Gallery and minster win top architecture prizes

A converted hospice, a city's revamped 700-year-old landmark church and an interactive gallery are among several projects in Yorkshire to have been awarded prestigious architectural awards for 2025.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) has recognised Wonderlab: The Bramall Gallery at York's National Railway Museum as its Building of the Year in its Yorkshire Awards, while its creator De Matos Ryan was named Project Architect of the Year.

Meanwhile, the regeneration of Hull Minster and the refurbishment of two Victorian buildings in South and North Yorkshire were also recognised.

All the projects were praised by Riba for their "quiet ambition" and how they "inspired and uplifted".

A Riba spokesperson said this year's winners, chosen from a shortlist of seven, "exemplify architecture's power to transform - turning spaces into places of connection, creativity, and care".

Wonderlab: The Bramall Gallery was described by Riba as "light and spacious", offering a STEM-focused learning experience for young people.

The jury praised the architects' "design interventions" as "controlled and considered", celebrating "the creative process and language of railway engineering principles".

Meanwhile, the Young People's Space - a timber pavilion at St Gemma's Hospice in Leeds, providing "home from home" accommodation and support spaces for children and young people affected by serious illness or a family member's death - was named by Riba as its Small Project of the Year in its Yorkshire Awards.

The "careful regeneration" of the Grade I listed Hull Minster by Bauman Lyons Architects Ltd was also recognised.

Awarding it a Yorkshire Award 2025, Riba said its jury had been "impressed with the new-found possibilities of the building, as a place of worship, cultural and civic centre, gallery, marketplace as well as a warm space and place of refuge".

Other winners were the refurbishment of Petronella House, a Victorian villa in a Sheffield conservation area, by Chiles Evans + Care Architect, and the transformation of the Duncan Place Library & Community Hub by EDable Architecture in Loftus, North Yorkshire, into a youth and community facility, a family base and a library.

Presenting the awards at a ceremony on Thursday, Gayle Appleyard, Riba Yorkshire jury chair, said: "Amid these varied contexts, this year's Yorkshire award-winning projects stood out for their quiet ambition - many having been realised during the challenges of the Covid pandemic, yet they managed to do a lot with a little. 

"These buildings don't shout. Instead, they quietly improve, enhance, and bring joy to the lives of the people who use them.

"Individually these projects inspire and uplift, but collectively, they remind us that architects do far more than design buildings, they shape the way we live, work and connect."

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