Best Public/Community Project

What do you get when you combine Foster and Partners, Arup Fire Engineering, Laing O’Rourke and Gateshead building control? The answer is the Sage Gateshead, an international music centre. To ensure that it complied with the Building Regulations, the team meetings started two years before the building went on site. And given that the centre is not only one of the top 10 acoustically excellent buildings in the world, but also an iconic structure – with a stainless steel curved roof that swoops over the complex – it would seem that they succeeded with room to spare.

Highly commended

Poynton Bradbury Wynter Cole: RNLI Lifeboat College and Survival Centre, Dorset

This splendid new RNLI Lifeboat College and Survival Centre in Poole, Dorset provides administrative and training facilities where crews can learn about sea rescue and survival.

The finalists

Arts Team: London Coliseum

The makeover of the London Coliseum was spectacular. The changes are too many and varied to list, but highlights include the reinstatement of the original glass barrel roof, the restoration of the terracotta facade and the tower with its culminating globe.

Calderdale council: Sowerybridge Wharf, Halifax, West Yorkshire

This scheme took two 18th-century listed canalside warehouses and transformed them into a vibrant, mixed-use project that includes offices, artists’ workshops and a restaurant.

Hopkins Architects: Evelina Children’s Hospital, central London

Breaking free of the traditional design of hospitals, Evelina Children’s Hospital truly represents a fresh approach to healthcare design. With its vast, sweeping glass facade and open-plan wards.

Sir Robert McAlpine: The Wales Millennium Centre

This Cardiff landmark was built using a unique building programme that allowed construction from the inside out. The key was to separate the acoustic and architectural enclosures, which meant that the frame could be built very quickly.