The Prix Versailles World Architecture and Design Awards is one of the most prestigious out there. Backed by the United Nations and announcing its winners at the UNESCO HQ since 2015, the awards clearly know their stuff.
The annual awards select laureates in eight categories: airports, campuses, passenger stations, sports, museums, emporiums, hotels and restaurants. This year, there was only one British building represented across the entire competition.
The University of Edinburgh’s Futures Institute was named one of Prix Versailles’ most beautiful campuses in the word for 2024.
The campus was one of six recently opened or renovated uni buildings across the world that won recognition in the category. It formally opened its doors in June this year and is a result of a huge seven-year long, multi-million pound transformation of Edinburgh’s nineteenth century Old Royal Infirmary.
Prix Versailles said: ‘The refurbishment of the Scots baronial-style hospital, supported by new and colourful additions on a large scale, has considerably shifted the university’s centre of gravity, creating a new identity for one of Edinburgh’s most admired historical buildings.’
In response to the accolade, the university’s vice chancellor said: ‘The care that has been taken to sympathetically restore the magnificent former hospital, coupled with the work to make it fit for generations of interdisciplinary teaching and research, makes it a project unlike any other that the University has previously undertaken.
‘This is a building not just for our students and staff, but for the city and I am incredibly proud to live up to the inscription etched onto its wall: “Patet Omnibus” meaning “Open to All”.’
Here’s a closer look inside the award-winning building.
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