Zero to Hero winner: Sport climbing at Grant’s Quay Wharf by Alcove Architecture

It would be overstating it to say that the final adjudication was an Olympian (or Commonwealthian?) battle but agreeing on the finalists did, nevertheless, involve argument and persuasion. After the judges’ deliberations, gold was awarded to Julian Evans and Sian Briggs of Alcove Architecture for their entry which reimagined how the modern sport of climbing might be improved as a spectator experience.

As viewers of speed climbing may have witnessed in the Tokyo and Paris Olympics, there is a thrill in seeing humans spider-scuttle up a vertical wall as easily as you or I rush to the bus stop. Evans and Briggs have placed this relatively new sport in an urban setting, here situated in London with views across the Thames to the verticality of the Shard. 

‘You would turn off the street to it,’ said judge Claire Ironside, envisaging approaching the venue. ‘We are talking of atmosphere and here they are taking the excitement of the city into the design.'

In Alcove Architecture’s design, spectators watch the action from tall banks of terraces that rise across from the climbing walls, offering intensity and proximity to the action. The structure is formed of West Fraser’s SterlingOSB Zero, normally employed as a cladding material but here interlocked to form the stadium and set its parameters, creating what chair of the judges Jan-Carlos Kucharek described as ‘a sheer mountain of spectators’.

Alcove’s winning design also spoke the brief’s request to consider the siting, turning ‘a nondescript space into something’ in the words of judge Stephen Proctor. Fellow judge Soaad Stott agreed, adding that she loved ‘the idea of finding a building and slapping on the activity’, while fully appreciating the thrilling, vertiginous proximity of the spectators to competitors – ‘they would see and hear the action!’ Congratulations to Alcove Architecture for making it to the top of the West Fraser podium!

See more on Zero to Hero

Introduction
This year’s judging process

Commended
London Skeet by Vectorprojects Kenya
Sportholder No.1 by Kashdan-Brown Architects
Transformational Venue by woo architects

Longlisted
The Spike by Francesco Cuturi
The Downhill Mile by Craig Higgins
The Bykathon by Rob Pickering
Highland Stadium by Alex Jones