Reiach & Hall and Aedas triumph at design awards

Reiach & Hall Architects has been named architectural practice of the year at the Roses Design Awards 2011, beating off competition from Aedas Architects, Collective Architecture and Austin-Smith Lord.

Aedas did go home with one of the evening’s most coveted prizes, the Architecture Grand Prix. The firm won for its work on the Darwen Aldridge Community Academy building, which took a gold award for Educational Building of the Year.

Reiach & Hall scooped a gold award in the Commercial/Offices Building or Project category, and won the Chairman’s Award for Architecture for its work on Bothy at Ettrick Valley, a refurbished weaver’s cottage which won gold in the Low Cost Project category.

The practice was twice nominated in the Health Building or Project category, winning a silver prize for New Stobhill Hospital Ward Extension, an RIBA award-winning project in Glasgow, and a bronze award for Glasgow Royal Infirmary’s Intensive Care Unit.

Its proposal for Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre in Lanarkshire was honoured with a gold award.

Engineering consultancy Buro Happold also picked up multiple awards, including a gold award for Engineering Design for Zaha Hadid’s Riverside Museum in Glasgow and a bronze award for Sustainable Design for the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.

Buro Happold delivered a range of engineering services for The Riverside Museum, which has a curved and pleated roof designed to take the weight of a steam train. The company also provided extensive support for the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, which took six years to complete and features more than 5,000 artefacts including original manuscripts written by the poet.

The academy in Darwen, Lancashire was previously short-listed for the RIBA North West Design Awards.

The Regeneration category saw victories for Fergus Purdie Architect’s Artist Studio, and Collective Architecture’s Linwood Regeneration, both of which took silver awards.