explores the six buildings shortlisted for the 2021 riba stirling prize and reveals which was crowned the winner at an awards ceremony hosted in coventry cathedral back in october. there is a phrase that has become rather familiar or so over last year or so — build back better. it is a idea that says if you're going to build something to fix today's problems, be really careful that you are not going to create tomorrow's disasters, and that is why we have come to this place — a british mosque in cambridge — one of six buildings nominated for this year's stirling prize. this is a little moment to sit back and admire beauty, a chance to look round the six nominated buildings for this year's riba stirling prize. at the end, we'll find out who has won the prize for britain's best new building. but this is about more than just beauty — it is about solutions to problems, such as how can we continue to build without destroying the environment? how can we future—proof construction? and the most fundamental question of all — why build in the first place? a question that takes us to our first nominated building. kingston university in london wanted a new library and a place for its dance studios, but the town house is more than that. it's a way of creating openness, collaboration, togetherness and pride. 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, it 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 normally seeing as an afterthought for universities. dance and performing arts isn't really seen as a career path. kingston, like many new universities, grew out of a hodgepodge of buildings in different locations, few of them with much wow factor. the town house is meant to be a statement, a public face. it has given the university, for the first time, a front door. it is open to the public. these staircases, they are social spaces leading up to the whispering gallery. the library has been mixed in with the dance studios across there. everything servicing a central overriding thought — bringing people together. there is, like, a little bar and cafe there... it is such an open and bright space. there are so many more studios, meaning the whole curriculum has changed, our timetable, we can have so many more classes going on at the same time. it's lots of space. it's really uplifting when you come in, there's lots of natural light and everyone has a smile on their face when they come in the building. it is very exciting. and after a year of learning by zoom, it has made everyone cherish a key part of the university experience. so, the last year or so, dance using zoom — did it work? ha! well, we proved that it is possible! it was an experience! but being back here, i'm guessing, a bit better? 100%! i think everyone can attest that it's — dance is meant to be — it is a social — dance, you know, it is a social art form and i think it is meant to be in the space — life, bumping into people, connecting with people, having conversations like this. and now onto our next building and like here, the mosque is all about fitting into the local environment. but this time, it's not the residential neighbourhood but somewhere which is really, really beautiful and the key issue is don't spoil the view. the brief for this building was to create a world—class building in which to house the internationally significant boat collection. it needed to be a building that could accommodate large—scale boats that was exciting for the public to want to visit but also, importantly, because it sat within one of our great national parks, the lake district national park, it had to enhance the landscape that was within. sustainability has been really central to the concept of the building. we have systems such as the lake—source heat pump that heats the whole museum, underpinning the energy strategy. we have selected, where possible, local material so that the travel from source to site as is short as possible. the building actually has a zero waste strategy. so actually, all of - the domestic wastewater is treated on site and it's filtered through - the landscape and reed beds so that it can then be - discharged back into the lake as clean water. the site is just amazing. it reflects boatbuilding, it reflects conservation. some of the success of what the team has achieved here is a building that is simultaneously foreground and background. foreground's the visitor experience — it's a building, it's here. and yet, it's the background — it's the backdrop to a beautiful landscape setting. and immersing yourself in a fantastic collection. so, windermere, there, all about water, and our next building is equally elemental — a study in stone with all the attendant stresses, strains and personal trauma. was there a moment when you thought you'd wished you'd never started this? laughs. of course, yeah. somebody�*s decided to press a button, it could all be demolished. we are looking at an apartment building of eight flats and office space underneath for three offices and it is made of limestone — load—bearing limestone. limestone, correct. limestone — that's what this building is all about. rediscovering a way of building that doesn't involve the energy—hungry furnaces and kilns needed for steel, concrete and bricks. what's keeping this up — giant blocks of rock. the only energy required is cutting and moving them into place. it's a means of construction that has rather fallen out of fashion. sedimentary. sedimentary rock. and depending on how old it is, you will still find fossils within it and here you can see... this has come straight out of the ground, hasn't it? precisely, and this is an ammonite shell. and what we have found is you can still do it. it is actually cheaper, faster, far greener still to just simply put stone buildings up. so we found here that we save 92% of the embodied carbon had this been a steel—framed building or clad in stone. so very simplyjust cut the stone out of the body, transport and erect on site and that is it. so, essentially, you have created a very high—tech building that has the appearance of a ruin. i guess so, yes. and inside, its equally natural. so this is your flat we're coming into? exactly, yeah. yes, straight in. that is some view! got st paul's out there and we can see the stone. that is right. that is our limestone exos keleton. so the outside is all stone, inside, all european oak, timber. is that to make it carbon neutral, carbon—negative? exactly. so if you remove all the aluminium partitions, plasterboard lining... no paint? no plaster, no paint. so if you replace it all with timber frame and timber itself as the finish and then any wet areas, more stone. normal, minimalist, architect's kitchen here, isn't it? yes, that is right. we can even hide the oven if we don't want to look at it. 0r nice big larders, hiding the mess which is also a bit of a secret door, shortcut 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 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 it as an "alien blob" and the council wanted it demolished. the long legal battle to keep the wrecking ball away has been won, but it has left its scars. was there a moment when you thought you should have never started this? laughs. of course, yeah. sorry, you want me to elaborate, obviously. you have moments of doubt. obviously, it would have been far easier to do nothing, not attempt to investigate, experiment, innovate, as it were. this really could have been a pile of rubble. the legal team involved it wouldn't have done but as far as i can tell if we hadn't fought the appeal, why not. the demolition order would have had to be enacted by somebody even if it wasn't by us. and your feelings now? it is difficult because if you spend 2.5 years fighting, even after you've won, you're obviously relieved but that 2.5 years of stress structures you, in a way, doesn't it? so it is difficult. our next building is all about a topic which has been very much at the heart of life over the last 12 months or so — key workers. millions of us went out and did our applause on the doorsteps. but that doesn't put a roof over people's heads, does it? we created a place that has a real sense of community and where the residents can feel they belong to. i am kaori 0hsugi, a director at stanton williams. we were the architects of this key worker housing. it is ten buildings with 264 apartments. we focused on creating spaces between the buildings, a network of interconnecting courtyards in various character and size, responding to the social functions, starting from the public urban space of market square through to the much more community—focused landscape court. so the buildings are arranged to frame these spaces. the positioning and the kind of undercuts that we've introduced are intended to create moments of intimacy and a sense of discovery. this project is key worker housing for the university of cambridge's staff and researchers. eddington is a mixed—use development. we have accommodation, housing, retail, community centre, school, hotel. the university set out to establish and develop an extension to the city of cambridge, which gives an opportunity for all staff and students to live and come andjoin and be part of the success story of the university of cambridge. the development is one of the largest storm water recycling schemes within the world. all the water on the roof is stored and collected and then carried through into the attenuation point within the communal landscape court. to achieve the high demands for the daylight meant that the buildings become quite far apart and the building form quite simple. one of the challenges was really for us was to create a kind of intimacy and sense of place. eddington overall is a fabulous concept. i am always bowled over by the fact the university has undertaken this project. the units are well—spaced, well—thought—out, love the design, love the feel of it. it is actually quite a bit of a luxury to come here every day. when i visited a few months ago during the summer, i saw that people were actually inhabiting these spaces. there was a picnic happening in the landscape court, children's toys on the ground — there must have been a sense of security there and people really inhabiting the spaces. that was a main focus for this project, but also that's what gives this project the meaning. all of these buildings have a degree of drama about them, but one in particular is all about heritage, history and myth. and the issue is how do you build something and not spoil the magic? when we proposed it to english heritage, i never thought they'd accept. but sometimes, the crazy ideas are actually the best ideas. my name is william matthews and, along with laurent ney and matthieu mallie from ney & partners, we were the engineers and the designers of the tintagel castle footbridge. the footbridge reconnects the two sides of the medieval castle built in the 12th century by richard, earl of cornwall. the mainland ward and the island ward were connected by an isthmus of rock which has since eroded away and the bridge recreates that link between the two sides. one of the key drivers behind the project — indeed, it's very raison d'etre — was to improve accessibility to the site. one of the major problems at tintagel is this incredibly rocky landscape. we wanted to be able to get lots of people here who couldn't get here before. because there were so many steps up to the island, a lot of people couldn't because they had bad knees, they use wheelchairs — whatever it was. now we have essentially step—free access right from the car park all the way through onto the site, and it was so satisfying on the opening day to see literally a queue of wheelchair users from the local village queue up to be the first person to cross the bridge and onto the island — something that they might not have done for many, many years. in my mind, this was a textbook example of how you should design a major piece of engineering in a really sensitive heritage or archaeological site. you could look at all sorts of designs for bridges that would actually have to go through the archaeology on the surface of the island. the elegance of this solution was that it's anchored into the rock on either side below the sensitive archaeology. very, very clever. the materials that were used were important notjust structurally, but also how it tied into the landscape, its situation. for the bridge deck, we used delabor slate, which is mined from the quarry just two miles away. 40,000 hand—split and hand—cut slates have all laid on edge, like after eight mints. one word that sort of encapsulates the building, it's not a very architectural word, but it's — for me, it's �*fun�*, and it's the kind of project that you see so easily in the faces of users — the fun and the enjoyment they are getting from the project, and that's extremely gratifying. and now, ourfinal building, our mosque in cambridge. when i first walked in, i think, when you first enter up the stairs through the car park and you see these sweeping pillars — yeah, it's breathtaking, to be honest! the puzzle here was to try to create something that created a sense of awe, spirituality, but didn't dominate this cambridge street. so, set behind the greenery, the building slowly reveals itself as you walk towards it. the inspiration, a wooded grove. a garden of paradise. so, everything around us is wood, then? yes. a low carbon building, i'm guessing, then? absolutely. that was the central tenet — or one of the central tenets — of the design was that we should design something that was both environmentally sustainable but also socially sustainable. so the whole kind of... socially sustainable? yes, and so the involvement of the community was very important, too, that this building should sit comfortably in its community. so this was a competition in 2009 and members of the community — non—muslim members of the community — were invited to be part of the process of choosing the architect, so involved from very, very early stages. but this isn'tjust about sustainability. it's also a place designed to be welcoming to women. one of the things working here that you see is predominantly people who come throughout the day, other than to pray, are women and children. a poll was put out to ask women how much would you like there to be a separation, if any at all? so that is why when you see the barriers, there's different heights. so there's ones that sort of come from head to toe, one from waist level and then there's even a section where there's no — there's no barriers at all, so, in that sense, it's very unique, definitely. even when women come now, they often come to the office and they ask, "0h" — they look un— uncomfortable, like, unsettled. like, "where is the women's section?" because they are used to going round the back or going up some stairs. but, you know, just the fact that women can come through the main entrance, along with the men, and go to their section of the prayer hall, have their own, sort of, dedicated ablution facilities that are accommodated sort of with disabled toilets and baby—changing facilities — everything sort of thought out for both men and women. i think that is so liberating, as you said, just to come to a space that's open and accessible. the beauty of cambridge mosque, there for you. now, we have seen six buildings. there's one question left — who's won? we need to go to an awards ceremony. and so, to coventry cathedral, the uk's city of culture and the chair of this year's jury, one of the giants of global architecture, norman foster. we wanted everyone to be a winner but finally, after hours of agonised discussion, as a team, we concluded that the winner was about the future. it was about younger generations, first—generation students and, of course, that leads us to the town house by grafton architects. cheering and applause. music sting plays. 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? hmm—hm, hmm—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, no, absolutely. and i think everybody has to feel at home, no matter whether — what — 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 — it's like 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 kingston town house grafton architects, and talking to them, they said one measure of the building will be to look at how many chance encounters there are, how many conversations, how many smiles, how much laughter there was in the building, and a building that is a celebration of togetherness. it feels a fitting winner of this year's riba stirling building of the year. with that, thank you. hello. the unusually mild weather is set to stick with us as we see out the end of 2021. we had temperatures up to 16 degrees on thursday, about eight degrees above average, and for the next few days, it stays exceptionally mild and quite blustery, too. the winds coming in from the south or the south—west and drawing in the air right from the subtropics, from the canary isles right up towards the uk and actually across much of central europe as well. so, to start off your friday morning first thing on new year's eve, we've got temperatures already well in double figures, some places not falling below about 13 degrees. now, through the day, then, new year's eve this is, we're looking for a bit of rain around. it's going to clear out of northern ireland, into parts of central and southern scotland. also rain clearing away from the east coast. and actually much of england, wales and northern ireland should see a bit more sunshine than we've seen over recent days, so a drier, brighterfeel. temperatures up to about 15, i6, possibly i7 celsius. just a little bit cooler across the northern half of scotland, but there should be some sunshine here. now, we could well break some records. the warmest ever new year's eve was back ten years ago in 2011. colwyn bay got to 14.8 celsius, so we are set to see temperatures probably a degree or so higher than that. heading through new year's eve night now, if you've got plans, it's looking mostly dry, still very, very mild. could be some patchy rain across some northern and western areas as we see in the new year 2022. but new year's day once again looking very, very mild. we've got this very narrow band of showery rain which is going to cross its way slowly eastwards, followed by sunshine and showers for many areas. showers mainly towards the north—west, so quite a bit of dry weather for new year's day on saturday. and again, you've guessed it, exceptionally mild. 13—16 celsius for most of us on new year's day. then that very mild air that's been with us starts to gradually ease away towards the near continent. we've still got mild air with us certainly from a south—westerly direction, but temperatures probably starting to come down just a notch as we head through sunday and into the first week of 2022. so, sunday really is going to be a day of some sunshine, but also plenty of showers. you can see a rash of showers across the uk, and temperatures somewhere between about 10—13 degrees, still above average, but not the exceptionally mild weather of the next couple of days. looking ahead into next week, then, fairly unsettled, not quite as mild as it has been lately. bye for now. this is bbc news. i'm simon pusey. our top stories: a force of nature: wildfires rip through parts of colorado, destroying 500 homes, and forcing thousands to flee. we know that there are structures, both homes and businesses, that have been burned and lost. i'm speaking about hundreds of structures. diplomacy or deterrence: president biden�*s phone call to president putin, laying out the us position over ukraine. south africa says it has passed the peak of the 0micron—driven covid wave. we'll ask an epidemiologist if the rest of the world can be hopeful. 3, 2, i...happy new year! and last—minute checks and tests as the countdown to new year celebrations begins.

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