LUKE Hughes and Company is celebrating their contribution to the Sainsbury Botanic Institute in Cambridge, the surprise winner of the 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize over other impressive and high-profile shortlist entries including the Olympic Stadium. The win was announced on 13th October.
Designed by architectural firm Stanton Williams, and formally opened by the Queen on 27 April 2011, the building is a multi-award-winning plant science research centre set in the Botanic Garden of Cambridge University. The design reconciles complex scientific requirements with the need for a building which also responds to its landscape and provides a collegiate, stimulating environment for research and collaboration.
Lord Sainsbury, the man who founded the Gatsby Charitable Foundation who funded the £69million project, set the bar very high for the building. Everything in it and everyone employed in it should be of the highest standard, and this was carried out to the letter.
Luke Hughes and Company was appointed by and worked closely with the architects to design and develop the bespoke designs for all the furniture in the building. The project has been a perfect example of one of the tenets of Luke Hughes’ design philosophy:
“In any quality building, the connection between the architecture and the furniture should be seamless.”
Other notable buildings that Luke Hughes and Company have been involved with include the Supreme Courts inLondon and Edinburgh, and Unilever’s International HQ in London.
The Sainsbury Laboratory was chosen over many other high-profile buildings on the shortlist, such as The Olympic Stadium, the Rothschild Bank in the City of London by architect practice OMA and the Hepworth Gallery by David Chipperfield Architects, which was the bookies’ favourite to win.
ENDS
For further enquiries, please contact Martin Hunt on 0131 661 5212 or at martin@tartansilk.co.uk
Notes to Editors
About Luke Hughes and Company
Luke Hughes and Company has been based in Covent Garden, Londonsince 1981, longer than Thomas Chippendale in the 18th century. It was one of the first furniture design consultants and makers to embrace sustainable values and practices, with core values of understanding space, reflecting the building’s architecture and creating furniture that lasts.
Over the last 25 years Luke Hughes and Company has designed furniture for more than 50 Oxbridge colleges, 20 institutional libraries, 20 major public schools, 17 cathedrals, 81 churches, seven national museums, six royal palaces, 900 corporate boardrooms and 42 luxury spas.
For more information please visit: http://www.lukehughes.co.uk
About RIBA Stirling Prize
The Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize is a British prize for excellence in architecture. The Stirling Prize is awarded to the architects of the project built or designed inBritain”which has made the greatest contribution to the evolution of architecture in the past year.”
For more information please visit http://ribastirlingprize.architecture.com
About Sainsbury Botanical Institute
Please see images below for examples of building and bespoke furniture within.
For more information please visit: http://www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/
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Contact: Joe Main
Phone: 0131 661 5212
Email: joe@tartansilk.co.uk
Website: http://www.tartansilk.co.uk/
