How winning The William Sutton Prize helped my emerging practice’s growth
“The William Sutton Prize has been instrumental to my firm’s growth. We now have a substantive portfolio of work spanning urban and architectural scales across both the public and private sectors.”
By Jas Bhalla, Founder of Jas Bhalla Works and past William Sutton Prize winner and judge
Most architects and designers have a back catalogue of ideas – some good, some less so – that never made it off the drawing board. There are myriad reasons why excellent design concepts fail to mature into tangible built projects, from risk-averse clients value-engineering out innovation to finishing a close second in a tightly contested competition.
Back in 2019, my own back catalogue consisted of a series of plans, diagrams, and sketches exploring the themes of design coding, suburban densification, and affordable housing provision. My fledgling practice was less than a year old at the time, and breaking into the public sector to win work that would allow us to develop these ideas as part of a real-world project was near impossible.
Despite several near misses, I retained faith in the merit of our core ideas. We decided to take a punt on The William Sutton Prize, which, like my firm, was in its second year. The prize for Placemaking and Affordable Housing sought out ‘groundbreaking’ proposals that could make a positive social impact on an existing community. We prepared a submission that built upon our previous research and design work, supplementing it where necessary to meet the specific requirements of the competition brief. Despite being an emerging practice with little in the way of a track record, the judging panel saw the merit in our concepts, and in November 2019, we were crowned overall winners.
Fast-forward five and a half years, and The William Sutton Prize has been instrumental to my firm’s growth. We now have a substantive portfolio of work spanning urban and architectural scales across both the public and private sectors. I’ve been fortunate to remain engaged with the Prize as it has evolved, helping to renew and update the brief alongside my role as a judge on several occasions.
Winning the William Sutton Prize
Another key milestone in my practice’s development has been our commission as part of the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community team, where we have been appointed by Latimer (Clarion’s development arm) to design part of the first phase of the project. Once complete, this new settlement will provide almost 8,000 new homes alongside a range of amenities, schools, and green infrastructure – a significant endeavour for both the design team and the client. The project has given us the opportunity to deepen our partnership with Clarion as we leverage our expertise in masterplanning to promote progressive models of suburban development that are not entirely reliant on the private car.
Alongside my work in practice, I am a founding trustee of the London Neighbourhood Scholarship Trust; a charity set up to support architecture students from low-income households through their degree courses. This year, we were incredibly pleased to announce Clarion is offering three William Sutton Prize scholarships of £15,000 to students of architecture from underrepresented backgrounds living in London. As someone who studied architecture on a scholarship, I know first-hand how vital this support can be in removing financial barriers to create much-needed opportunities for social mobility.
The William Sutton Prize has always stood out to me because of its focus on social value and remarkably broad remit and assessment criteria. Given the significance of Clarion’s 125th anniversary, this year’s combination of enhanced prizes and scholarships is particularly generous.
The competition offers a unique opportunity to grow an idea – new or old – into a lasting relationship with one of the industry’s most significant and forward-thinking providers of affordable housing.