A new lift at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery won the top award from the Bristol Civic Society as they celebrated the best in Bristol’s architecture.
Before it was installed last year, there was no lift access to the whole of the museum. The project finally went ahead when it was decided that a new lift could be built on the outside of the listed building.
The lift provides level access to every gallery in the museum for the first time, meaning exhibits throughout the building can be accessed and enjoyed by all visitors.
The external form of the lift shaft and its cladding is mostly concealed by the surrounding buildings:
The Bristol Civic Society awards can celebrate an entirely new building, a restoration or landscaping works which improve the environment.
Each winning scheme was presented with a blue plaque, although it remains a mystery where the plaque will be situated which rewards the controversial traffic management and landscaping scheme on Whiteladies Road:
The other awards this year went to student accommodation in Pipe Lane (below), a five-storey building designed to fit in with its medieval surroundings on a site had been derelict for many years after a previous building was demolished to make way for road-widening which never happened; the Lakeshore development in Hartcliffe, where the former Imperial Tobacco factory headquarters was turned into 270 sustainable eco apartments; and new flats and artist studios in Ambra Vale off Hotwell Road.
