A 'Modest Masterpiece' of Public Housing Wins Top Design Prize

Britain’s best new building is a public housing project, according to a major award announced yesterday. Goldsmith Street, a 105-home development completed by architects Mikhail Riches in the city of Norwich, has just received the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Stirling Prize, after being described by judges as “a modest masterpiece.” Although it’s the first time that public housing has won Britain’s most prestigious architectural award, the project’s success makes perfect sense.

That’s not just because affordable housing in general has been the subject of intense discussion and some public recognition in Britain recently, with the public housing architect Neave Brown receiving RIBA’s Royal Gold Medal for lifetime achievement shortly before his death in 2018, and the regeneration of a rundown Liverpool neighborhood becoming the unlikely winner of fine art’s Turner Prize. It’s also because Goldsmith Street’s attractive townhouses, built by Norwich City Council, could—in their matching of affordability with extreme energy efficiency—provide a standard model for developments all across Britain. Indeed, RIBA President Alan Jones called the development not just “a pioneering exemplar for other local [governments] to follow,” but also a “beacon of hope.”