With the annual Stirling Prize award ceremony being held on Tuesday, 31st October we sat down with our chairman, Stephen Hodder to reflect on winning the inaugural Stirling Prize in 1996.
Hodder + Partners were chosen to design the Centenary Building at Salford University to make a flexible space that the brief described as, “a fusion of design and technology”.
To answer the brief, we designed a solution with flexible studio and seminar space, and three service towers, which are contained within a 4 storey orthogonal ‘bar’ of accommodation which defines the edge of the City block. Prescribed tutorial accommodation and technology suites, arranged in a free form 3 storey element, address the newly defined courtyard.
The Stirling Prize Jury stated, “Despite being built quickly and cheaply – the team had to be on site in just twelve weeks after appointment – the building is a dynamic, modern and sophisticated exercise in steel, glass and concrete. They have bowed out the main facade to create a wide studio and lecture theatre space with indirect daylighting; breaking the ‘internal street’ with galleries and bridges, and exposing rooms to this central space to give an air of purpose and animation”
To find out more about the Centenary Building read the full case study here, or download here.