Evening Standard New Homes Awards winners 2016: thoughtful design for flexible spaces and city living scoop top prizes

Winner of Best London Home by a large-scale developer: Apartments at The Star and Garter, Richmond Hill TW10, by London Square
Richmond is blessed with a unique setting. Bounded by the Thames and a 2,500-acre country park, it has a river promenade and a superb view from Richmond Hill, a vista that is the only one in England protected by an Act of Parliament.

The Star and Garter is a show-stopper, occupying a spectacular elevated position amid terraced gardens and grounds overlooking the Thames and Petersham Meadows.

Formerly a convalescent home for First World War soldiers, the listed building dates back to 1916, when it replaced a famous hotel used by royalty, artists and writers, including Charles Dickens, who celebrated the publication of David Copperfield there in 1851.

A meticulous restoration and conversion into 86 grand apartments will see the handsome marbled hall — complete with precious stained-glass windows and sweeping staircase —become the entrance lobby, while the restored King’s Room will be a spa. Prices from £1.75 million.

BEST OUT-OF-LONDON HOME
Winner of Best Out-of-London Home by a small-scale developer: Alderbrook House, Weybridge, Surrey by Newcourt Residential
Surrey’s golden triangle, the affluent area formed by Oxshott, Weybridge and Esher and once called the stockbroker belt, is becoming “Kensington in the country”, with a new generation of luxury homes boasting all the creature comforts for buyers who cannot stretch to Knightsbridge prices.

They want modern, if traditional-looking homes in quiet roads away from railway lines and flight paths, but close enough to amenities such as golf and tennis clubs — just like Alderbrook House, in fact. Priced £3.75 million.

Winner of Best Out-of-London Home by a large-scale developer: Ninewells, Cambridge by Hill Residential
The 45-minute commute to London, combined with excellent schools and a cosmopolitan cultural scene, makes Cambridge a popular choice for young families looking to move out of the capital. This development of Scandi-style homes on the city’s southern fringe includes detached eco-houses with pitched roofs overlooking fields and ponds. Prices from £965,000.

BEST CONVERSION
Winner of Best Conversion by a small-scale developer: Artisan, Goodge Street, Fitzrovia W1 Dukelease Properties
Grand Prix winner as well as being voted best conversion.

Winner of Best Conversion by a large-scale developer: King Edward VII Estate, Midhurst, West Sussex, by City & Country
Historic country house conversions continue to cast a spell over home buyers. King Edward VII Estate, near Midhurst in West Sussex, lies within the South Downs National Park. Built in 1901 as a sanatorium, it has since been hailed an Arts and Crafts masterpiece and includes a Grade II*-listed chapel turned into a café and shop for residents. The original reading room and dining hall are being reinstated, and 162 homes created.

Listed “therapeutic gardens”, originally planted by renowned horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll, link with the buildings and the wider landscape. And there are more than four miles of “new” walks through the estate’s mature oak woodland and heathland. Prices from £195,000 to £1.25 million.

BEST REGENERATION PROJECT
Joint winner: Portobello Square, North Kensington W10, by Catalyst Homes
This alluringly named new address bordering fashionable Notting Hill reinvents a “lost” neighbourhood with the creation of up to 1,000 private and public homes and reinstatement of the area’s original Victorian street pattern.

For more than 40 years this lively patch has been known as Wornington Green. Regeneration of a 14-acre council estate is yielding the opportunity for change, with all existing residents guaranteed a new rented home.

Townhouses cost £2 million and apartments are priced from £635,000, and construction will continue until 2030.

The focal point is a new garden square, open to Portobello Road. The area has been winning new fans since fashion designer Stella McCartney set up her atelier in a former chapel, heralding the neighbourhood’s “arrival”. Young professionals have moved into Trellick Tower, the brutalist love-it-or-loathe-it listed concrete high-rise block that looms over the area, and gentrification is continuing, with shabby-chic stores and greasy spoons giving way to more refined boutiques and bistros.

Joint winner: Stockwell Park Walk, Stockwell SW9 by Network Housing
Post-war council estates are an endangered species, unloved by today’s politicians and town planners who can’t wait to bulldoze them in favour of shiny new neighbourhoods offering a mix of tenures. Stockwell Park council estate lies next to a coveted conservation area and is being given a complete makeover.

Greening-up work involves fresh landscaping, along with upgraded play areas and a “graffiti pen” for young residents, as well as new community spaces where disused garages once stood.
A new 20-storey high-rise block with 75 private flats has a splendid communal roof garden.

ECO-LIVING AWARD
Winner: Cobalt Place, Battersea Village SW11 by Lend Lease
Blue is the new green. Homes at Cobalt Place, Battersea, are among the most energy-efficient in London, due to an advanced form of timber construction that cuts the amount of energy needed to heat the building by 40 per cent, while improving air quality and reducing noise pollution.

The stand-out architecture of these wooden homes creates a real feel-good factor. The flats and houses have an outer layer of warm brick, while exposed timber ceilings are the only hint of the inner leaf. Prices from £390,000.

BEST DEVELOPMENT IN the AFFORDABLE HOMES SECTOR
Winner: Lime Walk, Brook Avenue, Wembley HA9, by Network Housing
Part of the new well-connected district being built around Wembley Stadium, this block of affordable shared-ownership flats has prices starting at £96,250 for 35 per cent.

BEST SMALL DEVELOPMENT
Winner: Cozens Place, Haringey N8 by Unit One Architects
Three new mews houses have been sensitively slotted into a backland site that was derelict for decades. Clad in warm brick, the light-filled homes provide a sense of sanctuary in a bustling inner-city district.

BEST LARGE DEVELOPMENT
Winner: Goodman’s Fields, Aldgate E1 by Berkeley Homes
Aldgate, on the City’s eastern edge, used to be a dead zone after working hours but close proximity to a prosperous banking community has helped to seed regeneration.

Before 2008, seven-acre Goodman’s Fields was a gated compound occupied by Royal Bank of Scotland. Now it is a new “urban quarter”, where sleek, glass-clad towers blend with low-rise blocks.

Architect Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands says the design is inspired by San Gimignano in Italy, the Tuscan hilltop town of towers. The scheme brings a fresh dimension and scale to the City fringe, with a hotel and shops, bars and restaurants plus public spaces and artworks as well as 1,057 new homes.

HOME OR DEVELOPMENT  OF OUTSTANDING ARCHITECTURAL MERIT
Winner: Riverlight, Nine Elms Lane, Battersea SW8, by St James
One commentator called this “a ballerina among a herd of buffalo”, referring to the glut of new towers in the Nine Elms district wrapping around Battersea Power Station.

Built on a five-acre waterfront site, Riverlight has six slender “pavilions” of up to 20 storeys, each with an external glass lift, a trademark of architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. With 752 homes in all, the buildings have vibrant-coloured, steel cross-supports and angled ends, like the prow of a ship, allowing for generous-size balconies, while the elegant architecture picks up on the movement of the Thames and the changing skies.