Tesco Wins Worst Building Of The Year - And Has Second Shortlisted For The Carbuncle Cup Award

This 'Inept And Oppressive' Tesco Is Officially The Worst Building Of The Year

A Tesco in London's Woolwich town centre has been named the worst new building in Britain this year.

Woolwich Central has been awarded the Carbuncle Cup, an annual prize for the most hated building completed within the last year.

Judges described the east London building as "oppressive", "inept", "a classic case of gross overdevelopment" and "doomed to fail".

Woolwich Central: the ugliest new building this year

The award marks an low point for Tesco architecture, with the supermarket giant's buildings made up a third of the six-strong shortlist. The retailer was also shortlisted for the Trinity Square shopping centre in Gateshead.

Architecture magazine Building Design hands out the booby prize every year to mark the worst building completed in the last year.

The Woolwich complex is made up of 189 apartments rising to 17 storeys, over an 7,800-square-metre Tesco store.

One judge, Owen Luder, described it as “oppressive in terms of shape, size and colour and a negative contribution to the overall environment of the area”.

Another, Ike Ijeh, said the building, designed by Sheppard Robson architects, was “overtly militaristic, defensive, arrogant and inept”.

An article in Building Design said: "Woolwich Central ticked all the boxes for this year’s wooden spoon. A classic case of gross overdevelopment, the scheme is lumpen and oppressive and towers over its predominantly low-rise neighbours.

"It even manages to make its immediate neighbour, Greenwich council’s none-too-insubstantial town hall, and former Carbuncle Cup nominee, look like a pimple on the face of a morbidly obese bully.

"The variegated stripy grey cladding does nothing to disguise the bulk of the scheme and the attempt to break up the vast facade up into smaller, more visually manageable elements by inserting areas of yellow is doomed to fail."

The cup has run since 2006 and aims to draw attention to the bad architecture blighting UK towns and cities.

Last year's winner was a block of student flats at University College London which cost £18 million to build and has rooms containing no daylight.

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