A MONASTERY in North Yorkshire and city art gallery have been honoured in the 2016 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) National Awards.

Hailed as the most rigorous and prestigious for new buildings in the UK, the awards include three Yorkshire winners.

The York's redesigned art gallery by Ushida Findlay and Simpson Brown Architects is described as “humbling and utterly inspiring". Judges said it was "rambling and disorganised until the architects transformed and reinvigorated it, by opening up a roof void that has not seen the light of day since the 1950s”.

Stanbrook Abbey, by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, is a monastery in the North York Moors National Park for an enclosed order of Benedictine Nuns, and was praised as “a truly extraordinary piece of architecture". It sits majestically within the woodland, rising out of the ground to form the crescendo to the plateau”.

The third Yorkshire winner is Laidlaw Library at the University of Leeds, between two Grade II-listed stone churches, and close to the Grade I-listed Parkinson Building, using contemporary materials and technology to respond to its historic context.

The shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize for the UK’s best building of the year will be drawn from the 46 award-winning buildings announced today.

RIBA president Jane Duncan said: “The RIBA National Awards are a great indicator of UK design, economic and construction trends. These buildings are what the best architecture looks like today.”