This year the award no one wants to win goes to an office development in London鈥檚 Victoria
An office and residential building in London鈥檚 Victoria has been haned this year鈥檚 Carbuncle Cup.
Nova Victoria, which occupies a whole city block in the area, consists of two office buildings designed by PLP Architecture and a residential building designed by Benson & Forsyth. The award goes to PLP Architecture for the office buildings.
The competition, run by 黑洞社区鈥檚 sister title BD, was launched in 2006 and is awarded to the 鈥渦gliest building in the UK completed in the last 12 months鈥�.
The winner was selected by a panel of judges including BD editor Thomas Lane, Twentieth Century Society director Catherine Croft, Urbed director and chair of the Academy of Urbanism David Rudlin, who won the Wolfson Economics Prize in 2014, and BD assistant editor Elizabeth Hopkirk. Readers鈥� comments were also considered during the judging process.
The development is bordered by Victoria Street, Bressenden Place and Buckingham Palace Road and consists of two office blocks running across 480,000sq ft called Nova North, at 12 storeys high, and sister building, the 16-storey Nova South.
The scheme, which was built by Mace, has been developed by Landsec with the firm describing the two blocks as 鈥� two distinct, architecturally daring buildings within the Nova scheme. Together, they create a new landmark business address in London鈥�.
But the judges said the building as 鈥漜rass鈥�, 鈥漮ver-scaled鈥� and 鈥漚 hideous mess鈥�.
Croft added: 鈥淣ova should have been good, as it鈥檚 a prestige site. It makes me want to cringe physically. It鈥檚 a crass assault on all your senses from the moment you leave the Tube station.鈥�
And Rudlin said triangular building forms were inefficient and that he was concerned about the zig-zagging fins which are applied across a large amount of the two office buildings. He added: 鈥淭here鈥檚 no variety and you can鈥檛 read the floors.鈥�
He said the red cathedral like spire on Nova South was a particular cause for concern, adding: 鈥淚t鈥檚 got the same proportions as Salisbury Cathedral. For me the spire gives it carbuncular status 鈥� otherwise it鈥檚 just a bad building.鈥�
BD editor Thomas Lane said 鈥淭he architect appears to have been inspired by the fractured, angular shapes beloved of stararchitects like Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind and applied these to a run-of-the-mill spec office development.
鈥漈he result is two large blocks sliced and diced to create to create a series of angular volumes drunkenly leaning on each other. These volumes are clad with a medley of oversized vertical fins that zig zag up the fa莽ade to give each elevation a headache-inducing moir茅 pattern when viewed from the side.鈥�
Previous winners of architecture鈥檚 wooden spoon have included Media City at Salford by a number of architects including Wilkinson Eyre and Chapman Taylor, Grimshaw鈥檚 Cutty Sark renovation and Rafael Vinoly鈥檚 Walkie Talkie building.
Carbuncle Cup 2017 shortlist
Pity poor Victoria. Rebuilt in the 1960鈥檚 after WWII bombing, the area is now being extensively redeveloped by Land Securities but sadly not for the better. The latest offering is Nova Victoria, a 897,000ft虏 mixed-use development occupying a whole city block. The architect, PLP has attempted to break up the monolithic nature of these scheme by expressing it as a pair of sliced and chamfered towers and jazzing it up with several bright red prows presumably to give it that 鈥榣andmark鈥� quality. Instead several readers questioned how it got planning.
The residents of Preston took to Twitter in droves to denounce Preston Railway Station鈥檚 new entrance which replaced a 1980鈥檚 building that mimicked the station鈥檚 Victorian style.
Operator Virgin Trains said it was a 鈥渃ontrasting structure to create a more modern and passenger friendly environment鈥�. The residents of Preston clearly preferred the former entrance variously describing the new building as an 鈥渆yesore鈥�, 鈥渉ideous鈥�, 鈥渁 joke鈥� and 鈥減lanning gone mad鈥�.
Nominator Steve Webberley described it as a 鈥渄eadening cake tin slapped on its side鈥�. He said: 鈥淭his fractured geometric lean-to would seem out of date 10 years ago. It isn鈥檛 even that well-planned inside. The relationship with the window line of the brick station is laughable. We鈥檝e come a long way from Brunel. A very long way鈥︹��
Greetham Street Student Halls looks like it was inspired by a Carbuncle Cup nominee from 2015, a student hall in Southampton called City Gateway. It was nicknamed the 鈥榝ag butt鈥� by unimpressed locals for a centrepiece tan and beige coloured circular tower. Like City Gateway Greetham Street Student Halls features a tower with two tone cladding and the same discordant jumble of multi-coloured rectilinear blocks at the base.
The nominator, Kieran Clarke said, 鈥業t seems that the building鈥檚 architects were either colour blind when choosing the external cladding or wanted to blind others with the bright yellow cube at the top of their tower.鈥�
This home has been refurbished and enlarged with a procession of extensions. The design and access statement accompanying the planning application describes these as 鈥榮ubservient and understated with a crisp modern aesthetic distinct from the historic house鈥�.
The nominator Robert Smith disagreed, describing the extension as a 鈥楲ego brick鈥�. He said, 鈥業 am aware that planning guidelines today are to keep a clear boundary between new and old structures, but the architect has made no attempt to unify the house and now most people assume this family home to be a medical centre.鈥�
Circus West pulls off the feat of making Europe鈥檚 largest brick building look small and was a very popular nomination with the BD readership. Comments included, 鈥楢 great case of gross over development - it鈥檚 disgusting!鈥�, and 鈥楴ow we鈥檙e talking鈥�. might as well stop the rest of the nominations being listed. We have a winner right here.鈥�
Many of our readers also pointed out the blame for this building should be shared with Rafael Vinoly who was responsible for the masterplan. Unfortunately this scale of overdevelopment has been forced on the power station because of a series of bad deals made by a series of owners needing to recoup their investments.
This dowdy beige 1950s government building to hotel conversion has been jazzed up presumably to draw in the punters.
The lower lower storeys are swathed in tiles whose pattern would cause havoc on a TV screen, and whose colours manage to be both gaudy and drab at the same time.
To draw attention to the entrance, the architects lifted the cornice at one corner and wrapped a weird screen around it. It looks like the skin has been peeled from someone鈥檚 torso, exposing a spaghetti of blood vessels and veins beneath.
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