The Stephen Lawrence Prize - architeria.eu

SACKLER CROSSING WINS THE STEPHEN LAWRENCE PRIZE


The Sackler Crossing by John Pawson has won the 2008 Stephen Lawrence Prize

The Stephen Lawrence Prize is sponsored by the Marco Goldschmied Foundation. It commemorates
the teenager who was just setting out on the road to becoming an architect when he was murdered in 1993.
It rewards the best examples of projects with a construction budget of less than £1,000,000. In addition
to the £5,000 prize money, Marco Goldschmied puts up an additional £5000 to fund the Stephen Lawrence
Scholarship at the Architectural Association.

The Stephen Lawrence Prize was set up in 1998 to draw attention to the Stephen Lawrence Trust to assist
young black students to study architecture and to reward smaller projects and the creativity required
when architects are working with low budgets. The 2008 award was judged by architect Marco Goldschmied
and RIBA Honorary Fellow Doreen Lawrence OBE.

Marco Goldschmied, founder of the Marco Goldschmied Foundation said:

“Every so often a project is executed which is so at ease with itself that it seems to have an aura of
inevitability about it. The Sackler crossing is one such. It is difficult to imagine this secluded corner of Kew
Gardens ever having been without it any more than it is possible to imagine them without the Palm House.

The crossing, which establishes a much-needed new route across the gardens, blends effortlessly into its
surroundings. It is a masterly conjuring trick playfully deceiving the eye with light and water as its props.
It one of those rare designs where less truly is more: a worthy winner of the 2008 Stephen Lawrence
Award from a very strong shortlist.”

The other buildings shortlisted for the award were:

East Beach Café by Heatherwick Studio
Classroom of the Future by Gollifer Langston Architects
Cremorne Riverside Centre by Sarah Wigglesworth Architects
Glass & Timber Houses by Hampson Williams


The Sackler Crossing

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey
Practice: John Pawson
Client: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Structural engineer: Buro Happold
Services engineer: Atelier 10
Quantity surveyor: Jackson Coles
Access consultant: BRCS (Building Control) Contractor: Balfour Beatty Civic Engineering
Contract Value: £949,000
Date of completion: January 2006

Every so often a project is executed which is so at ease with itself that it seems to have an aura of
inevitability about it. The Sackler Crossing is one such. It is difficult to imagine this secluded corner of Kew
Gardens ever having been without it, any more than it is possible to imagine the gardens without the Palm
House. As with other recent commissions, the Sackler Crossing further enriches the remarkable 200-year
long dynasty of eccentric, innovative, experimental designs at Kew.

This is a beautiful sculptural piece which plots a serpentine path across the water, with the deck set at
the minimum possible distance from the lake’s surface, so that you feel as if you are walking on water.
It establishes a much-needed new route across the gardens, blends effortlessly into its surroundings.
It is a masterly conjuring trick playfully deceiving the eye with light and water as its props. The brilliant
solution for the balustrading, which ingeniously transcends the joyless constraints of today’s Health
and Safety regulations, transforms the inherent solidity of its bronze uprights into an evanescent,
reed-like, vision. Close up the transparency becomes tactile, its shine bearing testament to
the daily caresses of thousands of hands.

The commission followed several attempts by others to produce an appropriate design solution. In spite
of there being no funds with which to execute the project due to the halving by Government of the Kew
Gardens budget, it is to the client’s immense credit of the client – who were deemed worthy in 2007
of being named Client of the Year by the RIBA - that they persisted in their search for design excellence.
Their efforts were rewarded both in terms of the legacy to the nation and in the remarkable fact that
the design itself was the catalyst for its own execution, sparking the Sackler donation with which it
was eventually funded. Capability Brown, who created the context for the bridge, talked of a ‘sinuous
line of grace’. Seldom before has his ideal been so exquisitely realized. This is one of those rare designs
where less truly is more: a worthy winner of the 2008 Stephen Lawrence Prize from a very strong shortlist.


CREDITS:
Text: The Royal Institute of British Archiects