The wraps have been taken off the decisions of the Panel of Judges for Argyll’s Sustainable Design Forum’s inaugural 2009 Awards. At the same time, we are announcing the winners of each category decided by the online public vote – the For Argyll People’s Choice Awards.

There’s a lot we want to share on the experience but let’s first cut to the chase – because you will if we don’t.

The main event – the 2009 Sustainable Design Awards – the Judges Decisions

The Judging Panel considered 11 shortlisted entries, applying a range of criteria including best practice, good design principles, context and sustainability.

The big story is that they have made only one award. We have been given some access to the reasons for this and will discuss them below.

The Winner

The Sustainable Design Awards 2009, New-build Non-residential category: St Moluag’s Heritage Museum, Lismore, whose architect was Shauna Cameron.

Commendations

The Judges have made Commendations in two other categories. They are:

Small-scale residential:

Judges Commendation: Alt-an Duin, Kilmory, Achnamara

Judges Commendation: Tir Nan Og, Mull of Oa, Islay

Large-scale Non-Residential

Judges Commendation: Portavadie Marina

The People’s Choice – the For Argyll Awards

For Argyll has been the Sustainable Design Forum’s media partner for these awards. We are awarding Certificates to the winners of the online public vote.

Three categories were open to public voting. The fourth was not – the Conservation category- for the simple reason that there was only one finalist so there was nothing to vote on.

The winners of the open categories were:

The For Argyll People’s Choice Award Small-scale Residential: Alt an Duin – Kilimory, Achnamara

The For Argyll People’s Choice Award Large-scale Residential: Silverhills Cottages, Rosneath

The For Argyll People’s Choice Award New-build Non-Residential: St Moluag’s Heritage Museum, Lismore

While Silverhills Cottages at Rosneath was disqualified from the Judges deliberations because its completion date fell before the time window that determined eligibility, For Argyll is awarding it the People’s Choice Award for large-scale residential design because the pubic voted for it in good faith and it was their winner.

For Argyll Special Award

We have decided to make our own special For Argyll Award to the design for Portavadie Marina.

There was a huge amount of traffic for the article we published on the architect’s approach to this brief. The article was picked up by other websites which linked to it, drawing even more traffic. The responses were interested and positive.

The design itself is imaginative, flexible and functional. It creates excitement. It is fit for purpose. It takes full advantage of its location. It has built-in scalability. It has taken work-flows and people-flows into account. It has the capacity to regenerate the economy of an area that needs and will reward such development. It says, in an appropriate location, that Argyll’s built environment can reflect the 21st century.

We were also energised by the architect’s total commitment to the job, his excitement about it’s potential, his intention to remain involved with it and to contribute to its evolution.

About the Awards

For Argyll has been the Forum’s media partner in this first awards series, drawing attention both to the importance of sustainability in the design of buildings to live, work in and visit; and to the principles of design itself.

We have had no involvement in the process of the judging of the awards but are awarding certificates to the winners of the online public vote. We also reserve the possibility of making our own special award – which this year we have done.

In any first event, everyone involved – from the Forum, the Planning Department, the finalists, the architects, the public and ourselves will have identified tweaks they feel would make the operation of the 2010 Awards even better.

We will be reporting to our partner on our own insights and making suggestions on developments we know you would welcome – from the evidence of traffic for the various features we published.

The experience has been an imaginative and challenging one, with some real successes to its credit.

• It has found, developed and informed an audience for sustainability in design, indeed for sustainability and design.
• It has provided knowledge on aspects of sustainability for anyone involved in siting, building and using a building to consider.
• It has provided inside information on the design process concerned from the architects of three of the public buildings that were finalists in the ‘New-build Non-residential’ category.

The Judges’ deliberations

The winner

The single outright award winner – Lismore’s St Moluag’s Heritage Museum  – came through because of the extent of its sustainability and the extent of community ‘ownership’ of the building.

Large-scale Residential category

Here, the Judges were forced to disqualify one finalist – the Silverhills Cottages development at Rosneath – on a technicality. It was completed earlier than the date window for the competition allowed.

The judges had issues with finalists in this category:

• with building standards
• with disabled access
• with the use of Marley roof tiles in some cases – these are not responsive to damp conditions
• with high, visually intimidating fencing.

For these reasons, the Judges decided neither to make a award nor an commendation in the case of either of the two remaining finalists here.

The Conservation Category

There was only one finalist in this category – Machriemore Mill at Southend in Kintyre. The judges decided that, while there had been care to use conservation materials in the work to bring back into good use this locally historic bur derelict building, the focus was more on conversion than conservation.

This implies no negative view of the sustainable design concerned but is simply a technical distinction which led the Judges to feel that they could not make an award in the category this year.

Summary of evidence from the public vote

Popularity of building categories

In order of popularity of the three voting categories, measured by the number of public votes each received, the significantly greatest was the interest in the public buildings, the New-build Non-residential category.

Next came the Small-scale Residential category, which can include small scale residential development of up to 5 units but, in 2009, saw all 4 finalists being single private houses.

The Cinderella, by a long way, was the Large-scale Residential category – the designs for housing association developments.

This is the one thing we would like you to change for next year.

The majority of people live in or start in housing association complexes. We believe strongly that this fact makes this the most important category of all. We need to know and to think more about their design, their usability, their running costs, the attention paid to adding thoughtfully to the quality of life of all residents in large scale developments.

For as long as we show little interest in this sector of the housing market, what we will get to live in will be endless repetitions of monopoly houses scattered on the landscape ot Stalinist blocks – both often with dubious building standards to boot. Spiritual and communal needs must be part of such schemes as well as basic physical and functional needs.

Voting patterns

It was also obvious that, in the public vote, the finalists with significant communities around them got the most votes. Some cracking designs suffered unduly from that – like the Portavadie Marina in the New-build Non-Residential category; and like Tir nan Og, on Islay’s Mull of Oa, in the Small-scale Residential category.

This is the other thing we’d like you to change next year. We paid equal and significant attention to all finalists and the Council website carried information on them all.

Supporting what one sees as ‘the home team’ is an important part of belonging to any community- and Argyll majors on the strength of ts communities. In this sort of initiative, though, we learn from considering information on buildings we don’t see close to hand. We might discover elements of design and sustainability we could import to what we build locally and Argyll would be the winner for it.

The Sustainable Design Forum’s summing up

The Argyll and Bute Sustainable Design Awards will be presented at Oban’s Corran Halls on 12th February.

Chair of the Argyll and Bute Sustainable Design Forum, Councillor Ron Simon, says: ‘These awards demonstrate our determination to ensure that Argyll and Bute sets the standards in terms of sustainable development.

‘I am pleased at the level of input, discussion and interest shown in these awards. We are fortunate to have so many organisations, communities and individuals who are committed to Argyll and Bute’s future as a sustainable and economically viable place in which to live and work.

‘I would like to pay tribute to the Judges who have committed so much of their time and expertise throughout the process, and I will look forward to further lively discussions with them at the Ceremony in February.

‘Thanks are also due to all who voted, and I would like to say a special thank you to all the Developers, Owners, Architects and Agents who entered and engaged so professionally and enthusiastically throughout. I am convinced that the future for Argyll and Bute is very bright indeed’.

The future

Opening up an initiative like this to the public, both to vote and to have access to a wide variety of information through involving For Argyll as a media partner was a new step for which the Sustainable Design Forum deserves great credit.

Our initial relationship was a nervous one. The Forum, with its Chair, Councillor Ron Simon and the Planning Development Officer, Paul Convery (the two key drives of the initiative), was – admirably -  interested in opening up the process to include the public and decided that For Argyll was an appropriate partner to do this.

We are interested in the field anyway and were delighted to be part of and supportive of the initiative.

Ron Simon and Paul Convery saw us as useful but potentially uncomfortable in-house revolutionaries. We are known – as  a matter of policy – for speaking our minds.

We were concerned at the possibility of getting snared round the ankles by bureaucracy and what is – to some degree inevitably – a culture of fearfulness in the Council.

The Sustainable Design Forum is itself outwith the Council. It is being given some shelter in the Council’s nest in its infancy but will fledge as soon as possible.

In the event, together we made the relationship work, tiptoeing our way through – to the very end – the anticipated and unanticipated minefields. We feel that it was a mutually constructive initiative and that, on the evidence, our involvement has been helpful.

Ron Simon and Paul Convery are free to say for themselves what sort of white knuckle ride we gave them – we felt we were careful navigators but drivers don’t always see it that way.

We would wish to put it on record that we have enjoyed working with them both, have appreciated the assistance they gave us in our side of the work to be done and look forward to perhaps a less nervous relationship next time.

Related Posts

• Argyll Sustainable Design Awards 2009 event (2)
• Living in Argyll: sustainable design (1)
• Sustainable Design Awards: the Conservation finalist (3)
• Design Awards Voting: Large Scale Residential finalists (2)
• Voting in Sustainable Design Awards closed (0)

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