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International Competition success for Newcastle Architects at Grand Designs LIVE

NORTH EAST architecture practice Alston Murphy have been rewarded with third place in an international ideas competition organised by the National Custom & Self Build Association, fending off fierce competition from some of the UK’s best architectural firms.

Judges for the competition included the former chair of NaCSBA, Ted Stevens and TV presenter Kevin McCloud, renowned for the Channel 4 hit series Grand Designs, as well as other highly regarded figures from the construction industry.

The submission from Alston Murphy, with cost advice from Newcastle based Todd Milburn Partnership, was driven by the idea of keeping costs as low as possible by encouraging people to do as much work as possible themselves, when building the homes. This allowed the 28 houses on the site to be built for an average of just £57,000. This figure was some £10,000 less than any other shortlisted scheme and nearly £20,000 less than the brief required; an aspect that really impressed the judges.

The awards were announced on Thursday, the opening day of Grand Designs LIVE Birmingham which took place at the NEC over weekend. Ted Stevens, Judge and co-host of the awards spoke with high regard of Alston Murphy’s proposal describing it as “a really lovely scheme. It’s such a simple design creating an effective space to live in.” He continued that “The construction of pre-made panels is ideal for self build and the end result costs only £57k per house!”

Alston Murphy architects James Peat and Ollie Currie made the journey down to the NEC for the awards and James Peat commented on their idea “being recognised as it is so simple in principle. It minimises costs through maximising the self builders input. These great spaces would be very straightforward to build and inexpensive”.

It is this approach to the competition that formed their concept for SAU Haus – Simple, Affordable and Unique. Not only are the houses easy and cheap to build but they also are cost effective to run due to high levels of insulation and even include a green roof, where flowers can grow and butterflies or other insects live.

Speaking after the awards Ollie Currie said that “Having fended off big names in the architecture world, such as Sarah Wigglesworth, we are absolutely delighted to have had our submission noticed by the judges and finish in the top three of an international competition.”

The pair also spoke to numerous interested parties afterwards and Currie continued “hopefully some of the 50,000 visitors that passed through the doors of the show at the NEC will be interested, and you never know, maybe we could become the North’s premier self build architecture practice!”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ollie Currie @33Architecture .