students and, of course, that leads us to the town house by grafton architects. cheering and applause kingston town house. a building with a purpose to make university life open, accessible, collaborative, social. receiving the award for grafton architects, gerard carty. and we have the winner with us now. gerard carty from grafton architects, congratulations. must be a good feeling. it s absolutely astonishing. we re really astounded. we re delighted that we ve won this prize, but particularly for the university, because this is something that s so important that we speak about what university education is about and. one of the extraordinary things about this is the client, as much as anything, isn t it? yeah. because they had this strange vision about inviting in the public, getting
the library and the dance studios together, trying to create a sort of social hub? hm hm, hm hm, exactly. they were looking for a showcase building and what that meant was not that it was a show off building but a building that revealed what was happening inside the building to the passers by, to the outside. do you think that this is about changing the way university education might be? because, i mean, a lot of the students, they are not from university backgrounds. right. their parents didn t go to university, they re often first generation. you know, it s quite inviting, isn t it? it is, absolutely. and i think everybody has to feel at home, no matter whether i suppose that s what struck us about the university is it s so culturally diverse and that we had to think about integrating so many people in many different ways so that they feel comfortable. so if it is a gender or if it s about race or if it s about culture or it s about religion, they all feel like they should belong,
kitchen here, isn t it? yes, that s right, we can even hide the oven if we don t want to look at it. or nice big larders, hiding the mess which is also a bit of a secret door - short cut to our bedroom. oh, it is a door. it is a doorway. come and follow me. wow. takes us past our bathroom. is this a bath? it is a nice big bath. the building is meant to evoke memories of an old stone built nunnery that once stood here, but it does stand out a bit when compared with its brick built neighbours. one member of the local preservation society described
the building to the passers by, to the outside. do you think that this is about changing the way university education might be? because, i mean, a lot of the students, they are not from university backgrounds. right. their parents didn t go to university, they re often first generation. you know, it s quite inviting, isn t it? it is, absolutely. and i think everybody has to feel at home, no matter whether i suppose that s what struck us about the university is it s so culturally diverse and that we had to think about integrating so many people in many different ways so that they feel comfortable. so if it is a gender or if it s about race or if it s about culture or it s about religion, they all feel like they should belong, so it s like a little world, really. it s like a complete little world, so you can find people who are like you who maybe speak to you in this building. gerard carty, thank you very much indeed. congratulations. the winner of this year s riba stirling prize is ki
wow. like, this is incredible. like, coming here and being, like, when i walk past with people that i ve worked from home, i mjust like, yeah, i go to uni there. they re like, that s where you study? and i m like, yeah! it s so cool. the first day i walked in here was actually very unique. i did not imagine this would be a university at all. it s polished, new, didn t give me the vibe of a traditional university that you see on tv shows. hearing that it s mostly dedicated to dance and performing arts amazing to hear about, because they are normally seen as an afterthought for universities. dance and performing arts isn t usually seen as a career path. kingston, like many new universities, grew out of a hodgepodge of buildings