From the editor

摘要

In Maria Smith's comment piece on the Stephen Lawrence Prize, the shortlist of which we spotlight this week, she begins by saying it is 'by no means a runner-up award'. Interesting. Why? Who said it was? Maybe no one has come out and said the Stephen Lawrence Prize is a second-tier gong in quite so many words, as Smith's opening gambit seems to imply, but the RIBA's shortlisting process suggests that that is precisely what it is. Why? Because any award that draws its shortlist from regional RIBA award winners, as the Manser Medal and the Stephen Lawrence Prize do, clearly isn't, as Alex Ferguson might say, a 'top, top' award. The Stirling Prize doesn't shortlist regional winners - and neither should the Special Awards.