Celebrating Europe’s best towns and cities at London City Island

Ballymore’s London City Island played host to The Academy of Urbanism’s Great Place Urbanism Awards, welcoming architects, designers and other guests to the area.

Hosted in person for the first time since 2019, the awards celebrated the best developments across the UK and beyond. Winners included Trieste in Northern Italy awarded European City of the Year, The Piece Hall in Halifax won The Great Place 2022 accolade; Perth and Kinross Council was crowned the Great Street 2022 award for Mill Street in Perth. 

The title of Great Town 2022 was awarded to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for their work in Dún Laoghaire in Dublin while Govanhill in Glasgow won the Great Neighbourhood 2022 accolade. 

Judges opted to host the awards at London City Island to “offer a fresh twist on the Awards Ceremony”. Organisers said they wanted to “embrace interesting new urbanism as part of our Great Places celebration”, exploring the Island’s “striking” cultural landscape. 

Tony Reddy, Academy of Urbanism Director said: “We are absolutely delighted with the response to the concept of having added a feature of a visit to London City Island to coincide with the Annual Academy of Urbanism Awards Ceremony.

"Site tours and a welcome from key project representatives from Ballymore and Glenn Howells Architects in conjunction with experience of being at the Sean Mulryan Centre, the new home of the English National Ballet, led to this being an extremely interesting day for members attending the event ceremony. The ambience was enhanced by the sight of performers dotted around getting ready for auditions on the site of the new place that is called City Island. It is also a reminder that Arts and Culture are an essential element in creating good urbanism."

Insight into the Island was given thanks to tours from architects from Glenn Howells, and Ballymore’s Roger Black. Together, the pair shared the story of the evolution of the area and taking the site from a disused industrial site into a new place for people and businesses.   

Guests also listened to a session given by representatives from European finalist cities – Málaga, Mechelen, and Trieste – as well as readings from poet-in-residence Ian McMillan who had crafted 15 poems for the 2022 finalists. 

The Academy of Urbanism is committed to identifying, promoting and learning from great urbanism in the UK, Ireland and across Europe. Find out more about the organisation here.