Britain's Best New Building 2017 RIBA Stirling Prize

and other contenders

for the the prestigious design award

the Royal Institute of British

Architects Stirling Prize 2017.

Six startling buildings, and behind

each one, the story of people,

problems and some beautiful

solutions. All competing for the

biggest prize in British

architecture. The Stirling Prize.

What are you looking for?

We are

looking for the very highest level

of architectural achievement. What

we're doing here is celebrating

Civitas, the idea that cities have a

role in bringing together the

social, economic and cultural

well-being of their citizens, and I

think these buildings, this short

list, really does I think mark out

our contribution to that territory.

Look at that! City of dreams.

It's

like walking into the gates of

heaven.

It looks seriously so dope. It looks

so cool.

And its tremendous fun,

it's like a haven of quietness and

freedom and madness. It's just

brilliant, for me it's excellent.

Wow! Blimey.

I think what's unique

about this building is it a

strikingly modern building in a very

sensitive conservation environment.

I love this building because it

reflects so many elements of the

historic dockyard.

When the fire

happened, people were so devastated,

people just felt like they had to do

something to help.

Lavender, very

nice. There is a touch of the

English country cottage garden about

all of this, the wickerwork, the old

handles, but looks can be deceiving,

because this is actually a very

modern brick built block of flats.

But inside, there is a surprise,

because this is one of six buildings

nominated for this year's Stirling

building of the year. And over the

next half an hour, we will be

looking at all of them and working

at quite why they have been

nominated, at the end, we will find

out who has won. But first, a look

at a much loved building, one that

needs to be reinvented for the

21st-century, but has the last few

years had a habit of burning down.

It gets you in here. You just think,

why?

You were here when it burnt

down?

I was.

People that had never spoken to

before were stopping me to talk

about the

Pier, and every body was devastated.

It was quite frightening to think

how people would come back from

that.

Did you think it was all over?

Idea to, but actually it was the

opposite.

The Victorian pier, a part

of the seaside. But the history of

the British peer is all too often a

history of recurring disaster.

Scattered timbers, all the remains

of Worthing Pier.

My parents met in the ballroom on

the pier, so I class myself as a

pier baby.

And this is where the

pier ballroom used to be.

I don't

know how this works. You need a man

as well, you see.

You want me to

waltz with you, don't you? I don't

think we are going to make Strictly,

are we

think we are going to make Strictly,

are we?

I didn't see it at the time,

I saw it the next day when it was

smoking and smouldering, and you

just think, why? Very emotional. And

to think that it happened, but in

some ways, I think it was a blessing

in disguise, because we've been able

to go forward with this beautiful

structure, and I'm not sure whether

if it hadn't been for the fire that

we would have come this far.

Seven

years on, Jill and thousands of

others in the town now own the pier,

and have overseen the reinvention of

an old friend. This curtain of glass

finally gives the people of Hastings

a panoramic view out to sea. The

woodwork here is still the original

timber, there are still some scorch

marks. But the most important

innovation is this. Nothing. What

they chose not to build. The empty

space. There is no end of the pier.

Building a pier, it's a bit of a mad

idea, isn't it?

It's bonkers, yes.

And that's what's so brilliant about

it, is nobody in their right mind

would build a pier out of a material

which is going to be dissolved where

it stands.

You are fighting a losing

battle everyday?

Absolutely, and we

will need to keep on replacing parts

everyday. It gets worn, it gets worn

away. We didn't have enough money

during the reconstruction to replace

everything, so we are constantly

repairing, tidying up nuts and

bolts. Nowadays you would build it

out of concrete and steel.

Yes.

You're going to put your finger on

the one thing that makes it so

special, the design, what would it

be?

Space. You don't get a vision of

the pier until you get out the far

end, and you see this horizon to

horizon, and you say, now I get it.

You look at it from above and you

say, so what? You get out there and

you go, aha, now I understand, and

you have to be there to see it.

So, Hastings Pier, flexibility,

designed to last long into the

future, and also involving the

community. And all those things also

apply here, another of the Stirling

nominees, this is the City of

Glasgow College, and this is the

central atrium. What's it all about?

They wanted a bit of wow factor, the

Cinderella of British education,

they wanted to give it a bit of

civic dignity. But before we look at

the full details of here, two of the

buildings of this year's Stirling

nominees.

Essentially, Juergen wanted a

studio, a place to work. That means

quite a few things, shooting

photographs, making books, making

exhibitions as well as obviously

lots of people, so really that's

where the idea of several buildings

in several gardens, so somewhere

where lots of different types of

shoots can happen in a very natural

setting.

Juergen wanted to share his

home with the studio. We wanted this

new building to have the same

moments of intimacy, so he still has

the kitchen table which is where he

does meet clients and where he

works, there is a library, sauna,

Jim, there is a very private in a

world to the studio, and there is a

big studio where he lays out and

does shoot things, then there is the

public building at the front which

has different collaborators and

staff and an archive. There is

equality between garden and internal

space, all the way through the

building, that is a beautiful part

of it. But reduced palette that has

texture but allows it to be the

background and allows his

photography to be the foreground.

There is a sort of quality of light

both within and in the gardens which

is almost archaic, and I think that

that makes an amazing setting for

the kind of work that Juergen does.

I'm using every single centimetre of

the space, and I photograph every

bit of it, and it is tremendous fun,

it is like a haven of quietness and

freedom and madness. It is just

brilliant. For me, it's excellent.

So, the three major challenges at

the dockyard would exhibit the

ships' timbers, to build

21st-century visitor facilities, and

to provide gallery spaces which told

the story of the dockyard in the age

of sailing, and we managed to do

this by introducing a new building

into the dockyard which allowed for

the communication and circulation of

visitors around the galleries.

As an

example of why I like this building,

it acts as a real beacon for

visitors.

For me, the building is

very special because we've managed

to find a way to respond to a very

sensitive historic setting with an

architecture that is quite robust

and allows the buildings around it

to speak.

I love this building

because it reflects so many elements

of the historic dockyard, and in

those modern reflections, it unlocks

the stories that are contained

within the original buildings.

Wow, look at that. City of dreams.

It is so cool. It has got lights.

Not just regular lights, purple

lights. It looks awesome. It smells

so new. There is a cost a

lights. It looks awesome. It smells

so new. There is a cost a! I would

have preferred a Starbucks, but

Costa is better than nothing.

This

film was made by a student, King

Billy Hawker, capturing her

reactions on seeing the new college.

A year later, we invited her back to

take us on a tour.

It is like hidden

surprises, still places that halfway

through my course I was just

discovering upon. I think it is

really great that they have hidden

these little secret gems all over

the college. In here is the salon,

and also the market where they have

the bakery.

Wow.

It's so incredible,

and I think that's what every

student feels when they walk in here

for the first time, it has a wow

factor to it, and it here for the

students, you know?

From the

outside, we wanted something that

had a very strong civic presence,

that had an elegance. It's built on

a hill, so we wanted it to

accentuate that. We wanted to put

this building up on a pedestal. We

wanted to say, here in Glasgow, this

is the building that we think the

college deserves.

One of the things

that we were trying to do was to

make a place that would be equally

attractive to young people as the

shopping mall or the park corner, a

place that would allow their social

lives to exist as well as receive

their education.

You wanted it to be

fun?

Yes, to make a place that can

let people enjoy what they're doing,

and be proud of it.

Did it work? We

will meet 17-year-old catering

student Lee Christie.

My favourite

kitchen. This is the best kitchen in

the college itself. When I walked

into this kitchen, I was like, is

this a college kitchen?! It's like

walking into the gates of heaven.

You walk in, it's open.

Well, the museum had a very complex

40-year master plan for the site, a

lot of it to do with supplementing

the front of house experience,

adding conservation and science and

logistics, and a lot of these were

challenges left over on the museum

compound from a work that is being

evolving for 250 years, so what we

did was we spent a tremendous amount

of time with the museum

understanding their wants and needs

to try to respond to the brief.

Essentially they wanted to create a

world conservation and exhibition

Centre for the whole of the museum

campus. This is really a celebration

of all of the background work that

maintains this collection and

studies it appropriately. And it

also creates a fantastic vehicle

within which the wider world

contributions and exchanges can

exist.

The building is a

state-of-the-art facility for

conservation and scientific

research, it has helped to bring all

of those staff together to work

together, and it has helped us to

design new laboratory services to

better understand the collection and

communicate it to the wider public.

What is striking about this building

is that it is a great environment,

and by the end of the process here,

I felt like I worked here rather

than the partners.

We are in the middle of Stoke

Newington in Hackney surrounded by

these fairly straightforward and

Victorian and Edwardian redbrick

terraces.

And then we get this

almost cartoonish apartments.

So

where are the bins?

This is very

cleverly disguising the bike store

on the one side and the bins on the

other, the sorts of things usually

left out.

Lets see what it looks

like inside. I love these sorts of

things. This is all the stuff that

is usually causing a blight on the

outside, nicely hidden away.

Exactly.

This is not what I was

expecting. It's a sea of wood.

It is

a bit like entering a kind of sauna.

This is plywood, is it?

It is known

as cross laminated timber, so it is

a super sized form of plywood.

John

Boehner plywood!

Exactly, it allows

buildings to go up to ten or more

stories.

There is still a lot of

wood, isn't there? Is this a door,

do you think is yellow that's the

game in this house. Cupboard or

extra bedroom? The washing machine!

It's hidden away.

It's a celebration of the beauty of

wood. There is no plaster, no paint,

not even a skirting board, and a

factory built wooden kit makes

construction quicker and cheaper.

The basic structure can go up in a

few days. Architects are even

looking at building skyscrapers

using the technology. They're

getting very excited about timber.

On the continent they've been using

solid timber construction for so

long, it's shown to be good,

cheaper, much more environmentally

friendly. To me, it's the future of

housing.

So, all we need now is a winner,

which is why we're here. This is it,

the royal Institute of British

architects Stirling Prize, the

biggest night of British

architecture. The announcement will

come in the next few minutes, but

the question is, how do you compare

the big show of projects against

much smaller, detailed but still

carefully crafted buildings? Well,

it's all about the art of

architecture. Which one of them has

taken that art and pushed it forward

and solved human problems in a

different way?

As chair of the jury,

I congratulate every single one of

this year's finalists. Truly

remarkable buildings, designed and

built perfectly for the people that

they serve. The winner of the 2017

Riba Stirling Prize for architecture

is Hastings Pier by dRMM

Riba Stirling Prize for architecture

is Hastings Pier by dRMM.

CHEERING

Congratulations. These come and join

us. Please come and join us on the

stage.

You can't do interesting

projects, special projects, without

a special client, and I would say

Hastings Pier charity are up there

amongst the most special, even

eccentric, clients you would ever

meet.

CHEERING

A good feeling?

It's a fantastic

feeling, not only personally but on

behalf of a great many people who

worked on this project.

It's not a

normal project for an architect at

all?

Absolutely. It was initiated by

local community group who

kick-started an effort to save a

derelict Peya which then caught fire

and then had to be completely

rethought, so it was a long process,

seven years of thinking and cloying

and proposing, and to now come here

and be recognised not just as a kind

of community driven project but as a

design, that is fantastic.

When it was opened in the 1870s, it

was described as the peerless pier,

a masterpiece of Victorian

engineering. But like so many

others, it has faced the ups and

downs of fires, storm and changing

fashions. Yes, 145 years on, it is

now Britain's best new building.

Just perhaps, Hastings Pier can

offer an example to others of new

hope, new future, a new possibility

for the British pier.

What are your thoughts looking out

on this now?

Oh, I love it. It's

just so peaceful.