OXFORD'S £55m Blavatnik School of Government was one of six buildings in the county handed awards for "architectural excellence" by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) last night.

The Bodleian Library's new Weston Library building on Broad Street and The Ruskin School of Art in East Oxford also won at RIBA's South Regional Awards.

St Antony's College's futuristic new Investcorp building on Woodstock Road, designed by the late Zaha Hadid, the Wolfson Academic Wing of Wolfson College in North Oxford and a modernist cuboid home called Sandpath in the countryside just outside Oxford also won prizes.

The Weston Library, designed by WilkinsonEyre architects, was also crowned the Regional Building of the Year in the ceremony at Ascot Racecourse.

Sandpath, designed by Adrian James Architects, also won the Regional Sustainability Award while the Blavatnik won "Regional Client of the Year Award", awarded for the school managers' "vision" for the building.

Last week, the billionaire businessman who founded the school, Len Blavatnik, was named as the third richest person in Britain and the person with the fastest-growing fortune in Britain by the Sunday Times Rich List.

In total, seventeen buildings in Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Hampshire won awards last night for their "architectural excellence" at a ceremony compered by journalist and broadcaster Kirsty Lang.

The seventeen regional Award winners were drawn from a shortlist of 30 projects, from 64 entries.

All those winners are now up for an even more prestigious title in the RIBA National Awards, which will be announced on June 23.