The New Home Office Headquarters has just won this year's MIPIM Award in the category "Business Centres". On Thursday 16 March, the 16th edition of the MIPIM Awards ceremony rewarded the best international real estate projects.

The different criteria for the shortlist selection were the technical and architectural qualities of the projects, the originality of their designs, their successful integration into a site, their infrastructure and access facilities and their service provision. The new Home Office headquarters, shorlisted from over a dozen international entries, competed against The Royal Bank of Scotland (Edinburgh) and Barclays World Headquarters in Canary Wharf.

The new Home Office head-quarters was shortlisted with 14 other schemes chosen from a record 139 entries for Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award for 2005. Now in its fifth year, this annual award, jointly sponsored by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) and the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), recognises excellence in design quality and procurement practices of publicly funded building schemes.

2003 BEST PFI ACCOMMODATION PROJECT OVER £20M

The judges highly rated the project's skilful absorption of significant property risk by the consortium. Procuring project finance for the scheme required the adoption of innovative assessment and transfer in relation to residual value risk. This saw both property and project risk combined with the same senior lender, sharing the former with equity holders through a complex reserving mechanism based on periodic, independent valuations. As a result, the scheme's value for money was given a massive boost, with a saving of £100m from the unitary charge over the scheme's 29-year life span.

2004 OGC PROGRAMME AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT AWARD (to the Home Office Project Team)

A RIBA AWARD 2005; RIBA Awards are given for buildings that have high architectural standards and make a substantial contribution to the local environment.

2005 RICS Public Sector Property Management Award.

Best Public Building' prize at the LEAF Awards.

Best Central London Development (Property Week)

The Home Office head-quarters have also received the following technical awards which are based on achieving best practice standards and are not competitive:

Finalist in 2003 for the CONSTRUCTION NEWS - Quality In Construction Awards. The annual awards recognise best practice in the construction industry which reflect new ideas and methods being promoted by Construction Excellence such as value engineering, early subcontractor involvement, partnering as well as effective occupational health & safety management. The judges' praised the project team for "A really good, business-like project - well planned and executed".

Shortlisted for the Best Designed Hospital category of the NHS Estates - Building Better Healthcare Awards 2004. The annual awards ceremony recognises excellence in hospital design and facilities management.