

I lived in Kobe, Japan for a year and spent most weekends searching out buildings by Tadao Ando and other Japanese architects. Despite numerous efforts, I never found this house and know it only throug h drawings and images. The bui lding is on a tiny plot and is deceptively simple. it's an inward looking, two-storey, courtyard house, with just a doorway onto the street four rooms that gain light and air from the fifth . I admire Ando's ab ility to convince his client that walking from the livi ng room, outside, to get to the bedroom was a good idea. Luke Tozer

As a student, I spent a year analysing how private houses can be defined as spaces of pri vacy and exposure, unfolding through movement. The most interesting and influential house in my research catalogue was Vi lla Muller by Ado lf Loos. The longer you look, the more you learn. You can take away that incredib ly complex composition of spaces that sit in a deceptive ly simple architectural vo lume. Neither Vi lla Muller nor Loos is fau ltless, and many other houses have been influential on our thinking and work, but this is one we come back to quite often. Friedrich Ludewig

Shortlisted /Watson House John Pardey Architects

Location N ew Forest National Pm·k Photography ]ames Nforris

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J Site plan

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There is an integrity and elegant simplicity to this house: a sing le, long, linear shape in a New Forest clearing. The brief was for a holiday home within the woods to comply with the requirement, having won planning permission on appeal, that it would be invisible from the public realm.

The building is staked to the ground by its broad brick ch imney, but otherwise it floats above the landscape in a way that is graceful and timeless. The structure is constructed from cross-laminated prefabricated panels clad in locally grown sweet chestnut strips. The timber panels not on ly minimise the carbon footprint , but also allowed the building to be built quickly.

Large areas of glass are recessed

under overhangs, which min imises heat gain and strengthens the flow between spaces inside and outside.

With its timber frame in-filled wi th glass and timber panels and its meticulous detai ling, the Watson House pays homage to Danish examples of the mid-20th century. This is a simple idea, left strong and not overcooked.

And yet the architecture has been enriched by a playful humour. For example, the floor-level windows give privacy but are at a height that is perfect for pets. Elsewhere, the precise placing of other windows gives privacy but exposes the inner life of the building in a delightfu l way.

This is a poetic bui lding with the simplicity and symmetry of a sonnet, not an epic.

LJ5m N-E)

CREDITS

CLIENT

Charles and Fiona Watson CONTRACTOR

NFTS STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

Ramboll UK SERVICES ENGINEER

Energist UK CONTRACT VALUE

£640,000 DATE OF COMPLETION

September 201 0 GROSS INTERNAL AREA

206m'

LEGEND

1. Master bedroom 2. Dressing room 3. Ensuite 4. Study 5. Living room 6. Kitchen 7. Bedroom 8. Coat store 9. Utility room

1 0. Basement/boiler

I I

Shortlist d I Deodar House Eldridge Smerin Location Epsom, Surrey Photography Lyndon D ouglas

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Ground floor plan

12

Lower ground floor plan

As you approach the house, on a private road of developer pastiche, a sense of surprise is followed by one of satisfaction . Externally, the building delivers the anticipated formula for an expensive, large private house. But the uncompromising massing and unrelenting geometry give way to a homely and welcoming interior.

The house is made up of two wings; one the home, the other the poo l. A scu lptured landscape garden makes a rhomboid of the whole plan. The building sits slightly submerged in its golf course setting, the lower floor study and bedrooms and indoor pool open onto a sunken sculptured landscape. The main wing is ang led at 60° to the pool wing, and the double-storey fair-faced concrete columns are triangular in section.

Mezzanine floor plan

First floor plan

The rhomboid landscaped garden is presented formally with over 100 equi laterally shaped timber planting boxes cascading down, whose regularity is shattered by a chi ldren's slide. There is something delightfully Frank Lloyd Wright about the triangular obsess iveness.

There are seven 80-metre deep boreholes for ground source heating and so lar thermal water heating panels on the roof. The mass concrete structure itself acts as a thermal heat store and maintains constant temperatures throughout the year. Al l the rooms are naturally ventilated. The project is in a long architectural tradition -the large and lavish private house -that promotes experimentation with the building type, yet turns it into an art form.

N Ljmd LEGEND

1. Reception 2. Kitchen/dining 3. Living room 4. Terrace 5. Landing/lobby 6. Media room 7. Utility room 8. Plant 9. Gym

10. Swimming pool 11 . Bedroom 12. Office 13. Store

CREDITS

CLIENT lan and Lelyana Harris CONTRACTOR Robin Ellis Construction STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

TALL Consulting SERV ICES ENGINEER

StudioNine CONTRACT VALUE £2.6m DATE OF COMPLETION

January 2010 GROSS INTERNAL AREA

715m2

IJ

Shortlisted /New Mission Hall Adam Richards Architects

Location Plaistow, West Swse:>.: Photography A dam Richards Architects

14 MANS ER MEDAL 201 I

This little house is as perfect as it is difficult to describe. lt sits in the crook of an old drovers' road, on the site of a former chapel that lost its battle with the roots of an ancient oak. The oak remains, its branches all but crad ling the upper room of one of the two offset buildings that form the house. The building that faces the road

evokes the old chape l, with its apsidal curved end wall and simple pitched roof. The other looks out over the Sussex countryside and has more of a pavilion shape and an origami-li ke duo-pitch roof.

The two are joined together by the entrance and staircase, which leads into the garden. Here, lavender beds mask rainwater harvesting and ground-source heat pumps.

Ground floor plan

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The more conventional building is faced in reclaimed local earthenware tiles and has a soft rounded end that leads you to the entrance. Once inside you have a view through to the garden and the setting sun.

Downstairs, all is solid and secure, with cave-like black stone, little niches and white brick barrel-vaulted cei lings. Upstairs is airy and light, with irregular oak floorboards and full-height windows in deep reveals with bespoke walnut furniture dividing the spaces and housing useful things, like plates and PCs.

Thi s is a beautiful design on a small and difficult site. lt is an accompli shed and unique piece of architecture, simultaneously complex and simple.

First floor plan

CREDITS

CLI ENT Nicholas Taylor and Dean Wheeler CONTRACTOR Ceecom STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

Structure Workshop CONTRACT VALUE

Undisclosed DATE OF COMPLETION

October 2010 GROSS INTERNAL AREA

150m2

LEGEND

1. Bathroom 2. Master bedroom 3. Bedroom 4. Hall 5. Study 6. Dining room 7. Living room 8. Kitchen

IS

Shortlisted /Ty Hedfan Featherstone Young Location Pontfaen, Brecon Photography Tim Brotberton

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The name Ty Hedfan means 'hovering house'. Building on a tight, sloping ri vers ide plot with a cantilever that gets round the seven-metre no-build zone next to the ri ver, the arch itect has created a building that not only feels at one with the landscape, but in the use of materials and by clever consideration of the building's orientation, also blends into the architecture of the nearby village.

The design uses a tall , striking and expressive nine-metre tall dry-stone wall as the knuckle between the

Ground floor plan

MANSER MEDAL 2011

rectangular form of the main house and the cranked bedroom wing, wh ich is buried into the hillside under a green sedum roof. lt is as if the house has emerged from the ruins of an ancient Welsh castle. And from the road you are only aware of the slate clad and roofed form of the main building with concealed guttering.

The arrival sequence through the triple-height stone-clad lobby into a compressed space that houses a boot room, utility and bathroom permits a glimpse through to the

kitchen and beyond. Once in the kitchen you become aware of the real connection to n ~ture, which is enhanced by incorporating an external terrace into the plan. The best views are from the cantilevered living room where you feel that you are among the trees. But equally good are the views of the cantilever from the bedrooms.

A confident and innovative so lution to the demands of a difficult site has provided the architect owners with a delightful rural retreat.

Upper floor plan

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CREDITS

CLIENT Jeremy Young & Sarah Featherstone CONTRACTOR

Osborne Builders STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

Techniker CONTRACT VALUE

£530,000 DATE OF COMPLETION

July 2010 GROSS INTERNAL AREA

223m2

BUILDING STUDY

See AJ 14.04. 11

LEGEND

1. Living room 2. Terrace 3. Kitchen 4. Cloakroom 5. Utility room 6. Hallway/entrance 7. Bedroom 8. Bathroom/We

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Shortlisted I Balancing Barn MVRDV with Mole Architects

Location Thorrington, S4Jolk Photography Edmund Sumner

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In one sense, it's not difficult to do something dramatic in the flat hinterland of the Suffolk coast. But what the architects have achieved here is truly unique. There is more of a tradition of radical, sing le-minded projects in MVRDV's homeland of the Netherlands; it takes a brave client to all ow them to translate such ideas to East Ang li a.

This th en is a Dutch barn for a very English landscape. Or, given its mirrored metal cladding, a stretched Airstream caravan about to topple over the edge. Just seven metres wide, half of its 30-metre length is bravely canti levered. The eng ineer has pushed the structure- and its users - as far as possible, even opening up a window in the living room fl oor to demonstrate their daring

from the inside as we ll as the outside. There is a delightful sense of the

accidental about this project that wou ld be much more in line with the feeling of a barn conversion or something that had developed over time. Yet there is consistency too, in the use of ash panels on walls, floors and ceil ings, giving an almost carved quality to the interior that is cleverly at odds with the slight defections which remind the visitor that for half the time they are suspended in mid-air.

Thi s was designed as a holiday home for small groups of peop le to stay for short periods of time and have a dialogue with the landscape. Creating bui ldi ngs that can evoke powerfu l fee lings is very rare, but the Balancing Barn certainly has a strangely disturbing beauty.

I' ~V\

CREDITS

CLI ENT Living Architecture CONTRACTOR Seamans STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

Jane Wernick Associates SERVICES ENGINEER

Jane Wernick

Associates CONTRACT VALUE

Undisclosed DAT E OF COMPLETION

October 2010 GROSS INTERNAL AREA

220m2

BUILDING STUDY

See AJ 21.1 0. 1 0

LEGEND

1 . Living room 2. Bedroom 3. Bathroom 4. Hallway 5. Dining room/kitchen

Winner I Duggan Morris Architects Hampstead Lane Location H ighgate Village, L ondon Photography ] ames Brittain

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This sensitive and rigorous renovation of a 1 960s Brutalist house has taken an austere structure, with its unpromising street view and maze of cellular rooms, and made it into a house that lifts the spirits.

The architects' approach throughout has been to question what is strictly necessary to the functionality of the house and to pare back according ly. Hence the removal of two internal walls that ran the full depth of the house, which have been replaced by a straightforward steel structure. This means the main room is f looded with natural light, while the intimacy of the bedrooms has been retained. Two of these open out on to the garden, as does the main living-eating-cooking space, wh ile the mezzanine master

bedroom overlooks it across a strip of planted roof. The garden is a delight; a rectang le of landscape that in summer doubles the living space via the fu lly-g lazed sliding doors.

Despite the extensive renovation, the character and qualities of the original structure remain intact, taking on an altogether different quality when set against the sensitive interventions that define the project.

This has been a labour of love, approached with an appreciation and care for the original house and its history. The clients, both considerable arch itects in their own rights, have taken the sensible but unusual step of calling in other architects to realise their dream. The result is a joy to step into. In Michael Manser's words, 'this is tru ly a house of its time and of the moment'. >>

CREDITS

CLIENT

Graham Stirk and Susie Le Good CONTRACTOR

ME Construction STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

Elliott Wood CONTRACT VA LUE

£500,000 DATE OF COMPLETION

Not known GROSS INTERNAL AREA

200m2

23

Ground fl oor plan

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MANSER MEDAL 201 I

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LEGEND

1. Entrance 2. Living room/kitchen 3. Garage 4. Bedroom 5. Study 6. Bathroom 7.WC B. Util ity room 9. Master bedroom

10. Void 11 . Plant 12. Wardrobe 13. Ensuite 14. Terrace 15. Green roof 16. New planter

25

Architects' view Mary Duggan and Joe Morris

Background and planning considerations Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs to live in and it has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, engaged in the protection of its character. This bui lding, a low-rise Modernist property constructed in the 1 g6Qs, was designed and bui lt by a well­known local architect couple who lived there in the last years of their lives; Douglas Stirling Craig, and his wife Margaret.

Stirling worked for Coventry City Council, Stevenage Development Corporation, and with Margaret set

LEGEND

1 . Prism over void 2. Bedroom 3. Living room 4. Kitchen 5. Front garden 6. Rear garden

Above The

mezzanine bedroom

looking on to the

back garden

Right The

green roof

up architectural practice in the late 1 950s, completing a number of notable projects for private res ident ial clients in a Brutalist style, with exposed surfaces inside and out. Th is approach is evident in the design of 3A Hampstead Lane, built in 1968.

The original building The original bu ilding featured four or five bedrooms, along with reception rooms, a kitchen, dining room, utility room, two bathrooms, an integrated garage and a 60-foot garden overlooked by the glass­dominated rear of the house.

The primary palette of materials consisted of a light-coloured, fair-faced blockwork skin, both inside and out, with a silver sand and wh ite cement mix. This was punctuated

with mill-fin ish alumin ium window frames and cop ing with flu sh, pre-finished white hardboard-faced doors to the front and f lank elevations. To the rear, the primary material was glazing, again in mi ll-f in ish aluminium, with panels in a cl ear lacquered birch ply. The window surrounds were completed in a plain deal pine and the window sill s in mahogany.

Internally, the floors were laid with a white-fl ecked vinyl asbestos tile. All the interior joists and woodwork were in plain wood , except for the top of the T and G plan king on the first floor. There were no skirting boards or door trims, and the on ly places with a dropped ce il ing were the kitchen, entry and utility room. The original heating was underfloor electric embedded in the screed. >>

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Section A-A

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/ ,'

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28 lVIANSER MEDAL 20! I

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The brief

Working close ly with the client, a brief emerged that sought to carry out a full renovation of the building fabric, whi le intervening carefu lly to create a contemporary dwelling with a more fluid arrangement of spaces, rather than

the cellular original. The brief also sought a greater connection qf the living spaces to the gardens, wh ich themselves would be completely redes igned. At roof level, it was intended to replace the existing membrane with a modern version, while the services were completely overhauled to modern standards. >>

The interventions

The renovation focused on retaining the integrity of the original house, through extensive research and analysis of historic documents, drawings, photographs and archived material. Much of the work involved cleaning and restoring the exposed blockwork, while the glazing system was designed to closely accord with the original single-glazed system, but with modern standards and U-values.

Where interventions to the layout of the internal spaces were required, this enabled clear communication of new structural elements, including the new dark­grey steel frame, which spans the key spaces in place of previous load-bearing walls . The project also included a fully integrated scheme for the landscape, which is now more connected to the internal spaces.

Elevation

30

This image

The open plan

the mezzanine

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Working detail

South facade detai l

32

The majority of the components used for the detailing are assembled from the building's original design. The skil l involved in the construct ion process thus stems from a deep knowledge of the bu ilding techniques, materials and design ambition of the orig inal architects, Stirling and Margaret Craig.

Throughout the project, our intent has focused on two basic premises. Firstly, to do litt le to alter what we have been given. Secondly, to intervene where necessary, but to do so honestly and with compassion for the language of the orig inal building.

In the detail illustrated, you will find both these considerations.

The foundations, roof structure and blockwork were in place. The glazing , a thin-framed aluminium system, matched the sightlines of the original, albeit with double rather than sing le glazing. The screed, while new, is set to the same datum as the original, but incorporates improved insulation and a modern 'wet' underfloor heating system.

At roof level, we have merely overlaid the 'repaired ' asphalt with a thick-planted sedum zone. The living spaces below have been opened up with new steel 'I' sections supporting the primary loads fol lowing the removal of load-bearing masonry. Joe Morris, director, Ouggan Morris Architects

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1. Existing DPC 2. Timber

weatherboarding 3. New 'wet '

underiloor heating system

4. New DPC 5. Ground-bearing

brickwork 6. External timber

deck 7. Existing slab 8. Polished concrete

se reed 9. Black timber

surround to glazing t 0. Threshold to align

With top of screed 11 . Existing blocks

cut to size to be re~ used where visible above ground

12. Fineline external sliding double­glazed door in natural anodised aluminium frame

13. Vent flap insulation 14. Hinged vent flap 15. Existing gypsum

board with skim plaster finish

16. Roof deck insulation

1 7. Existing timber joist 18. Breather

membrane 19. Vapour control

layer 20. Existing roof

covering

21. Exist ing strip foundation

22. Drainage layer 23. Washed gravel

edge 24. Planting substrate 25. Galvanised steel

angle 26. Aluminium pressing 27. Existing blockwork

wall 28. New below-screed

Insulation

33

Judges

Innovator, educator, writer and leader in the profession, Michael Manser established the Manser Practice in 1961. He has written for and edited Architectural Design and was the the Observer's architectural correspondent from 1961 to 1964. He was RI BA president between 1983-5. The Manser Medal was created in 2001 in his honour as long-term chairman of the National HomeBuilder Design Awards.

34

1\BOUT THE MEDAL

The Manser Medal became part of the HI BA Awards in 2003, with entries being drawn from schemes winning HI BA Awards in that year. Michael Manser has chaired the jury every year since its inception.

Friedrich Ludewig founded Acme in London in 2007, and won the Manser Medal just three years later for Hunsett Mil l in Norfolk. He studied at the Technical University and Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, before moving to London to study at the Architectural Association . Between 2000 and 2007 he worked at Foreign Office Architects, first in Tokyo then in London. As associate director at FOA he was responsible for projects including the London 2012 Olympic masterplan.

Managing director of Property Vision since 1996, Peter Mackie has been with the company since 1994. He was appointed managing director of HSBC Private Bank with sole responsibility of running Property Vision in 2007. Previously, Peter was an associate director for a firm of surveyors.

Joanna eo-founded van Heyningen and Haward Architects in 1983. Recent buildings include an education centre for RSPB Rain ham Marshes and No 1 Smithery, a museum at Chatham Historic Dockyards. Joanna is a member of CABE's Crossrail and Thames Tunnel Panels, a BOA award assessor, a trustee of the Building Centre, an external examiner at Cambridge University School of Architecture and a member of the NLA Sounding Board.

Tony Chapman is the RIBA's head of awards, and has been responsible for the RI BA Stirling Prize since its inception in 1996. Previously he was a BBC television producer, and he continues to make films and write books about award-winning architects and bui ldings. He was made an honorary fellow of the RIBA in 2010.

MAN SER MEDAL 20II