A 17-storey building home to one of the biggest Tescos in the UK was once called the country's ugliest building.

The Woolwich Central building in southwest London was designed by Sheppard Robson and opened in 2014.

The £250m development features an 84,000 sq ft Tesco store, once Europe's largest, topped by a 259-home community with six residential blocks, 17 stories high.

In 2014, it was awarded the Carbuncle Cup for the UK's worst new building. The annual wooden spoon is awarded to examples of "really bad architecture".

Building Design magazine said it "ticked all the boxes" for the award, calling it "a classic case of gross overdevelopment" that towers over its low-rise neighbours.

British architect Owen Luder described it as "oppressive in terms of shape, size and colour and a negative contribution to the overall environment of the area".

Ike Ijeh, a Building Design correspondent, said it was "overtly militaristic, defensive, arrogant and inept".

"Somehow what looks like the world's largest shooting range gained planning permission right in the middle of the town centre," he added.

"Camouflage comes in the way of some truly diabolical cladding and a massing strategy that seems to have been directly inspired by the 1948 Berlin Blockade; we can only hope that residential leases come with free airlift.

"Tesco may be the world's third-largest retailer but clearly when it comes to this untactical offensive, every little hurts."

The man who approved the planning permission, Alex Grant, regretted his role as "its midwife" in the years after the building's erection, calling it an "obstacle" to Woolwich's improvement.

Also on the 2014 shortlist for the Carbuncle Cup were the University of Bath's Chancellor's Building, Unite Stratford City in east London, Trinity Square in Gateshead, and QN7 flats in north London.

But not everyone agrees that the building is ugly - in fact, an anonymous resident that they liked that it looked a bit different.

They wrote: "Reading the judges' descriptions of Woolwich Central, I am confused. Surely 'defensive, arrogant and inept' are insults you direct at people (such as Carbuncle Cup judges, who probably don't have to worry about trying to get on the housing ladder), not buildings?

"Woolwich Central is not defensive: it is always open, it has a 24/7 supermarket. It is not arrogant: it is more affordable than most new developments in London, as evidenced by the large number of first-time buyers who live in the flats. Inept? To me, it seems pretty functional. Architectural tastes are well-known for changing over time."