Rubber-covered beach house in Dungeness wins award

London-A beach house covered with rubber, built on Dungeness beach in the UK, has won an award named in honour of murdered UK teenager Stephen Lawrence.

The prize-the Stephen Lawrence Prize sponsored by the Marco Goldschmied Foundation-goes annually to the best building costing less than £350 000 (Euros 500 000.

The rubber coated house, called Vista, was designed for its owners to relax in by the sea, and was well within budget at £112 000. It forms an extension of an existing timber structure, and the black rubber “echoes the local tradition of fishermen's shacks with their timber painted with pitch to keep out the formidable elements,” said the judges.

Marco Goldschmied, past president of the RIBA and managing director of the Richard Rogers Partnership, and Doreen Lawrence, Stephen's mother, presented Simon Conder with a cheque for £5000. The prize commemorates the young man's ambition to train as an architect, and as well as the prize itself, a further £5000 is available as a bursary to hep train young black architects.

Calling Vista a “delightful, tactile house,” the judges added that, according to the architect the rubber “is a tremendous material that is both waterproof and breathable.”