FAITH MUSEUM WINS AT BUILDING BEAUTY AWARDS
November 2024
Faith Museum for The Auckland Project named 'Britain's Most Beautiful New Building', picking up the Grand Winner and Building Award at the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust's Building Beauty Awards 2024. The awards were presented by His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester at a dinner in London on 21st November.
The Faith Museum is an extension to the Grade I listed Castle and is sited along the line of a medieval retaining wall of the original castle complex. It houses an exhibition of faith in Britain and an environmentally controlled art store.
The Royal Fine Art Commission Trust Building Beauty Awards were launched in 2021 and celebrate the best buildings, engineering structures and urban landscaping schemes that add beauty to Britain.
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An Oxford Outing
December 2017
Last month NMLA’s Balliol College team went on a celebratory excursion to Oxford to mark an important project milestone. We visited selected buildings by the office and by others, called at the site to observe demolition-in-progress, and finally hid from the rain for festive beverages.
All aboard the 9 o’clock train from London Marylebone. The sky is grey and the clouds are heavy.
One hour later, two taxis crawl up the hill to Ripon College. Ten excited people are deposited on its driveway.
We enter the chapel. Two people to pull the entrance door wide. Eyes up; iPhones out; pause to pose for photo.
Outside, driver’s thumbs drum-drumming against the steering wheel. Doors open; it’s time to go. Heart FM for the drive into town.
Students mill around Somerville College. Camouflaged amongst them we enter NMLA’s housing block. Up the stair tower, peeking into bedrooms and kitchens, we debate the merits of bathroom pods.
Herzog and de Meuron’s Blavatnik School of Government stands next to Somerville, glittering. Like magpies we are drawn through its doors.
On the roof terrace Oxford is laid out beneath us, dreaming spires etc., but next: lunch.
Heavier and happier, we walk to Worcester College’s Nazrin Shah Building. Heads pressed to the glass we stare greedily inside.
Later, eleven sets of PPE are donned and rainclouds assemble as we tour the site. Mud, glorious mud. Three years till ribbon-cutting.
The rain starts, the pub beckons. Cheers to Balliol!