Green: Residential area in Norwich
- Jakob Schoof
The quest for high quality occasionally requires patience. In 2008, architects David Mikhail and Annalie Riches, together with Cathy Hawley, won the international competition for 105 new social housing units on Goldsmith Street in Norwich. After a planning freeze and after the city had to step in as developer for the originally commissioned housing construction company, Britain's largest certified passive house residential complex has now been completed. In autumn 2019, it was the first social housing ever to be awarded the country's highest architectural distinction, the Stirling Prize from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Just weeks before, Goldsmith Street had already been the first recipient of RIBA's newly established Neave Brown Award for Housing.
