The judges made the right decision in last night’s RIBA Stirling Prize, awarding it to the Goldsmith Street council estate in Norwich. It was the first ever council housing scheme to win the prize.

The residents said, “We want streets back in Norwich” and that’s precisely what they’ve got – the type of traditional low-rise, high-density streets with clear fronts and clear backs in which it is easy to walk about, to play and to know your neighbours. It’s beautiful and it’s built to exemplary energy standards. And on a budget.

It’s particularly heartening because more often than not Stirling Prize judges have been victim to a bad case of ‘design disconnect.’ This is the predictable phenomenon whereby many professional designers actively like what the general public actively dislike. Many recent winners, such as Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI in Rome, appear to have been consciously designed to be as unsettling and unpleasant as possible to people with a normal psychological response to their environments.