New city campus for Ulster University named Northern Ireland Building of the Year
10 May 2024
At the RSUA Design Awards last night, we were utterly delighted to leave with five awards for the new Ulster University Belfast Campus, including the top prize of the night, the Northern Ireland RIBA Building of the Year and the RSUA Liam McCormick Building of the Year.
Keith Bradley, Founding Partner, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios said “The New Campus for Ulster University Belfast brings the University right into the centre of the Northern Quarter, inviting the city’s street life in and the life of the University back out to the city . This bold decision by the University has created a catalyst for urban neighbourhood renewal. Inside, it is home to six faculties within a cluster of interlocking buildings. Akin to a three dimensional city in itself, providing a forum for learning, research, and socialising - a collaborative mixing of people and their ideas. It is fantastic to have this contribution to the City of Belfast and its Education and Research outreach, recognised by the RSUA and RIBA Awards Judges.”
The new city centre campus, which moved 16,000 students and staff from the 1970s Jordanstown campus on the outskirts of the city into the heart of the Cathedral Quarter was also recognised with a RIBA Regional Award, RSUA Living Spaces (Placemaking), and a RSUA Award.
The RIBA Judges said in their citation “The new Ulster University campus is located on the northern edge of Belfast city centre. The project is highly significant on two counts. Firstly, in the university’s bold decision to relocate its Jordanstown campus from a 1970s complex on the city’s outskirts to a new scheme within Belfast’s core, bringing with it people and energy – something the contemporary city centre craves. The other is how the complex, expansive brief has been accommodated on a challenging, irregular site through the architects’ intelligence and skill.
The mass of the overall building is carefully tailored to respond to its more domestic neighbours, while stepping up to create city scaled moments at key junctions. Inside, the necessary accommodation is grouped around a series of light-flooded atria.”
Also last night, Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings collected five RIBA West Midlands awards including West Midlands Building of the Year.