A dance centre beat a mix of buildings - from a ferry terminal to a housing scheme - to win the prestigious Stirling prize for architecture. Emma Cullinan reports

There's always a tinge of disappointment when the odds-on favourite wins something - unless you have bet on, or indeed are, the victor.

There's a part of us that loves an outsider to come through and for the unexpected to happen. The Laban Dance Centre in London was tipped to win the Stirling prize for architecture, from the moment the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) published its shortlist of six schemes, and last Sunday night, the building by Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron danced off with the £20,000 award.

It was probably deserved - it was tipped for a reason - but then the shortlist comprised such a variety of schemes that the judges weren't really comparing like with like, except that they were all buildings.

The shortlist contained projects as varied as Norman Foster's Great Court at the British Museum in London, with its iconic glass dome and a simple shelter, by Sutherland Hussey Architects, in which people can huddle while waiting for a ferry on the Scottish island of Tiree. (This part of the Hebrides is so windy that it's become a windsurfers' paradise).

Also on the list was an impressive and, according to one judge, oppressive London office block by Eric Parry, which stood in stark contrast to the eco-friendly BedZed housing scheme in Surrey by Bill Dunster Architects.

Other contenders included a theatre production centre by Ian Ritchie Architects - designers of the O'Connell Street Spike - and, staying with dramatic arts, the Laban Dance centre.

While they were different types of buildings, each had creatively addressed the needs of the occupants.

The small ferry terminal on a sparsely populated island could have been a mere shed. But this building was thought through carefully. It's a spare structure, which could simply be described as a long, white open-air tunnel.

But it's perfect for its setting. When roaming non-agricultural moors, it's common to see sheep huddling against drystone walls, with their backs to the wind. Well here is a similar structure for humans.

Ian Ritchie's production centre and scene store for the Theatre Royal in Plymouth, which was built beside the sea on reclaimed land, is essentially a work space, a factory even. How different from the out-of-town, purely functional, ugly production plants we're used to. Like Ritchie's Millennium Spire, this building too has a metal surface, in this case a squishy bronze fabric designed to weather beautifully. Time will tell how the joints in the stainless-steel Spike will cope with Dublin drizzle.

Like factories, office buildings aren't the most glamourous spaces. Eric Parry's London office block has a cool gridded exterior, in a light stone with recessed windows. It is tough and foreboding but the building has the formidable beauty associated with creatively placed slabs of white stone - think Parthenon and Acropolis.

Inside, however, filled with office furniture and computer monitors, it rather resembles a million other offices. It's difficult to make such workplaces sexy, although Bucholz and McEvoy's Fingal County Hall in Swords (worked on in partnership with BDP) pulled it off.

It does help if a building has an awe factor, as with Norman Foster's curved glass ceiling which transformed the British Museum, turning an outside space into an interior one. In projects such as these, engineers have been involved to a huge extent. In this case it was Buro Happold, which has an office in Dublin.

This wonderful ceiling, covering a previously outdoor space, is an engineering as well as a design feat and it's interesting that last year's Stirling prize winner was a bridge, in Gateshead, by Wilkinson Eyre - very much an architectural achievement but an engineering one too.

Much more earthy is the BedZed housing scheme by Bill Dunster, which calls into question what architecture is about. This is ground-breaking stuff - a prime example of how to create low-energy living.

Residents here live a damn-near carbon-neutral lifestyle - which sounds interesting. The scheme's eco-friendliness in itself deserves an award, which it actually got.

OK, it wasn't the main prize but BedZed received the RIBA Journal Sustainability Award, for the building which demonstrates most elegantly and durably the principles of sustainable architecture. And the buildings are quite beautiful, with their timber and glass facades and roofs topped with quirky ventilation outlets that look like pieces from a children's board game.

While it doesn't scream great architecture at you, the people who live here evidently love it and what all of these shortlisted projects recognise is that buildings are for people - to either work or live in. An obvious but oft-neglected point.

The winning scheme recognised this and has been praised for the positive effects it has on the human condition. It is covered in colourful, transparent polycarbonate panels which both shield the glass behind them from the sun and create an energy-reducing insulated layer. This coat of many colours also lights up the rather drab area of London in which the dance centre is situated.

Inside, the building's users and visitors comment on the quality of light and the way that it is easy to move around, both when dancing in the large studios, and when trying to move through the building. The colour theme extends within, where brightly hued walls tell you which area of the building you're in.

The judges gave the Laban dance centre the top prize because of this quality of light within and the way that the building is a thing of beauty both for its users and neighbours. The building both engaged with its locality and with the form of dance, a creative art that seems to inspire architects - last year a dance centre in Edinburgh by architect Malcolm Fraser was on the shortlist.

Yet the buildings on this year's final six were pretty restrained - which gives hope to all architects. First because you don't have to design ostentatious buildings to be recognised and second because it's obvious that some Irish architects are producing buildings that are in this class or even better - the Wooden Building by De Blacam and Meagher and the aforementioned Fingal County Hall spring to mind.

And a few years ago O'Donnell and Tuomey's school in Ranelagh was on the shortlist (to enter you have to be a member of the RIBA and the building must be in the European Union).This is heartening because, as with our football team, it's often assumed that less is expected of Ireland.