The prize is awarded annually to the best building by an architect - a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (in this case, Thomas Heatherwick) abroad, most often outside the EU. At least, this is true from a statistical point of view: since the inception of the award in 2006, the award-winning buildings have been located in South Africa, Australia, Costa Rica and China.
The British Pavilion "Seed Cathedral" has been compared to a dandelion and a (sea) urchin; it is the perfect embodiment of expo architecture, combining a memorable and attractive form with a simple but not vulgar content: the inner end of each of its 60,000 bristles contains a plant seed from the collection of the Kew Botanical Gardens, and the resulting collection will be transferred after the end of the EXPO to the Chinese side.
Presenting the award to Heatherwick, RIBA President Ruth Reed emphasized that the Lyubetkin Prize draws the public's attention to how international the "architectural business" has now become: many British architects are known both for their domestic and foreign buildings, and some for even more degree thanks to work abroad. The latter undoubtedly includes David Chipperfield, who made it to the final with his Anchorage Museum in Alaska. The second finalist was O'Donnell & Toomey with the Timber Yard social housing complex in Dublin.
