The Christie Paterson Building was crowned Greater Manchester Building of the Year 2023 at Greater Manchester Chamber’s Property & Construction Awards at Imperial War Museum North last week.
The aim of the prestigious award is to recognise a building’s contribution to Greater Manchester in terms of construction and development. This could include the building’s significance to the City Region, its impact on the local economy, its effect on the local community, its importance in terms of urban regeneration and environmental enhancement, its design excellence, or its contribution to urban design and townscape.
Following a devastating fire which decimated the Christie Paterson cancer research facility in 2017, building work on the new Paterson Institute at Manchester’s Christie Hospital has been completed and the facility has been officially handed over to the project stakeholders including the Christie Paterson NHS Trust, The University of Manchester and Cancer Research UK.
Together, a collaboration of architects, engineers and construction specialists have realised a fantastic, state of the art facility that will lead world-class transformational cancer research and bring together the largest concentration of scientists, doctors and nurses in Europe in that discipline - read more about this remarkable building here.
Explaining why the Christie Paterson Building won, Stewart Grant, Chair of the Chamber's Property & Construction Group, said: "This is not a design competition. It is about giving an award to the building or development that the judges feel makes the most significant sustainable contribution to Greater Manchester either socially, culturally, economically, visually or environmentally."
He added: "The resulting building is already delivering world class research. It's a fitting piece in the overall jigsaw of the Christie Hospital Campus that will make a real difference to cancer patients not only in Greater Manchester or the UK, but worldwide."
The other Greater Manchester buildings shortlisted for the award were: New Victoria, National Cycling Centre, Hello Future, Aviva Studios and Angel Square.
Diane Elebert-Morgan, Property & Construction Group Manager at Greater Manchester Chamber, said: “Once again the judges had a difficult time selecting a winner from the great range of nominations we received. This is a truly worthy winner that not only deserves recognition for its architectural merits but for the major contribution that it will make to science both in the UK and beyond. Greater Manchester can be rightly proud to be the home of such a centre of excellence.”
Previous winners of Building of the Year Award include: Energy House 2.0 (2022), RHS Garden Bridgewater (2021), The Oglesby Centre at Halle St Peters (2020), Manchester Alliance Business School (2019), The Christie Proton Beam Therapy Centre (2018), Oldham Town Hall (2017) Maggie’s Manchester (2016), The Whitworth (2015), Manchester Central Library (2014) and No. 1 Riverside, Rochdale (2013).
The Property & Construction Awards also saw Amelia Tweddle of Bruntwood SciTech named winner of The Steve Burne Apprentice of the Year. The award, which is named after a former Chamber Vice-President and Chairman of the Property & Construction Group, recognises outstanding construction apprentices based in Greater Manchester. The other shortlisted apprentices were Ellie Noble and Sam Mannion.
The Awards, which were hosted by the BBC's Roger Johnson, were supported by the following sponsors:
- D+H UK - Headline Sponsor
- CIOB - Building of the Year Sponsor
- Laing O’Rourke - Apprentice of the Year Sponsor
- Parker Wilson Consulting - Programme Sponsor
- Safety Case Partnership - Drinks Reception Sponsor
- Eight Engines - Media Partner
- Jamieson Contracting - Celebrate With Us
- MadiganGill - Celebrate With Us
- CR Construction (U.K.) Company Limited - Celebrate With Us