Architect Zaha Hadid's Z-shaped school in Brixton, south London, has beaten the hot favourite, the Olympic velodrome, to win the 16th annual RIBA Stirling prize for architecture.
Victory for Evelyn Grace academy gives Hadid's practice a Stirling prize for the second year running, although it is the architect's first major building project in Britain. Last year her practice won for the Maxxi Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome.
"Schools are among the first examples of architecture that everyone experiences and have a profound impact on all children as they grow up," said Hadid. "I am delighted that the Evelyn Grace academy has been so well received by all its students and staff."
The prestigious £20,000 award, handed over by the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Architects' Journal and construction products manufacturer Benchmark at a ceremony in Rotherham, is intended to celebrate the best new European building "built or designed in Britain". It was expected to go to Michael Hopkins's eye-catching east London Olympic venue, popularly known as "the Pringle". But Hadid's school triumphed with its bold approach to solving a difficult problem: how to bring four schools together on a small site under one "academy" umbrella. Evelyn Grace had to be squeezed into 1.4 hectares, while the average secondary school takes up more like 8ha. The school is also situated in the area of the capital with the highest crime rate in western Europe.
Rather than building the sort of glass atrium that has been adopted by many new schools, Hadid's team opted to spend the money on better-lit classrooms and corridors with more space. But her design does have one remarkable, central feature: a bright-red 100m sprint track running right through the site. There is also a multiuse Astroturf pitch, while another quiet corner is home to a wildflower garden.
RIBA president Angela Brady, who chaired the judges, said: "The Evelyn Grace academy is an exceptional example of what can be achieved when we invest carefully in a well-designed new school building. The result – a highly imaginative, exciting academy that shows the students, staff and local residents that they are valued – is what every school should and could be."
The school is run by the Ark (Absolute Return for Kids) Academy organisation, a charity set up by Arpad "Arki" Busson, the hedge-fund multimillionaire.
The final shortlist of the six rival structures competing for this year's award included not just Hopkins's velodrome, but Rab Bennetts's careful remodelling of the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres in Stratford-on-Avon, an innovative cultural centre in Derry, the re-facing and transforming of a 1980s office building in north London, and the extension of the Folkwang Museum in Essen, Germany, by David Chipperfield Architects, who have also won the Stirling prize before. This was the first year previous entrants were eligible for consideration and all six shortlisted practices had been shortlisted before.
Full coverage of the prizegiving ceremony will be broadcast in a special edition of BBC2's Culture Show on Sunday.
