Stirling, Lubetkin and Singapore

There is always something nice about confounding expectations, and presumably a few lucky punters cleaned up when Astley Castle, unexpectedly, won the Stirling Prize. It is, by all accounts, a superb project and in a sense relatively democratic, since anybody who wants to stay there can rent it - if, of course, they can afford it, which seems to be pretty much our government's definition of democratic.

What Astley Castle does not have is an obvious social agenda. It was not a way for the judges to make, as they have been accused of doing before, a political point about the importance of public funding.Neither this, nor Niall McLaughlin's chapel, which was the bookies' favourite, is in any sense a social project. Which is fine - this is a prize for architecture, not for social impact. Astley Castle does, however, address the romantic feelings that the British have about old, and particularly ruined, buildings, while doing so in an innovative manner.

Witherford Watson Mann, the architect for Astley Castle,  was on the shortlist for Stirling for the first time. A lot of its work is strongly about place - for example, it developed the idea of the Bankside Forest, a kind of virtual - but not entirely - forest around Tate Modern, the former Bankside power station. This sense of place-making is visible most strongly in Gardens by the Bay, the project by Wilkinson Eyre and Grant Associates that has won the Lubetkin Prize, the equivalent to Stirling for projects beyond Europe.One of the many extraordinary things about this project, which is actually the creation of a new piece of city land, is that, with the exception of the greenhouses themselves, it is free to visit.

Last year it won first prize at the World Architecture Festival set, appropriately enough, in Singapore. This year's festival is in Singapore again, starting on Wednesday. I will be heading there, revisiting the wonderful Gardens by the Bay and, with luck, seeing a little more of a place that is fascinating, both loveable and loathable in equal measure, and doubtless with lessons for the UK, but ones that are very difficult to translate because of the difference in size, governance and climate.

Is today architecture day?

It seems as if occasionally there is a day when all the news is about architecture. Of course it helps that today is the day that the Stirling Prize shortlist was announced. It was interesting that the radio news focused on Park Hill being on the shortlist, in a 'from loathed to loved' kind of way. Always frustrating though when they focus on one story to the exclusion of the rest.

There were also people talking about Nimbyism and a group fighting to preserve a view of London simply because Canaletto once saw it.

And, on the BBC website, its light-hearted piece about dealing with the heatwave veered away from the now standard 'keep cool by keeping your pillow in the fridge' to a list of 10 ways we aren't prepared. Point one is 'The design of modern flats' with reference to the RIBA's campaign about small flats (no room for a fridge big enough to have spare pillow space, then) and Ellis Woodman of Building Design talking about the problem with single-aspect flats that don't allow cross ventilation. In fact the whole story is pretty construction related, bemoaning the lack of air conditioning, swimming pools, outdoor seating and water fountains.

For one day at least there seems to be an acknowledgement of the importance of the built environment. If this is architecture day, wouldn't it be good to extend to a week, a month or, whisper it, a year - to the realisation that the places we build and inhabit have a profound influence on the quality and even the quantity of our lives.

But rumour has it there is a royal baby due and that will knock everything else off the news agenda. Enjoy architecture in the media while you can.

Congratulations - again - to Cambridge

What an interesting choice the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge, designed by Stanton Williams, was as winner of the Stirling Prize. It was a kind of stealth winner. While the Olympic Stadium was heralded as the popular choice (the choice of the Populous?), architectural pundits mostly argued that the winner would be Chipperfield (again) for the Hepworth in Wakefield, or O'Donnell and Tuomey for the Lyric Theatre in Belfast.
Rory Olcayto wrote in the AJ about Mark Jones' hints about front runners, 'Jones can’t mean Stanton Williams’ Sainsbury Lab, even if it sends a message that architecture can affirm the strength of British scientific research. This argument is wrong-headed. Scientific talent is not so much drawn to smooth render and York stone paving as it is to the best equipment and the best scientific minds. CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider and where staff accommodation is bog standard, is proof. And at five grand a square metre, the architectural achievement at Cambridge looks less convincing.'
The argument about scientists putting up with rubbish accommodation is exactly the one that Lord Sainsbury was trying to lay to rest - and there is an argument that the great surroundings will also attract the best brains. Journalists after all also love their jobs and are prepared to put up with bad environments - but does that mean they should?
Another reason that this seems like a 'stealth choice' is that this is not the Stanton Williams building that has received great popular attention - that distinction has gone to its new home for Central Saint Martins in King's Cross.
One factor that has received little notice is that this is the second building in a particular quarter of Cambridge to win the Stirling Prize. The first was the very different Accordia housing development which took the award in 2008. Both these are away from the magnet of the historic colleges, but both house the brainpower that defines the best work of the university - one as living accommodation and the other as a working environment. One can't imagine that Lord Sainsbury would have made this donation to an institution that was struggling in the research assessment stakes.
Brains obviously draw money and with it the ability for good design to flourish. This government doesn't seem to set much store by learning and positively wants to keep foreign brain power out. The  Stirling judges evidently did not choose a building that was on message for a political agenda, since other choices would have made a stronger point. But there may still be a lesson here.