Mikhail Riches's Goldsmith Street was the most significant building of 2019
Our 21st-Century Architecture: 25 Years 25 Buildings pick for 2019 is Goldsmith Street in Norwich, designed by architecture studio Mikhail Riches with Cathy Hawley.
In the competition's 27-year history, there has never been a more popular Stirling Prize winner than Goldsmith Street, a development of 105 council homes delivered for Norwich City Council.
Designed by London studio Mikhail Riches and architect Hawley, it is the only social-housing scheme ever to win the coveted annual award, given to the UK's best new building.
The Stirling jury called the project a "modest masterpiece" and "high-quality architecture in its purest, most environmentally and socially conscious form".
News about the decision reverberated around the built-environment world, and architects in particular rejoiced.
"It might not look groundbreaking, but this little neighbourhood represents something quietly miraculous," wrote The Guardian's architecture critic Oliver Wainwright.
The Daily Telegraph's Ellis Woodman called it "a triumph for radical ordinariness".
Goldsmith Street doesn't, thankfully, reinvent the housing wheel, and it doesn't need toPiers Taylor in Dezeen
Goldsmith Street, and its spectacular Stirling Prize win, was a significant moment on multiple levels that reverberated beyond the UK.
Firstly, as a contemporary realisation of the terraced street, high in density but low in height, with space for pedestrians and gardens prioritised over car parking, it set a new standard for housing design.
UCLA-based architecture theorist Dana Cuff called it "a clear demonstration that design ingenuity is the key to achieving great affordable housing".
"The project is ingenious particularly in terms of the site plan, which is the starting point and most important aspect of housing," she told Dezeen for this piece.
It represented a remarkable departure from the majority of housing currently built in many parts of the world: sparse, characterless units delivered by large corporations.
Mikhail Riches and Hawley's design was selected by the council because they were the only architects to propose a streets-based approach rather than slabs of apartment blocks.
Using the example of a nearby neighbourhood of desirable Victorian terraces, the architects were able to persuade planners to agree to a street width of 14 metres, rather than the 21 metres usually mandated.
These narrower streets made it possible to achieve the housing density required, while also sacrificing less space to cars.
"Not only is the scheme a delight by anyone's standards, it also offers a roadmap for precisely the type of housing the UK needs huge amounts of," architect Piers Taylor wrote in Dezeen. "Goldsmith Street doesn't, thankfully, reinvent the housing wheel, and it doesn't need to."
In addition, Mikhail Riches and Hawley were widely praised for their commitment to the details. For instance, carefully arranged stairs mean that even upstairs flats have a front door that opens onto the street.
Meanwhile, the rooftops are angled to avoid blocking of sunlight to adjacent terraces all year round. Other touches include perforated brick balconies and bronze screens hiding bin stores.
Any residential project of such quality would be a significant achievement, but as social housing built to provide secure tenancies to people on low incomes, Goldsmith Street is extremely rare.
This little neighbourhood represents something quietly miraculousOliver Wainwright in The Guardian
Social housing has only been delivered in relatively tiny numbers in England for more than a decade. But with its emergence, Goldsmith Street helped reignite the international conversation about the value of the tenure, and became a bellwether for a growing architecture movement committed to building excellent, low-cost homes for public good.
It also demonstrated what can occur when architects are placed in the driving seat. Unusually for a project of this type, Mikhail Riches and Hawley worked directly with the council as client, rather than through a contractor under a design-and-build setup.
This approach – a brave one by Norwich council, which was delivering its first housing in decades and had struggled to get the project moving during the financial crisis – gave the architects far more agency to negotiate on matters such as street width.
In another brave move, the council tasked the architects with meeting Passivhaus standards – a very high bar of thermal efficiency that means buildings require only minimal energy to heat and cool.
Energy bills are therefore 70 per cent cheaper than the average UK household, and residents have spoken about the profound effect of such warm, affordable homes on their lives. Some reported clearing debts, reduced need for medication and no longer having to use food banks.
By achieving these standards without compromising on aesthetics, Goldsmith Street helped to change perceptions about Passivhaus buildings.
"In the architecture world, Passivhaus is a byword for clunky boxes with fat rendered walls and tiny windows, representing a kind of socks-and-sandals, ironed hair-shirt approach to design," the Guardian's Wainwright wrote. "But Goldsmith Street shows that it doesn't have to be so grim."
Overall, it was a Stirling winner that simultaneously demonstrated the power of architecture, the potential of social housing, the possibilities of residential design and the practicality of low-energy building.
"Goldsmith Street shows architecture can advance sustainability, affordability and liveability all while making a sophisticated formal solution," summarised Cuff.
Commentators, including Wainwright and Taylor, were especially pleased after the previous year's prize had gone to Foster + Partners' £1.3 billion London headquarters for Bloomberg, which made controversial claims about being the world's most sustainable building despite using large amounts of material shipped from around the world.
"The whole country breathed a sigh of relief that the prize didn't go to an 'iconic' piece of architecture in a time where more than anything we don't need more iconic buildings," said Taylor.
Interest in the project was so great that the council became worried about the impact of intrigued rubberneckers on local residents.
Despite the universal praise, Goldsmith Street has so far not precipitated a flood of similar projects – much to the disappointment of Mikhail Riches co-founder Annalie Riches.
"Actually it was quite a low-cost project, it wasn't expensive," she told Dezeen in an interview last year. "And I thought, 'well, now everyone's going to be doing this – we've shown it can be done'. But it's not that easy."
Its status as social housing also remains vulnerable to the Right to Buy, a controversial policy that allows council tenants to purchase their homes at a discount.
The housing and climate crises continue to worsen, but Goldsmith Street remains a ray of hope, a cherished morsel of evidence that we can do better.
Did we get it right? Was Goldsmith Street the most significant building completed in 2019? Let us know in the comments. We will be running a poll once all 25 buildings are revealed to determine the most significant building of the 21st century so far.
This article is part of Dezeen's 21st Century Architecture: 25 Years 25 Buildings series, which looks at the most significant architecture of the 21st century so far. For the series, we have selected the most influential building from each of the first 25 years of the century.
The illustration is by Jack Bedford and the photography is by Tim Crocker unless otherwise stated.
21st Century Architecture: 25 Years 25 Buildings
2000: Tate Modern by Herzog & de Meuron
2001: Gando Primary School by Diébédo Francis Kéré
2002: Bergisel Ski Jump by Zaha Hadid
2003: Walt Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry
2004: Quinta Monroy by Elemental
2005: Moriyama House by Ryue Nishizawa
2006: Madrid-Barajas airport by RSHP and Estudio Lamela
2007: Oslo Opera House by Snøhetta
2008: Museum of Islamic Art by IM Pei
2009: Murray Grove by Waugh Thistleton Architects
2010: Burj Khalifa by SOM
2011: National September 11 Memorial by Handel Architects
2012: CCTV Headquarters by OMA
2013: Cardboard Cathedral by Shigeru Ban
2014: Bosco Verticale by Stefano Boeri
2015: UTEC Lima campus by Grafton Architects
2016: Transformation of 530 Dwellings by Lacaton & Vassal, Frédéric Druot and Christophe Hutin
2017: Apple Park by Foster + Partners
2018: Amager Bakke by BIG
2019: Goldsmith Street by Mikhail Riches and Cathy Hawley
This list will be updated as the series progresses.
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