Now in its 27th year, the award celebrates the best small-budget, big-ambition architecture projects completed around the country with a contract value of £299,000 and under, as well as those designed by UK architects abroad. Previous winners include David Leech Architects, Kate Darby Architects, Carmody Groarke, Haworth Tompkins, Hawkins\Brown and Mole Architects.

All the projects exemplify a materially and ideas-rich approach to architecture, with designs that both answer and go beyond their brief, using an economy of means to push the envelope of a tight budget, while sitting lightly on the planet.

Whittled down from over 170 entries, this year’s shortlist includes the usual wide range of schemes – from pier to pool house to community hub. The mix is less urban than in previous years, perhaps reflecting a move to rural retreats during the pandemic.

On 6 April the 20 shortlisted designers will present their projects to our panel of judges: Eleanor Fawcett, head of design at the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation; Gort Scott director Fiona Scott; Pedro Gil, director at Studio Gil; and Rashid Ali, director at Rashid Ali Architects, winner of last year’s award.

The judging will be followed by an event, starting at 6.30pm, held this year at the London offices of Apt, where the winner will be announced. A sustainability prize will also be awarded and the People’s Choice favourite revealed. The event is free to attend with tickets allocated on a first-come, first-served, basis.

All entries to AJ Small Projects 2022 are free to browse in the AJ Buildings Library.

A readers’ poll to select the public's favourite project is now open for you to choose your favourite.

AJ Small Projects is sponsored by Marley

McCloy + Muchemwa

The Orangery

£6,000

This renovation and re-configuration of a dilapidated garage has extended its working life. Aside from the removal of its original asbestos roof, the project has minimised off-site waste and employed recycled materials. A DIY build, it was made in small phases at weekends. Elements were selected for size and type to reduce safety risks and to minimise the number of joints.

The naturally lit interior provides a workspace for bike maintenance, DIY, and pottery with electricity generated on-site by solar panels. At one end, a new greenhouse provides home-grown food, its structure fabricated as lightweight frames, lifted and fixed into place from below.

A water-collecting pergola offers both shelter and shade, the bright orange 7m span of its main steel beam designed to enhance the visual coherence of the whole design, while profiled black cladding acts as a contrasting backdrop to the colours of the garden. RGW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

MSA-Gruff

Horizon

£81,800

This site-specific installation came out of a winning entry to a competition, ‘The Havens Commissions’, instigated by Lincolnshire Council, Boston Council and arts organisation Transported. It is a continuation of the regional ‘Structures on the Edge’ programme, which creates interventions along the Lincolnshire coastline intended to increase engagement with the natural environment and promote tourism and outdoor recreation.

Inspired by the proximity of its site to the Pilgrim Fathers Memorial, the structure explores themes of nautical navigation, referencing navigational instruments and methods in its design while creating a meeting place to sit, shelter and interact with the landscape. Part sextant, part sun-compass and part orrery, it can be reconfigured by visitors to alter seating positions in relation to views and shadows.

Engineered by Foster Structures, it was fabricated by Art Fabrication – with additional funding from the Arts Council – and completed in collaboration with the Environment Agency and Natural England. FW

Location Boston, Lincolnshire | Completion June 2021 | Gross internal floor area Unavailable | Client Lincolnshire County Council and Boston Borough Council | Annual CO₂ emissions Nil (operational) | Photography French + Tye

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Newcastle University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

Northumberlandia Pavilion

£19,000

This student-led, self-build project creates a focal point at the entrance to Northumberlandia Wildlife Park. The gently curving form provides seating and shelter for visitors. A second tier of benches expands the capacity to accommodate school field trips. At one side, the tiers become a low-level lectern for interpretation panels.

The design focused on ease of construction, repair, and sustainability, and was designed and constructed using an external-grade plywood, enabling production of the individual pieces through use of a flat-bed CNC router.Assembled in modules off-site, the structure was designed to be easily transportable, allowing for quick assembly onto a minimal-impact sub-frame of reclaimed larch founded on fence spikes. This created a fully demountable system, avoiding tree roots. RGW

Location Cramlington, Northumberland | Completion October 2021 | Gross internal floor area 23.5m² | Client Northumberland Wildlife Trust | Annual CO₂ emissions Nil (operational), –107 kgCO₂/m² (embodied, including sequestration) | Photography Brandon Few, Graham Farmer

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

OEB Architects

Lynwood Pool

£106,000

This tiny pool with a swim-jet was designed for a client with a back injury to exercise at home. Sitting perpendicular to the house and forming a courtyard with it, the pool house’s rectangular plan is chamfered at one corner to preserve a sea view.

The foundation slab is cantilevered from piles, enabling a no-dig approach around the roots of a protected tree, while the main structure is timber-framed. The façades are rendered with external insulation, expressively textured like a Renaissance grotto in a rhythmic relief of arches, a roughened echo of the arched openings of the main house’s façades. Windows at pool level offer views out across the garden from within the cave-like interior, an arched window at one end reflected to form a circle in the water. RGW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Okra

Pollards Pop-Up!

£8,000

In part supported by the GLA’s Good Growth Fund and Merton Council, Pollards Pop-Up! was a three-week event in summer 2021, part of a larger community project to find a new use for a disused toilet block at the main Pollards Hill bus stop.

The pop-up was created to test possible future uses for the building – closed for nearly 40 years – through self-build activity and discussion.

The main built form was The Green Room, a space to host activities near the local shopping parade. Painted ply columns were built to conceal damaged steel columns, while flexible, crenelated screens, made from hinged softwood and mesh, allowed for a series of spatial configurations. A painted orange information point created opportunities for feedback.

Activities at the installation included an open-air cinema, coffee shop, Caribbean café, arts workshops, yoga and sports classes, bike repairs, health consultations, employment advice, pop-up businesses and a nature walk.

The structures were later demounted and distributed to local organisations. FW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Studio Abroad with Material Cultures

Block House

£224,000

Block House, replacing a Hermitage destroyed by a falling beech tree, is a new structure designed as a private retreat which connects to its surroundings while minimising the damage to the landscape. It sits several metres north of the original building’s site to protect the roots of neighbouring trees and provides a bedroom and veranda framed by oak columns.

The timber-framed structure sits on simple flint foundations and is designed to be low in embodied carbon, using a natural material palette of cellulose and lime-based materials, including hempcrete and wood-fibre insulation, hemp shiv, lime, larch and cedar shingle cladding, and locally sourced timber.

The structure makes use of proprietary timber for its structural frame, alongside prefabricated hempcrete blocks sourced from Buckinghamshire. These were used instead of in situ hempcrete to reduce the time needed for on-site construction and curing of the lime. The blocks provide thermal mass, are lightweight, easy to install and lend rhythm and texture to the interior. RGW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Studio BAD

St Margaret’s Church

£298,500

Studio BAD was approached in 2019 to deliver a new focal point for Southsea with a renovation of St Margaret’s Church, which had been condemned and deemed unfit for use.

To ensure the redevelopment would meet the needs of the local community, the team held workshops, leading to a ‘meanwhile architecture’ concept – with a strategy that can be delivered incrementally, allowing flexibility in the future-proofing of the building’s use, supporting community services alongside church functions.

One of the key moves was the installation of an ASHP system to solve heating issues, saving 20.7 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually. Zoned underfloor heating below the concrete floor now offers flexibility to heat only when needed.

The church’s original floorboards were also sold to fund the renovation – part of the circular economy ethos of the project.

New facilities include a washroom, a café in the nave, shop, food bank and children’s play facilities created using multifunctional furniture. The doors have also been replaced with glazed alternatives, offering glimpses through. FW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Studio MUTT

The Pottering Shed

£256,000

Designed to feel like an upside-down boat, the building is formed of a timber structure atop a concrete shelf, which projects out over the beach below, looking towards Poole Harbour.

The brief called for a space in which the client could ‘write, draw, print, collage’ and pursue ‘analogue activities’, with a visual connection to the harbour. The project sits against a new dry-stone retaining wall in a planted landscape and features a pitched roof which reduces down to a diminutive scale, its shell-clad gable end facing the sea.

A concrete base had to be cast into the cliff face. CNC-cut plywood cassettes were manufactured off-site. The structure is covered in sculptors’ scrim, vertical battens and a surface ornamental grid of scallop shells – locally sourced and consumed.

A brushable liquid rubber coating waterproofs the structure and, inside, recycled timber shuttering planks form the flooring. The front door – complete with portal window – was reclaimed from a nearby shipyard. Steel windows with central pivots are painted light-blue to reference the roof tiles of the adjacent boatshed and Grade II-listed Boathouse. FW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

The Space to Play

A Space to Play at Polka Theatre

£49,500

This play space in a courtyard is an extension of a theatre located off a busy London high street. Designed for the children of families visiting the theatre and café, it consists of a seating area/play ‘sculpture’, nature zone and storage facilities and can additionally be used as a venue for the theatre’s educational workshops.

The varied cladding and surface treatment is intended to render the structure both familiar and mysterious, rural and industrial, hinting at architectural motifs and interpretations from factory to cottage, castle to lighthouse.

The main structure is raised on hardwood stilts, allowing wheelchair accessibility beneath. For sustainability, the timber used is primarily from species rich in natural resins, such as Siberian larch, cedar and green oak. This makes for prolonged outdoor use, dispensing with the need for chemically-treated softwood. The entire project was hand-built by two people. RGW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Unknown Works

Brightbox

£16,000

This is a prototype for an off-grid interconnected classroom, clinic and hub for communities without vital infrastructure. The compact structure is made from 80 per cent recycled material and provides a space for learning, care and opportunity for communities living in refugee camps, ad-hoc/remote settlements and disaster zones.

Backed by the UN Refugee Agency, the prototype was completed at Twajiji Primary School in Zone 1 of the Bidi Bidi settlement of Lori in northern Uganda, one of the largest refugee settlements in the world. It was developed in collaboration with the not-for-profit Simbi Foundation and CRADLE, an initiative by King’s College London and St Thomas’ Hospital.

The structure was designed to be easily deployable, providing off-grid power for up to 10 surrounding classroom blocks, a clean area for medical care, publicly accessible solar-powered microgrid, equipment storage, 1,000-litre rainwater collection and space for community events.

Unknown Works oversaw fabrication both remotely in Kampala and on site. The project employed local fabricators and local community groups for elements of the build. FW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

3|10 Studio

New Rear Studio at Brightbow Workspace

£238,000

Brightbow Workspace on Bedminster Parade in Bristol is a co-working space that is owned, part-occupied and run by 3|10 Studio Architects.

This new rear studio is the second in a three-phase development plan for the workspace, designed by the practice and undertaken in such a way that the programme of works could be managed alongside the practice’s other architecture work.

The design was conceived as a vehicle for the practice’s exploration of ideas around performance, materials, and lighting. The scheme is entirely recyclable, featuring no plasterboard nor membranes within its walls, and is of timber construction.

The ground-floor insulation is cork; walls are wood fibre; and the external cladding is ceramic tile on Econic board. Solar panels on the south-facing roof power the underfloor heating and an MVHR ensures fresh air circulation throughout. FW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Akin Studio

Drovers’ Bough

£70,200

This self-build project sits on an old drovers’ track among trees which conceal it, a prerequisite for planning consent. To preserve access on the track the mainly prefabricated building is raised 2m on oak legs. Steel feet connect these below ground to screw piles, dispensing with the need for concrete foundations.

Locally sourced oak columns, rough-sawn larch cladding, oak windows, reclaimed floorboards and reclaimed insulation form the main build. The building is connected to the farm’s 20 solar panels, providing electricity, and a spring provides water.

Accessed via an elongated staircase, compact spaces of galley kitchen and bathroom with mezzanine sleeping area above lead to a double-height living area with a large glazed opening looking south towards the landscape while providing access to a small terrace. RGW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Architecture for London

Low Energy House

£250,000

This Edwardian terraced house in Muswell Hill was extended and refurbished to create a low-energy house for Architecture for London’s director and his family.

Its energy requirements were reduced by insulating the entire building envelope, triple-glazing and improving airtightness. New additions include a rear extension and loft conversion.

Masonry nib walls were retained to avoid the need for energy-intensive steel frames. Rather than cement-based products, natural materials, including stone, timber and lime plaster, were used throughout.

The rear extension was built of 172mm SIPs panels and all existing building elements now achieve a Passivhaus U-value of 0.15 or better.

By insulating internally at the front using wood fibre, the original Edwardian façade has been preserved, yet energy standards exceeded. FW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

BEAM Architects

Dazzle and Pinwheel

£299,000

Dazzle and Pinwheel are a pair of timber treehouses set in Dorset woodland. Designed as self-contained, two-person units for short-term lets, they form part of a woodland retreat and are related in spirit – both employing illusory façade patterning and playful internal joinery.

Dazzle comprises two blocks separated by a longitudinal axis. It is ‘camouflaged’ with a pattern of the type used to disguise ships in the First World War.

Pinwheel is arranged in a cruciform plan with a central, top-lit living space surrounded by four subsidiary blocks, each shifted off-centre in a distinctive rotational geometry. Each gable façade features a single window surrounded by timber rainscreen cladding arranged in concentric bands. RGW

Location Yonder Hill, Dorset | Completion December 2020| Gross internal floor area 70m² (35m² Dazzle + 35m² Pinwheel) | Client Mallinson’s Woodland Retreat| Annual CO₂ emissions 14.3 kgCO₂/m² (estimated)| Photography Sandy Steele-Perkins

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Brisco Loran

Gruz Flat

£100,000

The Gruz Flat is an enlargement and refit of a one-bedroom ground-floor flat for a language teacher and a composer to form a combined kitchen, dining and living space, together with a new bathroom and an isolated recording studio.

The projecting and recessed features of the new garden façade were inspired by the white trim and aedicules of the house’s front façade, which dates from the 1850s and sits in Stepney Green’s Carlton Square Conservation Area.

On plan, spaces given over to services are arranged along the northern party wall and the broader living spaces along the southern. The living space meets the garden through a large, square doorway. In view of the tight budget, the principal building works were designed to utilise only low-cost, low-maintenance solutions.

The garden elevation is constructed in solid masonry with external insulation, its raked rendered finish developed with the builder on site. The windows are framed in aluminium with bespoke trims, while precast copings were chopped up to form bandings. RGW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Clancy Moore

Atcost

£89,000

This project, the retrofit of an existing barn, was commissioned by Drawing Matter, an archive of architectural drawings and models which occupies an adjacent building at Shatwell Farm in Somerset.

It is designed to provide more space for the organisation’s expanding educational programme and occasional performances of opera or drama. The project is intended to be ‘infrastructural’, its existing structure minimally adjusted to enable inhabitation. Like a perpetually unfinished building, it is meant to inspire ad hoc completion by those using it.

The figurative concrete portals of the original barn have been exposed, creating a theatrical façade which addresses a larger, unweathered volume. This ‘façade’ contains a kitchen, circulation, toilets and other services, while the remaining part of the barn behind is divided into two floors. The lower area is for storing models, while the upper is for dinners, classes, exhibitions or a changing area.

The project used what was to hand: materials already on site and skills found locally. Scaffolding is used for barriers and handrails and a bricolage of materials found in the yard to form its enclosure. RGW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

COAL architecture & interior design

The Studio

£10,000

The Studio sits one mile from the North Atlantic coast within the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site. On the edge of an old miner’s smallholding, consumed by woodland, it replaces a dilapidated garage, whose footprint is retained.

A self-build project, its form and materiality influenced by local agricultural buildings, each element of the fabric was chosen to minimise environmental impact. The foundations are formed of precast concrete pedestals, which reduce the concrete usage by over 90 per cent compared with a conventional raft slab and can be disassembled and re-used at the end of the building’s life.

The frame is constructed of timber infilled with wood fibre insulation, wrapped with a wood fibre sheathing board and clad in cleft Chestnut pales, a sustainable English alternative to imported timber cladding. Retaining walls were built from salvaged posts and the excavated stone was used to build garden walls and reinstate a Cornish hedge. The interior reflects the intense colours of the coastline: cliffs saturated red with metallic ore, glossy dark rock pools and vivid gorse and heather. RGW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

ftwork

Wootton Church commemorative doors

£19,750

This design for a new set of inner doors for the church of St Mary the Virgin in Wootton was a gift to the community.

Built during the 13th century and with Anglo-Saxon origins, the church sits in a village once surrounded by the royal Wychwood Forest. Horse chestnuts remain an important feature of the village and churchyard, and the doors’ design was influenced by these, its decorative bronzework referencing chestnut buds and drawing on local craftsmanship.

The architect made 1:1 hand drawings and then natural cast the bronzes – essentially painting with latex, forming in plaster moulds, and casting using the ‘lost wax’ method. Blacksmiths helped to manipulate the wax and bronze elements into their final form.

The doors’ handles were hand-carved in wood before also being cast. The 3.2m steel doorframes were hand-welded, and the doors’ solid chestnut timber surrounds were inspired by 13th century arches.

The new doors replaced a heavy pine inner enclosure and now allow sunlight to penetrate into the church, revealing an uninterrupted run of pavers from the outer face of the porch to the font. FW

Location Woodstock Oxfordshire | Completion November 2021 | Gross internal floor area N/A | Client Parochial Church Council of Wootton, Glympton and Kiddington | Annual CO₂ emissions Unavailable | Photography Chris Honeywell

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

KHBT in collaboration with Sans faÇon

The Gathering Place

£228,000

Co-created by art practice Sans façon and Berlin and London-based KHBT for Inverness in Scotland, The Gathering Place is an artwork that aims to ‘reconnect the city with the river, drawing out its stories, engendering a sense of place and creating access to the river’, according to the team.

A short walk upstream from the city centre, the scheme – essentially a pier – creates a sense of place that draws attention to the nature of the River Ness. Framed on both banks, Clashach stone encircles a portion of the river along the water’s edge. The stone is contoured so that it transitions from a bench-like platform to a pier that curves and reaches out to offer views upstream and downstream.

Echoing the shape of the banks of the river, the artwork maintains a low, horizontal presence, un-obstructing views towards the castle and heart of the city. FW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

Mary Arnold-Forster

Fungarth House

£240,000

This project celebrates modesty, restraint and respect for its environment and neighbours. The two-bedroom home sits within a small settlement consisting of a farmhouse, steading and cottage and three other more recent homes just outside the town of Dunkeld in Scotland. The plot originally formed the farmyard to the settlement and contained the ploughman’s cottage.

Self-built for and by its architect, Mary Arnold-Forster, who likes to ‘live outside as much as possible’, the south-facing walled garden has become the focus of the main ground floor living space, while an upstairs bedroom/study space looks over the adjacent hills to woods beyond.

The palette of materials used includes a concrete ‘terrazzo’ floor with exposed aggregate sourced from a local quarry, birch-faced ply joinery, waxed grey render walls and bleached pine flooring. FW

See more photos and drawings of this project in the AJ Buildings Library

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AJ Small Projects 2022 full shortlist revealed

McCloy + Muchemwa

The Orangery

£6,000

MSA-Gruff

Horizon

£81,800

Newcastle University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

Northumberlandia Pavilion

£19,000

OEB Architects

Lynwood Pool

£106,000

Okra

Pollards Pop-Up!

£8,000

Studio Abroad with Material Cultures

Block House

£224,000

Studio BAD

St Margaret’s Church

£298,500

Studio MUTT

The Pottering Shed

£256,000

The Space to Play

A Space to Play at Polka Theatre

£49,500

Unknown Works

Brightbox

£16,000

3|10 Studio

New Rear Studio at Brightbow Workspace

£238,000

Akin Studio

Drovers’ Bough

£70,200

Architecture for London

Low Energy House

£250,000

BEAM Architects

Dazzle and Pinwheel

£299,000

Brisco Loran

Gruz Flat

£100,000

Clancy Moore

Atcost

£89,000

COAL architecture & interior design

The Studio

ftwork

Wootton Church commemorative doors

£19,750

KHBT in collaboration with Sans faÇon

The Gathering Place

£228,000

Mary Arnold-Forster

Fungarth House

£240,000

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