The Stirling Prize is one of the most keenly anticpated events on the British architectural calendar. Once yesterday’s drumroll finished the London-based, Iraq-born architect Zaha Hadid was revealed as winner – for the second consecutive year. Last year, Hadid’s MAXXI – the Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome – took first place. This year it was the slightly less capitalised, but equally futuristic (“iconic”, if you must) Evelyn Grace Academy, which came with a capital pricetag of £38m.

The Architects’ Journal has a good roundup of the less-than-chivalrous “collective groan” that went around the room when Hadid was announced the winner. The Evelyn Grace Academy was not a favourite, especially with the bookies, running odds of 5/2 at William Hill. Other projects on the shortlist included David Chipperfield’s Folkwang Museum in Essen, the 2012 Olympics Velodrome (the bookie’s favourite at 2/1) by Hopkins Architects, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Stratford-Upon-Avon home by Bennetts Associates, the Angel Building, by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris and An Gaelaras, an Irish language arts and cultural centre in Derry, designed by O’Donnell and Tuomey Architects.   

The selection of the Evelyn Grace Academy has potential to flame the conflict between architects and British education secretary, Michael Gove, who dispensed with a major schools building programme, complaining that architects were “creaming off cash” from contracts. Interestingly, the Evelyn Grace Academy is the first school to win the Stirling Prize, although seven schools have been shortlisted in previous years.

The Evelyn Grace Academy has been described as a highly stylized zig-zag of steel and glass squeezed onto the tightest of urban sites (1.4 hectares, while the average secondary school is 8-9 hectares). 

Here are some more project notes:

• The architects received a complex brief: four schools under a single academy umbrella with the need to express both independence and unity.
• The architects were strongly encouraged by the client to ‘think outside the box’. With such a small space and with sport being one of the Academy’s ‘special subjects’ (each Academy school has one), the architects needed to be highly inventive. They succeeded, for instance by cleverly inserting a 100m running track into the heart of the site taking pupils right up to the front door. By dramatically celebrating the school’s specialism, the RIBA Stirling Prize judges noted ‘this is a design that literally makes kids run to get into school in the morning’. 
• It is the first time that Zaha Hadid Architects have designed a school and their first large-scale project in the UK. Previously they designed a Maggie’s Centre in Scotland and more recently they have completed the Riverside Museum in Glasgow and the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics. 
• President Angela Brady, Chair of the judges, said: ‘The Evelyn Grace Academy is an exceptional example of what can be achieved when we invest carefully in a well-designed new school building. The result – a highly imaginative, exciting academy that shows the students, staff and local residents that they are valued – is what every school should and could be. 
• The unique design, expertly inserted into an extremely tight site, celebrates the school’s sports specialism throughout its fabric, with drama and views of student participation at every contortion and turn. 
• The Evelyn Grace Academy is run by ARK (Absolute Return for Kids) Academy organisation, a charity set up by Arpad ‘Arki’ Busson, the hedge-fund multimillionaire.