Stirling work

If you're the betting type, the hot tip for this year's winner of the architectural Oscars is a simple, glowing box of a building wrapped in polycarbonate sheeting and set in deepest Deptford.

The Laban Centre is a newly built school for contemporary dance, created by Tate Modern's architectural practice, Herzog & de Meuron. It has attracted the eye of bookmaker William Hill, opening as favourite for this year's RIBA Stirling Prize with odds of 2-1.

According to Graham Sharpe, who set this year's Stirling Prize prices for William Hill: "The prices are based on the buzz that a building generates, combined with assessing how we think the judges might respond and, of course, how the public might bet. It's a very inexact science."

The Laban Centre, the world's largest school for contemporary dance, a quiet and understated building that takes its name from modern dance pioneer Rudolf Laban.

Its shed-like exterior betrays little of the elegant interior: a large wood-lined theatre space at its heart, surrounded by dance studios, a café ¡nd administrative offices.

The building incorporates a glorious use of colour masterminded by artist Michael Craig-Martin and includes a vast wall painting that wraps the outside of the auditorium, as well as glowing magenta, blues and greens of the exterior walls.

"Of course, winning would be fantastic," says architect Michael Casey of Herzog & de Meuron. "But the prize would have to be in honour of the school's principal, Dr Marion North, who had the vision, along with all those others, including Michael Craig-Martin, who collaborated on the project."

However, for those interested in past form, it is worth noting that the past two winning projects - the Magna Centre in Rotherham and Gateshead Millennium Bridge both, remarkably, by architect Wilkinson Eyre - started out as second favourites.

So, if the pattern continues, wagers might be placed with the epic Great Cour t at the British Museum, designed by Foster & Partners, and the venue for the Stirling Prize ceremony a couple of years ago, or perhaps the world-class eco housing and workplace development called BedZED in Sutton, Surrey, and designed by Bill Dunster Architects.

This sustainable community includes features such as solar panels combined with water recycling and ultra-energyefficient boilers, and was constructed using steel reclaimed from Brighton railway station.

Among the first to move in to BedZED was architectural designer Lincoln Miles, who has a three-bedroom home with "sky garden". "I first came to look at the place out of professional curiosity, but was so impressed I had to move in," says Miles. "The ability to build a new comismunity and make eco-living cool is no mean feat."

Both the Great Court and BedZED projects started out on William Hill's books at 3-1.

Of the remaining trio, in fourth place (starting at 4-1) is the mysteriously beautiful Plymouth Theatre Royal Production Centre: a collection of monumental blocks with "knitted" metal jackets set in a Zen-like boulder garden, by Ian Ritchie Architects.