"Níall McLaughlin is awarded the 2026 Royal Gold Medal for architecture, conferred by the Royal Institute of British Architects. The medal recognizes the Irish architect's three-decade-long contribution to architectural practice, education, and critical thinking, marking a body of work defined by continuity, care, and a sustained attention to how buildings are made, used, and inhabited over time. The RIBA Honours Jury highlighted McLaughlin's work at Darbishire Place for Peabody in London (2014) as a particularly significant contribution to contemporary architecture in the UK."
"Responding to the announcement, McLaughlin described the award as both an honor and a challenge, acknowledging architecture as a shared practice across generations. 'At a time of accelerating technological change in design and construction, we continue to insist on the human rituals and material practices at the heart of our discipline.' Building is an act, not an object. Architecture lies in its making and the way that it shapes learning, culture, and communal life.'"
Níall McLaughlin receives the 2026 Royal Gold Medal in recognition of three decades of contribution to architectural practice, education, and critical thinking, characterized by continuity, care, and attention to how buildings are made, used, and inhabited over time. Darbishire Place (2014) reimagines one of London's oldest housing estates through urban repair, demonstrating that social housing can be environmentally responsible and spatially generous and earning a Stirling Prize shortlist in 2015. The practice, founded in 1990, works across typologies and budgets with restraint, material intelligence, craft, light, and form, prioritizing the quality of space and the making of architecture as a communal, cultural act.
Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine
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