THE Baltic arts centre has been named as one the architectural highlights of the past year.

Housed in a 1950s grain warehouse on the south bank of the River Tyne, the Centre for Contemporary Art was listed in the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment's (Cabe) annual report.

''Despite an economic downturn, we have seen a host of great buildings, spaces and places completed in the past 12 months, and many promising new proposals have come forward,'' said Cabe chairman Sir Stuart Lipton.

The public appetite for exciting contemporary architecture did seem to be growing but that was no cause for complacency, he warned.

''Most new buildings that are built, most new spaces that are created, are at best mediocre,'' he said.

''Too many clients opt for the lowest cost, lowest risk option. We hope to turn this around by both influencing the current planning system and encouraging consumers to demand more.''

Lord Foster's oval Swiss-Re Tower in London and the City of Manchester Stadium also made the top ten.

Other buildings to win plaudits included the Winter Gardens, in Sheffield, and the new Centre for Mathematical Science, in Cambridge, which features four pavilions and a grass roof.

Other successes were the glazed Bournemouth Library and the aluminium Imperial War Museum North, in Manchester.

The award-winning Abode housing scheme in Harlow, Essex, the Jubilee School in Brixton, south London, which features a ''living roof'' of plants, and the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall, with its underwater views of the ocean, also made the top ten.