Shakespeare North Playhouse partners claim RIBA award

Knowsley Council and the Shakespeare North Trust were given the 2024 Client of the Year award by the Royal Institute of British Architects on Wednesday for their work on the culture-led regeneration project in Prescot.

The award was one of five given out during the RIBA Stirling Prize ceremony. The event’s namesake honour, the highest accolade given by RIBA, went to the Elizabeth Line. The infrastructure scheme defeated Urban Splash and Places for People’s restoration of Park Hill in Sheffield to claim the prize.

The Client of the Year award was decided by a jury that included Henley Halebrown founding director Simon Henley, Ibstock business development manager Darren Johnson, and 6a founding director Stephanie Macdonald.

Regarding Shakespeare North Playhouse, Macdonald said: “Pursuing cultural excellence and local needs with equal ambition, Shakespeare North has successfully revitalized the community, transforming one of England’s most deprived boroughs and making Prescot a new cultural destination in the UK.”

Macdonald continued: “By inviting the local youth theatre group as the main resident at the outset, and appointing 30 community coordinators, they fostered genuine engagement and addressed the needs of the wider region. 3,000 people attended the opening parade with floats from each community group.”

• READ MORE: See inside Shakespeare North Playhouse

In addition to Client of the Year, the £38m Shakespeare North Playhouse was named North West Building of the Year by RIBA in May. Judges at the time described the theatre as: “the outcome of an extraordinary brief in a seemingly unlikely setting, and is all the better for it.”

They continued: “It is one of those projects that is full of the eccentricity of personal passion, expressed in bricks and mortar in a way that has the potential to inspire similar passion in all who enter.”

Shakespeare North Playhouse was built by Kier Construction, with Arup and Mott MacDonald on the project team. The designers for the 17th-century style theatre were Helm Architecture and Austin-Smith Lord, who also claimed the North West Project Architect of the Year prize from RIBA in May.