The Solent Centre for Architecture + Design (SCA+D) is launching a new Design Award scheme for buildings or places of the highest design standards and which achieve a positive impact on their surrounding areas. It’s part of a programme to stimulate high class design in the built environment across South Hampshire. “We all know about The Stirling Prize,” says Paul Grover, head of SCA+D, “but our awards aren’t just looking for the most stunning or iconic design; we’re looking for design which creates a BETTER place to live, work and play.” As this is the inaugural year of what is hoped will become a biennial award scheme, any building or development completed after April 1st 2005 can be entered and these can be nominated by anyone: architects, contractors, clients, local authorities or members of the public. Full details can be found at www.solentdesignawards.org.uk and submissions must be received by 5.00 pm on 20th August 2010. The Awards are sponsored by the Quality Places Group of the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH). “The winners could be anything from an office block, house or commercial building, a school or leisure centre, a civic building, social housing, public open space or a new park,” says Paul Grover. “What is important is that they show design at its best – adding real value to the place in which they sit.” The judging panel is just being finalised and will include top professionals from the built environment sector. There will be a number of winners which display that special something, including an overall winner, an award for the most sustainable scheme, and a special award for the project which achieves the best impact – which will be chosen by a poll of the community. As Paul Grover says: “New buildings and places can cause a great deal of controversy; sometimes it may be the design, or lack of it, which causes concern. We want to find the buildings and places, whose design is so good, that it really creates a sense of place to their surrounding area.”
