28 June 2001 | Download this press release (Adobe PDF format, 78KB)
Ten building projects, including a park, two libraries, a pedestrian bridge and a road have been short-listed for the first ever Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award.
The Award will recognise excellence in the design and construction of publicly funded schemes, be they small community buildings, transport projects or major civic spaces.
The Prime Minister Tony Blair said today:
"I am delighted there have been so many high quality entries for the inaugural Prime Minister’s Award for Better Public Building. I am especially pleased that projects of all sizes and types are represented, from civil engineering schemes to major new public buildings, from hospitals and schools to libraries."
The short list is:
The Award has been sponsored by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) and the Office for Government Commerce (OGC). It is part of the British Construction Industry Awards and will be presented at a ceremony in London on 24 October.
Sir Stuart Lipton, Chairman of CABE and Chairman of the Judges of the British Construction Industry Awards, commented:
"The Prime Minister has put excellence in design and construction at the heart of this new Award. He has made it clear that high quality public building is about value for money throughout the life-time of the project and excellence in design, and not about choosing the lowest cost option at the outset. The Judges will be visiting the nine short-listed projects which, despite their differences in scale and purpose, all clearly demonstrate the aspirations set out by the Prime Minister in Better Public Buildings – namely that high quality design improves quality of life, is good for business and good for the environment."