AJ Small Projects winner 2023: ‘You need grit and optimism to swim against the tide’

OGU Architects, together with MMAS, was recently named winners of this year’s AJ Small Projects award for the two practices’ Adelaide Street, Belfast scheme. This replaced a lane of vehicular traffic with a half-kilometre of urban garden and new public space, designed for incidental play and containing 140m² of new planting. Judges said Adelaide Street was an example of people-centred placemaking and collaboration in what is still a stubbornly car-centric city, with the installation setting a ‘blueprint’ for similar schemes in Northern Ireland and beyond.

What does the win mean for yourselves and for MMAS, your regular collaborator?
The win hopefully confirms to clients who have commissioned us that we were the right people to work with because we can see an urban project through to completion, with quality. We are urban designers and – importantly – we are architects. We care about spatial experience, how materials are put together and how they age over time.

Architects are not always part of the selected team for urban spaces and placemaking but we hope we are proving to people that we add real value when we are involved at every stage.

This award is not just a wonderful thing for our practice but a recognition of the type of work we do and we are so grateful for that.

To achieve a built urban project that has a tactical or prototypical aspect, there is an immense body of ‘invisible’ work that has taken place at every stage. The brief developed with a very supportive client to challenge wider issues that the city needed to face up to.

AJ Small Projects 2023 winner: Adelaide Street by OGU Architects and MMAS

Anybody that has worked on such projects will know that initially there is a great deal of energy and support for challenging the status quo, but the number of obstacles and complex issues that have to be resolved when you are swimming against the tide of ‘how things are usually done’ can grind people down.

To see this project through from a concept to a built, tangible piece of city is testament to the grit and optimism of everyone involved and we are so glad this has been seen and celebrated.

What do you think it was about the project which captured the judges’ imagination?
Many projects were trialled during, and coming out of, the time when the pandemic shut down large parts of our cities, often trying to rebalance space for cars with space for people.

Swimming against the tide of ‘how things are usually done’ can grind people down

What makes this project different is that it pushed further than addressing the immediate problems posed by Covid, both in terms of timescale and urban ambition. We feel that this is a better piece of city now than it was before. Hopefully, the judges were impressed by the quality and ambition of the project in what is a relatively low-budget scheme.

How do feel having been chosen from nearly 200 submissions to be crowned AJ Small Projects 2023 winner?
We are astonished to be honest! The shortlist was joyful to read through with such strong work and featured many practices that inspire us. We are so proud to have won such a widely recognised award for a project in Belfast, our home city.

Fearghal Murray (left) of MMAS with the AJ’s Richard Waite (right) at the AJ Small Projects Awards 2023

What have you learned most from the design and construction of this scheme?
We've completed several temporary/demountable urban projects now and we are developing a suite of tricks to deliver them. Knitting a reversible piece of city into an existing street or square is not as simple as it looks and requires careful thought. We are often doing things for the first time, not for the sake of originality but because the challenges are unique.

We’ve developed a whole set of civils elements along with our engineers to allow for a reversible approach, which has informed more recent work. With each project, we are also learning how to build a conversation around the work – how it can best enrich discussions about the future city.

Do you think the victory will open the door for similar schemes to be rolled out elsewhere?
Yes, when a scheme has been selected as the best small project in the UK by such a respected panel, it gives other potential funders and clients the confidence to push for similar projects. We hope that simply by exposing so many more people to the fact that such a project has been successfully built in Belfast should inspire other people – especially other local authorities – to be proactive and work with architects to tackle their tricky urban sites.

Each smaller scheme contributes to a larger ambition

The Adelaide Street Project itself may not have existed if we had not already constructed smaller urban prototypes elsewhere in Belfast, so each scheme contributes to a larger ambition.

Which of the other contenders did you most rate or expect to win?
We are always going to cheerlead projects which build a conversation about the nature of public space and cities. We have a lot of respect for the work of Jan Kattein and thought Cafe Roj (pictured below) was impressive and impactful on a budget, as was Greenhill Place by CarverHaggard.

Cafe Roj by Jan Kattein Architects

There are many projects in the shortlist such as ours that were not ‘given’ to the architect but created, championed and pushed through because of that architect’s commitment, such as Cody Dock. We cannot celebrate projects like these enough; they are so important and special.

Why do you think it is important for architects – and emerging practices – to try their hand at small-scale schemes?
When you work at a certain scale it can help you to avoid the machinations of large-scale contracting, which will enrich both the small and large-scale projects in the office. We often work very closely and in direct contact with manufacturers and craftspeople.

It allows us to work through the details and construction methods in a way that is often very difficult in larger projects.