Ortus, Denmark Hill

Ortus, Denmark Hill
Duggan Morris Architects for Maudsley charity
Contract £4.65m. GIA 1,500m²

This came in the top four of the London regional heat – and you’ve seen the competition. Rational, beautiful, a bit Danish in feel in Denmark Hill – this is the Maudsley Hospital charity’s mental health education and events centre, next to the Institute of Psychiatry. For once it is not design-build but procured, without overspend, through construction management. It has an appropriate sense of lofty gravitas and tremendous internal spaces, particularly the generous stair with informal lecture area at its base. A pure and lovely building.