(Jul. 6) – Italian architect Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo has won a RIBA Award for Architectural Excellence for her design for a house in Sicily. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Awards have been running continuously since 1966 and set the standards for great architecture in the UK and all over the EU. Canizzo’s building is one of the 59 – 50 in the UK and 9 elsewhere in the EU – shortlisted for the award. The house – known also as FCN 2009 – is situated on the side of a hill, in a seismic area, this is a lesson in freshness of thinking, invention and in the inseparable nature of structure and architecture. An apparently solid plywood-clad box floats above the site, pitched so as to enjoy the horizon and the distant sea. It prises open by means of a movable guest-wing, mechanically operated, which slides away to reveal a terrace and a glass wall to the main house. The main fixed element of the house is constructed in prefabricated concrete. Among other winners: the London 2012 Olympic Stadium, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, the Campus for Central Saint Martins, Turner Contemporary, the Dune House and The Dyson Centre for Neonatal Care. (red)
