These are Britain’s ugliest new buildings
Ugly new buildings are popping up all the time, but only the biggest crimes in British architecture make it onto the Carbuncle Cup's shortlist.
The list, compiled by design experts for architect trade bible Building Design, is a real horror show this year – and London is well represented.
The City has, of course, made the shortlist, with UBS' new office at 5 Broadgate taking the prize. Although Make Architects say "careful consideration has been given to the integration of the building with the surrounding area", some might argue looks like someone lumped an alien spaceship behind the Broadgate Circle…
Office building, or alien invasion? (Source: Make Architects)
Not far from the City, where the its workers go to sleep, you can find the delightful Lincoln Plaza. Flats in the new eyesore on the Isle of Dogs are "now almost sold out", according to developer Galliard Homes – so grab your piece of this architectural gem quickly.
Image taken next to a crane for comparison (Source: Twitter)
A two-bed flat in Saffron Tower will cost you around £550,000 – and you get to boast about living in an architect-approved eyesore. Berkeley, the developer which brought the tower into being, claims in a brochure it "will create the benchmark in modern architecture for Croydon". Looks like Croydon is heading south, then.
Saffron Tower clearly ruins Croydon's attractive cityscape (Source: Zoopla)
The architects behind The University of Sheffield's new engineering facility, The Diamond Building, boast it was "the largest capital investment in teaching and learning ever undertaken by the university". Money well spent.
It's not clear if the engineers will actually mind working in such an ugly block (Source: Twelve Architects)
The Poole Methodist Church extension requires no introduction, with cladding that appears eerily Portakabin-esque. #PrayforPoole.
Pray for Poole Methodist Church (Source: Glendale Construction Ltd)
And finally, council building One Smithfield in Stoke on Trent has clawed its way onto the shortlist: readers of Building Design described it as "hideous", "nasty" and "awful".
When architects use Tiddlywinks as a starting point (Source: Twitter)