Coffey’s ‘buzzy’ later-living housing wins RIBA South East building of the year

Cobham Bowers, a ‘village life’-inspired housing scheme for developer Pegasus was one of the nine regional award winners announced last night (15 May).

Winners also included Tom Dowdall Architects, one of the eight finalists for the 2023 Manser Medal – AJ House of the Year Award. However, AHMM's mixed-used Magna Square scheme in Runnymede and Hollaway Studio’s Centenary Hall and Music School at Benenden School both missed out.

Selected from a 16-strong shortlist, other winners included Michael Kendrick Architects’ woodland Looking Glass Lodge, which was named Small Project of the Year, and Robin Lee Architecture’s revamp of a former Carnegie Library in Erith, south-east London, which received the region’s conservation award.

Harry Insall-Reid of Fletcher Crane Architects’ work on a new family villa bordering Richmond Park earned him the title of RIBA South East Project Architect of the Year.

Client of the Year went to Meloy Architecture and Design's sustainable Mile House in Arundel.

Last year, Hollaway Studio’s £17 million F51 skatepark in Folkestone was named best new building in the region but, along with other regional champions, missed out at the nationals stage.

Source:Rory Gardiner

Eavesdrop, Sussex, by Tom Dowdall Architects

Jonathan Stern, regional representative for RIBA South East, said: ‘That this year’s winners come from such a broad range of scales and uses demonstrates that exceptional architecture is truly alive and well in the South East. These projects represent the very best of the region’s thoughtful architects and engaged clients.’

He added: ‘Truly communal spaces at the bathing pools built into Guernsey’s rocky coast and Erith’s repurposed Carnegie Library on the south bank of the Thames, reinvigorate their communities with their own unique stories unfolding inside, while Cobham’s cleverly contextual and communal later-living counterpoints in scale this year’s smallest project: a wonderfully detailed floating forest lodge [by Michael Kendrick Architects].

‘Individual homes, each unique and personal, provide sweeping roofs, exquisitely crafted interiors, and an exceptional passivhaus.’

The winners are now in the running for a RIBA National Award, the results of which will be announced on 11 July.

The shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize for the best building of the year will then be drawn from the national award-winning projects with the overall winner announced in October.

Source:Peter Landers

The Bathing Pool entrance, St Peter Port, Guernsey, by DLM Architects

RIBA South East Awards 2024 winners

• Cobham Bowers by Coffey Architects – ‘A buzzy housing community in Surrey designed specifically for later living’

• Eavesdrop by Tom Dowdall Architects – ‘A NPPF Paragraph 80, single-storey country house that has been designed as a retirement home in a rural context’

• Kingston Villa by Fletcher Crane Architects – ‘A new family villa bordering Richmond Park, replacing a dilapidated bungalow' 

• Looking Glass Lodge by Michael Kendrick Architects – ‘A unique woodland retreat and holiday let, set discreetly within a natural clearing’

• The Bathing Pools by DLM Architects – ‘The redevelopment of the much-loved but dilapidated facilities at La Valette Bathing Pools in Guernsey’

• The Exchange by Robin Lee Architecture – ‘An abandoned former Carnegie Library brought back to life as a community centre’

• The Hall by TaylorHare Architects – ‘A Grade II*-listed 16th-century residence reinstated as an elegant family property’  

• The Mile House by Meloy Architecture and Design – ‘A sustainable home, built to Passivhaus standards, in West Sussex’

• West Meadow by Hollaway Studio – ‘An immensely sustainable home with a sensitivity to the local vernacular’

Source:Phil Coffey

Cobham Bowers, Cobham, Surrey, by Coffey Architects