Thelife- A Cambridge University library has been awarded a prestigious prize as Britain's best new building.
- Magdalene College's new library has been designed to last for 400 years.
A library at Cambridge University designed to last for 400 years has been named as Britain's best new building.
Magdalene College in Cambridge won the 2022 RIBA Stirling Prize for its new library which "contrasts openness with intimacy and deftly achieves the architects' vision for a structure that gradually rises up towards the light," RIBA said.
The award is one of the most prestigious in UK architecture. Previous winners included Bloomberg's London offices in 2018 and 30 St Mary Axe – better known as "The Gherkin" – in 2004.
The building, designed by Níall McLaughlin Architects, will provide students at the 600-year-old college with a library that is open around the clock. It replaces the "cramped" study spaces from the 17th century Grade I-listed Pepys Library.
It carries a redbrick exterior design, leading into an interior awash with high ceilings, covering the timber-framed structure in light.
It has been designed to blend open learning spaces with more narrow sections for quiet study, bookshelves and staircases. There are also several reading rooms and group study spaces for students at the college.
"The overarching commitment to build something that will stand the test of time can be felt in every material and detail, and from every viewpoint," said the RIBA president Simon Allford, chair of the Stirling prize jury. "This is the epitome of how to build for the long-term."
He added: "Well-designed environments hugely improve student success and wellbeing. They should be the rule for all students and teachers in all places of learning, not the exception."
Níall McLaughlin told The Guardian that the library was a work of "many hands and many minds".
"The college created the possibility for success in the way that they initiated and managed the project. The appointment of designers, consultants, builders and craftsmen was treated with care. Throughout the development process, our team was supported and robustly questioned in our decisions," the architect said.
McLaughlin won after being shortlisted for the award three times, most recently for a lecture theatre at Worcester College at the University of Oxford in 2018.
Magdalene College, one of 31 colleges forming Cambridge University, was founded in 1542 by Lord Audley. The riverside site was initially built in 1428 as a hostel for Benedictine student-monks.