Gottstein Architects has taken the Sustainability Award for a Single Building or Development at the Building and Architect of the Year Awards 2026, earning recognition for a project that fundamentally reimagines what industrial development can look like when sustainability is treated as a design driver rather than an afterthought. It is a win that carries significance well beyond the category itself.

Vantage Business Park presented the judges with a scheme that challenges conventional approaches at every level. The decision to use a mass engineered timber structure places embodied carbon reduction at the centre of the project's environmental ambition, targeting a significant reduction in emissions through material choice alone. Combined with the integration of modern methods of construction, the project demonstrates a clear and coherent commitment to low carbon and circular design principles that extends from concept through to delivery. That commitment is evident not as a retrofit to an otherwise conventional scheme but as the organising logic of the entire project.

The sustainability credentials of the scheme go beyond structural innovation. A holistic site strategy addresses biodiversity, landscape quality, and workplace wellbeing in equal measure, recognising that a truly sustainable development must perform across environmental, ecological, and human dimensions simultaneously. That breadth of thinking is what distinguishes Vantage Business Park from entries that excel in one area while neglecting others. It reflects a practice that understands sustainability as a systemic challenge rather than a technical checklist.

The judges described the project as "a confident and forward thinking reimagining of industrial development," and the assessment is well founded. In a sector where logistics and industrial typologies have historically lagged behind other building types on sustainability, Gottstein Architects has produced a scheme that sets a precedent the wider industry would do well to follow. The question the project poses to the sector is a straightforward one: if this is achievable here, what is the excuse elsewhere?

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