FCBS’s Belfast uni campus named Northern Ireland’s Building of the Year

The Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA) has awarded the Liam McCormick Prize for Northern Ireland’s Building of the Year to the new 75,000m² Ulster University Belfast Campus, designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios with McAdam Design, Scott Tallon Walker and White Ink Architects.

The £364 million campus in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter also received the Living Places Award in recognition of developments which ‘excel in placemaking’.

The judges praised the project for how its ‘complex, expansive brief has been accommodated on a challenging, irregular site through the architects’ intelligence and skill’ and how the scheme, which is which is 14 storeys tall at its highest point, was ‘socially, economically, and culturally important to both Belfast itself and the very idea of “city”.’

Northern Ireland’s House of the Year was won by House on Redbrae Farm by McGonigle McGrath Architects – the practice has now taken that title for the third year running – with Alice Nickell named Project Architect of the Year for her work on the County Down project. Separately the studio also scooped a regional gong for its Longhurst scheme, a private house in south Belfast.

Hall Black Douglas Architects won two awards for conservation projects despite dominating the nine-strong shortlist with four schemes in the running. The first, a refurbishment of the long-abandoned St Comgall’s School in West Belfast into a multi-use community hub, also won Falls Community Council an award for Best Client.

Its second prize was for a £100 million project delivered with JCA Architects for the refurbishment of a burnt-out Primark building.

AJ Small Projects 2024 shortlistee Patrick Bradley Architect won both the Sustainability Award and Small Project Award for his shipping container home above the ruins of a 200-year-old farmstead near Maghera.

RSUA director Ciarán Fox said: ‘Belfast, as with many city centres, is facing multiple challenges with depopulation, working from home, online shopping and limited public investment.

‘It is bold projects like the new Ulster University Campus and the rebuilding of Bank Buildings that help bring life and energy to the city centre,’ adding that one was an ‘exceptional example of conservation’ and the other ‘an embodiment of the city’s future aspirations’.

He added: ‘I hope these two projects can act as an encouragement to our political, business and civic leaders to work even harder to create the conditions that allow architecture to flourish in Belfast and across Northern Ireland.’

The RSUA design awards dinner took place on Thursday night in The MAC Belfast. All entries for the RSUA awards were required to have been in use for at least one year so the judges could evaluate the sustainability and real-life performance of the projects.

The six winning projects are now in the running for a RIBA National Award. The shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize will then be drawn from the National Award-winning projects, with the winner announced in October.

RSUA Design Awards 2024 winners

• Bank Buildings, Belfast, by Hall Black Douglas Architects and JCA Architects
• Barney's Ruins, Maghera, by Patrick Bradley Architect
• House on Redbrae Farm, Ballynahinch, by McGonigle McGrath Architects
• Longhurst, Belfast, by McGonigle McGrath Architects
• St Comgall’s, Belfast, by Hall Black Douglas Architects
• Ulster University Belfast Campus, Belfast, by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios with McAdam Design, Scott Tallon Walker and White Ink Architects