Worthing tower block wins UK's most beautiful new building award

Bayside was the overall winner and received a £12,000 cash prize Credit: Tim Crocker

A 170ft apartment block in Worthing has secured the title of the most beautiful building in the UK at a prestigious architecture ceremony in London.

The housing development consists of around 140 homes as well as a six-storey garden square and a beachside cafe.

The Building Beauty Awards look at Britain’s most beautiful new buildings, engineering structures and urban landscaping schemes.

It was described as "a worthy replacement for the depressing 1960s swimming pool that previously occupied the site and which, ironically, turned its back on the sea".

The building is 15 storeys high and sits next to the Splashpoint leisure centre next door Credit: Tim Crocker

The judging panel commented: “It sits literally beachside and forms an exclamation mark that balances the horizontal mass of the pier.

"At the same time, it bookends the seafront terraces of Regency Worthing, harmonising with their white stucco while steering clear of weak historicism."

Bayside was designed by Allies and Morrison for Roffey Homes and beat competition from a new housing and commercial development at One Silk Street in Manchester and Barking Riverside Station in east London to also win the Building Award category at the event.

It will now represent the UK in the race for the International Building Beauty Prize at the 2023 World Architecture Festival in Singapore which is held later this month.

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