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Oxley Park wins RIBA award

Posted: 13/10/2008

An innovative green housing scheme at Oxley Woods, Milton Keynes has won the Manser Medal for Houses and Housing, sponsored by The Rooflight Company. The announcement was made on Saturday 11 October at a special awards ceremony for the RIBA Stirling Prize. The winner was announced by Michael Manser CBE and a cheque for £5,000 presented by Val King of the Rooflight Company.

The Manser Medal is awarded for the best one-off house designed by an architect in the UK. All the RIBA Award-winning houses and housing schemes in the UK were considered for this year's Manser Medal and five were shortlisted.

Oxley Woods by architect Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is the fruit of John Prescott and Yvette Cooper's initiative to promote affordable, green designs for off-site construction. English Partnerships held competitions for the design and construction of prefabricated houses meeting demanding environmental standards.

According to the RIBA, the project represents a thorough going attempt at innovation within the all too risk averse conventional housebuilders' market. It achieves well designed and spacious seeming housing with excellent daylight. It points to one way forward in achieving high environmental standards in quality housebuilding. The scheme is therefore well deserving of an award for its through-going spirit of innovation and the élan of its design.

Speaking about the scheme, Valerie King of the Rooflight Company said:

"Positive feedback from residents of new housing is unprecedented. Equally unusual is the level of co-operation between architect, contractor and building product supplier to achieve sustainability and waste management targets. If the UK building industry is to provide anything like the 200,000 homes figure over the next ten years, radical changes in design and construction methods have to take place."

"Oxley Woods achieves something which should have happened sixty years ago. This is mass, factory produced housing, erected in three days, incorporating top technology, top energy performance, varied house designs, a choice of cladding materials and a wide variety of estate layouts. It is a radical, innovative and an outstanding step away from the traditional mud and mess of the domestic building site".

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