A blank slate on the British seaside, Hastings Pier may win the coveted Stirling Prize, and for good reason The Royal Institute of British Architects released their shortlist for the Stirling Prize this week, the annual award given to the U.K.?s best building. A range of superb homes, a college campus, and even a photo studio made the cut to be considered for the country?s highest architectural honor, previously bestowed on famed designers such as Zaha Hadid and Foster and Partners.
This year, one of the nominees is a pier.
Sure, Hastings Pier in East Sussex, designed by dRMM Architects, may not look as grand as a new skyscraper, or as inspiring as a perfectly proportioned country estate. But the roughly 900-foot-long pier does one thing, and does it well; it adds to the community by not really adding anything at all but empty space. It is a platform, at its most basic, that functions as a platform: users bring their own architecture to the site to plug in and play.
The many faces of the new Hastings Pier

Adding nothing but a blank slate for civic gathering and engagement, it turns out, takes a lot of work. The RIBA jury noted that ?it has taken a seven-year heroic collaboration to turn a smoldering pier in disrepair and decline into a vibrant public space with a palpable sense of ownership,? when announcing the project?s selection.
The pier, a flat, empty expanse specifically designed to be a flexible event space for the seaside town, found t...