Sibson building nominated for major architectural award

The newly-opened £37m Sibson building has been shortlisted in the inaugural Architects’ Journal Architecture Awards.

The building, home to Kent Business School and the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science, has been nominated in the Higher Education Project of the Year category.

The award judges will now visit each building nominated to assess them on a raft of criteria, including overall design, community engagement, use of space and sense of place.

Winners of the Architecture Awards will be announced at the Grosvenor House Hotel on 7 December.

The nomination is the second Sibson has achieved after it was shortlisted for the World Architecture Festival Awards in the Higher Education and Research category.

Sibson was officially opened in May 2017 and is named after Professor Robin Sibson (1944-2017) who was Vice-Chancellor of the University between September 1994 and August 2001.

It was completed after two years of development by construction firm Willmott Dixon and covers a total of 7,900 square meters across three floors.

This space includes three lecture theatres, dedicated MBA/postgraduate and IT suites, academic and research workspaces and a café/restaurant.

Its sustainable and low-energy credentials have also been recognised by the award of a BREEAM score of ‘Excellent’, the world’s foremost environment assessment method and rating system for buildings.

Sibson is part of the University’s ongoing £230m ten-year capital investment programme being undertaken by the Estates department that has included major improvements to existing buildings like the Templeman Library and the construction of new facilities such as the Wigoder Law Building.