EDG Property double winners at ‘Oscars’ of property design

Birmingham-based EDG Property is celebrating after scooping two regional RIBA awards after the winners were announced at an event in the city last week.

Considered the ‘Oscars’ of property design with the internationally acclaimed Sterling Prize eventually given to a project that initially wins a regional award, the RIBA is presented to around 50 projects around the UK every year.

At the event last night a RIBA was awarded to the second phase of The School Yard in Harborne – designed by Jewellery Quarter-based Bryant Priest Newman Architects – while EDG Property was also awarded the prestigious Client of the Year award for the West Midlands region.

The School Yard – which was described by RIBA as “bold and well-detailed” – was one of just four projects that received the RIBA in the region this year from a shortlist that had included the redesigned New Street Station and the Assay Office although neither received an award.

EDG director Neil Edginton said: “Our aspiration at the beginning of this process was that we wanted to create an award winning building and we have not been let down by BPN who excited us at the very beginning with their ideas and have now delivered something of which we are all incredibly proud.

“The RIBA is about design but also about delivery and about detail so this is very much an award for the whole team including the construction team and the craftsmen who worked with the wood and the zinc to ensure that the final product was true to BNP’s original vision.

“The Client of the Year award is very much the icing on the cake for EDG and means a huge amount as it vindicates our view that developers have a role and indeed a responsibility to enable architects to do what they are good at and that is designing great buildings while working hard to ensure that a scheme works financially.”

The second phase of The School Yard saw the construction of 12 apartments and a townhouse in two blocks linked by an open staircase and clad in anthracite zinc and Siberian larch. The first phase of the scheme, which won RICS and Birmingham Civic Society awards, saw the creation of a vibrant social hub with new restaurants, coffee shop and food school on the site of an old Victoria school.

Jury chair Jonathan Hines, said: “Choosing the winners was really tough. The shortlisted schemes were so diverse but I think we’ve been able to select four well-crafted and skilfully executed buildings.”

Regional winners will be put forward for the RIBA National Awards, with the recipients announced in June. Those collecting national awards will then be considered for the 2016 RIBA Stirling Prize.