RHS Bridgewater Welcome Building shortlisted in the 2022 International Architecture Awards

We are excited to have supported the delivery of the landscape design at RHS Bridgewater and ‘The Welcome Building’, which has been shortlisted for a 2022 International Architecture Award.

Organised by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, the International Architecture Awards reward the best architecture, landscape design and urban planning projects in the world.

Designed by Hodder + Partners, the Welcome Building sits as a gateway to the recently completed RHS Garden Bridgewater, the fifth RHS garden and one of the largest gardening projects undertaken in Europe in recent years. The new visitor centre provides a bold ticketing threshold to the gardens as well as a visitor meeting and interaction point, restaurant, gift shop, garden centre, offices and educational spaces.

Within the site masterplan created by Tom Stuart-Smith, Gillespies supported the RHS in the technical design, coordination of delivery of a diverse range of new landscapes, gardens and visitor infrastructure at RHS Bridgewater, including the arrival landscapes framing ‘The Welcome Building’.

The project has already scooped a myriad of awards, including the North West Building of the Year and the Sustainability Award at the 2022 RIBA Awards, a Civic Trust Award and a Civic Trust Selwyn Goldsmith Awards for Universal Design (highly commended), and Building of the Year 2021 at the Greater Manchester Chamber Property and Construction Awards.

It is an exceptional building and the perfect gateway to the rich tapestry of gardens at RHS Bridgewater, and we wish it every success at the forthcoming awards.

Images by Photographer Peter Cook