School Wins Big Architecture Prize
It’s not very often you want to rush up and stroke a school, but it’s hard to resist fondling the sharply chamfered concrete facade of Burntwood school in south London, winner of this year’s Riba Stirling prize for the UK’s best building. A 1950s timewarp in the best possible sense, the $60 million comprehensive girls’ school recalls the values of another, more generous era. With light-flooded classrooms set in a park-like campus, it harks back to the days when schools were full of fresh air and optimism, their buildings invested with the power to uplift.
