Best housing-led regeneration project

The Staiths South Bank project is all about providing affordable, high-quality housing units with a contemporary design to first-time buyers, young families and key workers on Tyneside. The big hurdle that IDPartnership faced when the project was conceived was getting the site reallocated for housing use. With this done, it didn’t look back. Wayne and Geraldine Hemingway were brought on board to design a pedestrian- and child-friendly environment and construction got under way. Phase one of the development, which consists of 151 houses and flats grouped around communal garden areas, is almost complete and largely occupied. When finished, the development will comprise about 750 homes – and the contemporary design and high-quality finish means none of them are likely to stay unoccupied for long …

Fashion guru couple the Hemingways helped design the Staiths South Bank housing scheme

Runners-up

When Harding Homes bought the Charles Brown hardware store, an important historic building in Colchester, it set an area-wide regeneration in motion. Not only did the firm transform this dilapidated building into three homes, it also built 17 one- and two-bed flats for key workers on the adjacent brownfield site and converted the site’s old mill into 40 luxury flats – the first apartments in Colchester to boast their own concierge and gym.

Imperial Wharf – St George

Imperial Wharf, on the site of a former gasworks next to Chelsea Harbour, is quite simply a mammoth development. St George’s £300m, 32-acre mixed-use scheme incorporates 1665 two- and three-bedroom homes, 50% of which are affordable, as well as a 10-acre public park, 385 m of river walkway, a hotel and space for retail, office, community and leisure use. St George has also contributed £1.75m towards a new rail station in the area, making this a development that is definitely going places.

Point West – Papa Architects

Not many architects would take on the refurbishment of a derelict, fire-damaged 1960s Middlesex tower block. And not many architects would have the stamina to take on the council after being refused planning permission to turn it into residential accommodation for homeless people. But Papa Architects did. It is thanks to this firm’s courage and vision that 140 homeless people now have a roof over their heads. There can’t be a much greater reward than knowing that. Port Marine, Bristol – Crest Nicholson

In 1999 Port Marine in Portishead was notable only as the site of two disused power stations. Today it houses 920 dwellings. In 2015 it will consist of 2500 homes, a 600-berth marina, two schools and a centre with retail and offices plus health and leisure facilities. Just getting started required a massive investment – new sea defences had to be put in place and decontamination and remediation works undertaken before the first bricks could be laid.

Roundshaw Neighbourhood Renewal – Broadway Malyan

The Roundshaw Estate in Wallington, Surrey, was a classic piece of 1960s architecture that stood out like a sore thumb among the leafy suburbs of Wallington – until Broadway Malyan came along. Appointed by the estate’s development partnership, the architect not only masterplanned the new estate, it also undertook all the associated architectural, town planning and landscape design services.