Artistic Vehicle: This tyre-fitting workshop and space for young artists makes an improving contribution to the public realm.

The small tyre-changing building by Camenzind Grafensteiner at Zurich-Wollishafen in Switzerland was extensively reviewed in last month's AR (pp30-31), so this is a summary of the jury's reaction.

The building is clearly a landmark in an otherwise dreary part of the city, both from the strip-like road and the railway station. It takes a normally mundane and often really dreadful building type and transforms it, to become part of decent urban conversation, both by day and night. In the dark, it is a restrained beacon gently announcing new developments in art from its glowing top half, while the lower part signals its vehicular activities. During the day, the two halves, light and dark, are united by the elegance of the glass cladding.

Some jury members were worried that the upper part could easily be used to project ordinary advertisements, but they were won over by others who pointed out that we could do with more advertising hoardings as decent as this one. In fact, there probably will be more, for the architects hope to make similar structures to signal other gates to the city of Zurich.