Winners of AJ Small Projects award 2023 announced

The winners of the AJ’s ‘best in low-cost design’ project awards were chosen for their Adelaide Street, Belfast scheme, which replaced a lane of vehicular traffic with a half-kilometre of urban garden and new public space.

Designed for incidental play and containing 140m² of new planting, it offers a resource for local residents with little previous access to outdoor playspace or gardens – and has unexpectedly created a new habitat for hawk moth caterpillars.

Judges said Adelaide Street was an example of people-centred placemaking and collaboration in what is still a stubbornly car-centric city, with the installing setting a 'blueprint' for similar schemes in Northern Ireland and beyond.

The panel was impressed that the team ‘gave back the road as a community asset while retaining the traffic’ and that the installation formed a part of the planned ‘reinhabitation’ of Belfast’s centre over the next 10 to 20 years.

Two sustainability prizes were awarded for the first time in AJ Small Projects’ 28-year-history. These were for the Boathouse by Ashworth Parkes Architects and Black Barn Studios by Charlie Luxton Design.

Both were determined as strong contenders for the lessons that can be learnt from environmentally sustainable design, including the importance of the data tracking it, as well as construction and materiality.

Bogor Musholla by CAUKIN studio took the People’s Choice award, winning nearly 40 per cent out of the votes received from AJ readers in an online poll.

The timber-framed structure, which serves as a prayer facility and community centre for Bogor in West Java, consists of one main space adjacent to a small, covered veranda and washrooms. Seismic activity in the Indonesian province was taken into consideration during the design process.

More than 170 entries were received from all around the country for this year’s awards, sponsored by Marley, which were whittled down to a shortlist of 20. They ranged from the boathouse to a bench, a prayer room to a workplace-cum-recording studio, and a rolling bridge to the winning urban garden and play structure.