Tombola House Wins RIBA Awards

Tombola House has continued its winning streak and added two RIBA awards to its collection.  The headquarters building, designed by international design practice Ryder Architecture, is one of four projects to be selected as a RIBA north east winner.  The project client, tombola – Europe’s largest gaming company – was awarded client of the year.

The awards were due to take place in 2020 but had been pushed back a year due to public health concerns.  The winners were chosen by the judging panel of experts, who visited all six shortlisted projects once restrictions were lifted.

The judges acknowledged that the excellent relationship between Ryder and tombola is helping to regenerate the Sunderland area, commenting, “the client and architect are reinvigorating this historically significant part of the city with an appropriate, contemporary character which is already proving to be a great success”.  They were also particularly impressed by the building’s design strategy, citing it as “extraordinarily successful and indicates the intention to create a quality building which is grounded in its context, belonging not just to the users of the building, but also the wider city.”

Ronnie Graham, partner at Ryder and project director of Tombola House, said, “This project is a result of excellent collaboration between client, architect and other key project stakeholders.  Having tombola as an integral part of the design process from the outset has created a striking office development that is completely bespoke to their needs and aspirations.  The project provides world class facilities and creates a legacy for not only tombola but also the city of Sunderland.

“We are extremely proud of this project and are thrilled for it to be awarded a prestigious RIBA award.”

Phil Cronin, chief executive officer at tombola, “During the design and build process, we worked very closely with Ryder to create our new HQ.  We are incredibly proud of what they created for us and the attention to detail has resulted in an amazing place to work.  We are also really looking forward to the Roseline building being complete in early September and showing off this space to all the tombola staff when we return back to the office.”

Tombola House has also won accolades from BCO, AJ Architecture and Mixology.

All RIBA regional awards winners are automatically shortlisted for the RIBA national awards, which takes place on 9 September.

The project was the first phase of a wider campus development on the Sunderland Quayside.  The next phase is the Roseline building, which has also been designed by Ryder.