The new £34m Keynsham Civic Centre and One Stop Shop scooped two national design awards this week.
The controversial development was hailed as the ‘Best of the Best’ at the British Council for Offices (BCO) National Awards Dinner held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on Tuesday night.
Bath and North East Somerset Council’s Keynsham home, which replaced the 1960s complex, was also named the country’s top Corporate Workplace.
It was also in the running for the national Innovation Award but lost out to the Living Planet Centre, WWF-UK’s new headquarters at Woking.
The annual awards provide “public recognition for top quality design and functionality and a benchmark for excellence in workplaces”.
The Keynsham centre was designed by AHR architects and has already won the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) South West Award and RIBA South West Sustainability Award.
The two-year project to demolish the old Civic Centre and build the new Market Way complex was completed by contractors Willmott Dixon last autumn. Council staff moved in but many of the units still remain empty.
The design of the new centre has not been universally popular with local residents and there have been well-documented accounts of problems with the exterior walkways and uneven steps.
