LONDON.- A beautifully-crafted wooden fishing hut on a small new estate in Hampshire has been awarded the 2015 Stephen Lawrence Prize. The Fishing Hut by Niall McLaughlin Architects has won the coveted annual prize set up in memory of the teenager who was setting out on the road to becoming an architect when he was murdered in 1993.

Speaking about The Fishing Hut, Stephen Lawrence Prize founder Marco Goldschmied said: “The Fishing Hut is above all beautifully-crafted, but is about so much more than fishing. Floating elegantly over the lake with sophisticated slats that can be adapted with the passing of the seasons, its design transforms what would otherwise be a simple hut into a place for quiet contemplation. It is a structure in perfect harmony with its surroundings and a worthy winner of the Stephen Lawrence Prize.”

The judges for the 2015 Stephen Lawrence Prize were Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, Doreen Lawrence CBE the mother of Stephen Lawrence, Marco Goldschmied, RIBA Past President and Founder of the Marco Goldschmied Foundation, which established the Stephen Lawrence Prize in 1998 and Murray Kerr, founder of Denizen Works, which won the Stephen Lawrence Prize in 2014.

The Stephen Lawrence Prize, sponsored by the Marco Goldshmied Foundation, is intended to encourage fresh architecture talent and reward the best examples of projects that have a construction budget of less than £1 million.

The winner of the Stephen Lawrence Prize was announced this evening (Thursday 15 October) at the RIBA Stirling Prize party at RIBA in central London.

The Architects’ Journal is media partner for the RIBA awards, including the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize, and professional media partner for the RIBA Stirling Prize. The RIBA Stirling Prize is sponsored by Almacantar.