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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Ayr Masterplan
February 2017
In collaboration with acclaimed international land artist Charles Jencks the masterplan for Ayr has been given planning consent. The project has been conceived as an urban square next to the River Ayr that will be used for festivals and events.
The scheme, focuses around a new glazed structure, that will open up a number of views blocked by post-war development and includes commercial, cultural, leisure, community, hotel and residential buildings. South Ayrshire Council has already committed to building a new council office for 350 of its staff as part of the scheme.
Ayr Renaissance began purchasing the mainly 20th century buildings on the site almost four years ago with funding from the council and the Scottish Government’s Regeneration Capital Grant Fund.
Demolition will begin immediately on the buildings within the plot, which falls inside the Ayr Central Conservation, following the approval for the masterplan by South Ayrshire Council last week.
Archaeologists will work alongside the demolition contractors in preparation for a six-month dig.
James Knox, chairman of Ayr Renaissance, said: ‘This decision marks a turning point in the fortunes of Ayr. Decades of blight will be swept away, opening up the river to the town’s people for the first time in generations. ‘Our masterplan offers a humane and beautiful solution to the transformation of this key site, which will act as a magnet for visitors, office workers and inhabitants alike. It marks a sea change in the economy of the town.’