The Working category concerned itself with a wide variety of schemes from office buildings and interiors to co-working hubs and affordable workspaces for making and manufacturing. It encompasses new build and adaptive reuse, with big budget offerings alongside low-cost ‘minnows’. The jurors said they could not ignore the pervasive pandemic lens’ but that pre-COVID good design features should provide resilience now. 

Themes emerged across the schemes including the use of diverse ranges of spaces and flexible floor plates, energy storage and low-energy features, user experience and wellbeing issues, unusual financial models of leasing, placemaking and use of materials, all expressed with a great concern for carbon impacts. 

Poplar Works
Andreas Ruby: ‘An amazing project. It’s not just beautifully made; what is really striking about this is the way in which it addresses an otherwise difficult site and makes it an exciting site. There’s a beauty of pragmatism in it that I find very poetic’. ‘It has potential in sparking other people’s imaginations as to how to use other sites that seem equally underwhelming’

Old Paradise Street

Benjamin Prosky: ‘Old Paradise Street has a lot of potential; the green cladding and the way it runs along the railway. I’d love to see how it actually turns out’

York House, Islington by dMFK Architects, de Metz Forbes Knight Architects

From office buildings and interiors to co-working hubs and affordable workspaces for making and manufacturing – new projects that create inspiring working environments.

160 Old Street, Islington by Orms

8 Union Square, Tower Hamlets by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Brunel Building, Westminster by Fletcher Priest

Central House, Tower Hamlets by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Elsley, Westminster by Burwell Architects

International House Brixton, Lambeth by 3Space

Jonathan Tuckey Design Architectural Studio, Hammersmith by Jonathan Tuckey Design

King’s Cross P2, Camden by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Old Paradise Street, Lambeth by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios

Plumtree Court, City of London by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Adamson Associates, Gensler, Perkins & Will, Adjaye Associates, AL_A, Citterio-Viel, UNStudio

Poplar Works, Tower Hamlets by Adams & Sutherland

Tailoring Academy, Haringey by Jan Kattein Architects

The Salvation Army Territorial Headquarters, Southwark by TateHindle

x+why, People's Mission Hall, Tower Hamlets by Squire & Partners

York House, Islington by dMFK Architects, de Metz Forbes Knight Architects