Richard Murphy voted "Scottish Architect of the Year"

The Practice won four of the architecture awards announced at the Gala Dinner of the Scottish Design Awards 2006 at The Crowne Plaza Hotel, Glasgow on Friday 26 May 2006. The award ceremony organised jointly by the Drum and Prospect Magazines attracted over one thousand participants.

The practice won the "Best Housing Project" for our recently completed flats at Dean Bank Lane in Edinburgh for Kilmartin Homes, "Best Building for Public Use" for our Galeri arts project in Caernarfon, North Wales for Cwmni Tref Caernarfon. This project also won the main award of the evening "The Architecture Grand Prix" the first time the award has been given to a building outside Scotland.

In addition, Richard Murphy topped the "Prospect" readers’ poll as "Scottish Architect of the Year". The citation said "Richard Murphy has a long standing reputation as one of Edinburgh’s most skillful designers. His work has had a significant impact on a generation of architects, redefining the character of contemporary Scottish Design. In recent years he has extended his reach by winning a number of international commissions."

Richard said - "It was an amazing and totally unexpected night of triumph for the office as a whole and for our clients. With more and more projects both south of the border and internationally, it was particularly gratifying to be recognised on our home turf".

Thanks for all our supporters who voted for us.

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Meanwhile in Ireland an Award from the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland

Richard collected, together with Eamon McCarney of Taylor Architects of Castlebar, an award from the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland for their joint project for housing at Westport, County Mayo. The Award was collected at an Award Ceremony in Dublin. The judges’ remarks were "The architects have cleverly exploited an awkwardly shaped site to design a bold and exciting scheme, using two striking linear arrangements. The development achieves a high density of units, while providing bright and attractive living spaces.".

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Prince Edward opens the new British Embassy in Macedonia

Matt Bremner, the Project Architect for the New British Embassy in Skopje, attended the official opening by HRH Prince Edward of our new Embassy at which he was presented to the Macedonia President, Prime Minister and Members of the Diplomatic Core. An email to the office from the Ambassador's Wife described the informal opening and passed on one of the comments made at the ceremony - “It shows how imagination and vision can transform the mundane…”

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Meanwhile in Sri Lanka

Concrete has been poured for foundations and water pools in our new High Commission in Colombo.

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Three projects submitted for Planning Permission

School at Mosta, Malta

The design has been through a number of modifications and has now been submitted for Planning Permission. The size of the school has increased significantly, but the principle of streets of accommodation terraced on a sloping hillside under canvas canopies remains.

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Housing, Timmer Market, Aberdeen

In Aberdeen revised proposals for flats for Grampian Housing association and a drug rehabilitation centre for NHS Grampian has been resubmitted to Aberdeen City Council. Check out the web page for the revised design.

Housing, Westport, Republic of Ireland

In Westport our second project for Tom Joyce has been submitted for planning permission. This is for twelve interlocking masionettes in a backland area in the centre of the town. Check out the new web page.

Selection for two competitions

We are delighted to be part of the Saltire Care team to be selected for the shortlist of three for a new community hospital and GP centre in St Andrews. The main team members are Walker Developments, Ogilvie Construction with ourselves as the design architects together with Aedas Architects of Glasgow and Health Care Consultants, Healthcare Environments from South Yorkshire. This is our first venture into the world of private finance initiative and it was particularly gratifying to make it into the final shortlist on our first attempt. The project will be active in the office until the final presentation in October, after which we discover whether we achieve favoured bidder status.

We have also been selected for a competitve interview for an arts centre and library in Haddington for East Lothian Council.

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Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London

We are delighted that our model for “The Sean Connery Filmhouse” has been selected as part of the architecture room in the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Show in Piccadilly, London. The Exhibition runs from 12 June to 20 August and opening times are:-

Each day except Friday 10 am to 6 pm

Friday 10 am to 10 pm

Tickets prices start at £7 per person, concessions are available.

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Press

A report on Richard’s lecture in Malta in early April this year, developed into a major article in the Maltese fashion magazine, Modern Elegance - "In the midst of much debate on the quality of architecture in Malta...Murphy delighted one and all with a passionate presentation of his firm’s work..."

Our success in the Scottish Design Awards was reported in both the Scotsman and the Edinburgh Evening News.

The Scotsman said “Top awards for architect who changed the face of design“ and “Capital firm sweeps the board to gain major acolades”.

The title of the Evening News article was “City architect raises roof at design awards”. and goes on to say "A city architect has scooped four awards, including architect of the year at a prestigious national design awards ceremony."

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Lectures

Together with Mike Galloway of Dundee Council, Richard talked to a packed workshop at the recent RIAS Annual Convention held in Perth. The workshop examined the design of DCA and in particular its effect on the regeneration of the city and Mike Galloway was quoted as saying that it was the most effective arts led regeneration project in Scotland.

A lecture to the Lancaster and Westmorland Architectural Society in Kendal will be given by Richard on the evening of the 23 June and he will also give a Scarpa lecture to the Northern Architectural History Association in Newcastle on 17 October.

Richard has also received two invitations to talk about the work of Scarpa in Venice from the RIBA and the RIAI, who are both staging their annual conferences there, three weeks apart this autumn.

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RIBA Architecture Week

The Breakfast Mission is participating in the RIBA Architecture Week by opening our offices to the public on 17 June, between 11 am and 4 pm. Visitors will be able to see drawings, models, the model making workshop, animations and a film by Murray Grigor, as well as meet members of the Practice staff. Our colleagues, Whitby Bird Structural Engineers and Fulcrum Environmental Engineers will also be opening their offices in our building.

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Sad news from Shetland

In his current lectures around America on climate change Al Gore starts each address with the words "you win some, you lose some..and then there is that little known third category". Now we know how he feels! In a recent limited competition for a Music and Cinema Building in Lerwick in the Shetland Islands the panel gave our design the top mark. Sadly, it was also a fee competition and although we were placed first in the design of the building our team narrowly lost out in the overall marking; a bizarre outcome of the combined design/fee competition system. Check out the design for yourself on its new web page.

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