Six schemes on Stirling Prize 2025 shortlist unveiled

RIBA has unveiled a shortlist of the six national award winners in the running for this year’s Stirling Prize.

Purcell’s restoration of the Elizabeth Tower, Allies & Morrison’s London College of Fashion and BDP and Herzog & de Meuron’s Discovery Centre are all in contenion for the UK’s top architecture prize, due to be announced next month.

The three schemes are joined on the shortlist by Niwa House, an accessible home by Takero Shimazaki Architects, Hastings House, a home extension by Hugh Strange Architects, and Appleby Blue Almshouse, a later living scheme by Witherford Watson Mann Architects.

Practices behind two previous winning projects have made it to the final six. Herzog & de Meuron triumphed in 2003 with its Laban Dance Centre and Witherford Watson Mann Architects was the architect behind 2013’s winning scheme Astley Castle in Nuneaton.

New RIBA president Chris Williamson, who started his two-year term this week, said this year’s finalists “demonstrate architecture’s unique ability to address some of the most urgent challenges of our time”.

He added: “From a monumental civic building that champions investment in arts and culture, to the sensitive restoration of one of the nation’s most iconic landmarks, and a cutting-edge medical research facility, each offers a blueprint for how architecture can enrich society.”

Williamson, who is co-founder of WW+P, also praised the shortlist’s residential projects, which he said “stand out for their inventive, human-centred design, from social housing that combats isolation in later life, to a bold home extension that celebrates reuse, and an accessible home that proves that beauty and accessibility can coexist”.  

He added: “Together, these projects offer a hopeful vision for the future, one where architecture strengthens communities and helps to shape a more sustainable and inclusive built environment.”

The winner of the Stirling Prize will be announced live at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, north London, on 16 October.

The six on the shortlist are: 

The Discovery Centre by Herzog and de Meuron / BDP 

RIBA East Award 2025

AstraZeneca’s Discovery Centre radically redefines the research facility, blending cutting-edge laboratories with welcoming public spaces. The surprisingly low-rise, sawtooth-roofed building adopts a curved triangular plan, forming an inviting interface for Cambridge’s biomedical cluster. 

At its heart, a publicly accessible courtyard echoes the city’s college quadrangles, one of the buildings many tributes to Cambridge’s heritage. Inside, three glass-lined laboratories are connected by clever interconnecting corridors that balance stringent security with transparency, putting science on display. Flexible lab stations and open-plan layouts foster innovation in a bold new prototype for research facilities. 

The jury said: These laboratories have full-height interior glass walls so everyone can see what is going on – and yet are also highly secure. Cleverly inserted interconnecting corridors allow scientists to move from one lab to another. Beneath the ground is a deep two-storey basement where a lot of specialised equipment undoubtedly adds to the substantial overall cost required to provide a suitably state-of-the-art scientific facility. 

Fourteen separate heating control systems enable the adjustment of temperature within the different areas of this elegant and functional building. Heating and cooling are supplied by a remote ground-source heat pump – claimed to be Europe’s largest – on the edge of the science park. One would forgive the design team if they concentrated on the science alone, yet there is more than a nod to placemaking here. 

 

Elizabeth Tower by Purcell 

RIBA London Award 2025 winner

Housing the symbolic “Big Ben” bell, the timepiece of the nation, the most comprehensive restoration of Elizabeth Tower in 160 years is a conservation masterpiece. Traditional materials and bespoke craftspeople were sourced from across the UK to honour the Tower’s original design, rectifying previous restoration missteps and repairing newly uncovered damage from the Second World War.

Careful details, such as reinstating the Victorian colour scheme on the clock faces and reintroducing the St George’s Cross, return the tower to its former glory. Subtle improvements to accessibility, including a new visitor lift, have also opened up the monument to a broader audience for the first time.

The jury said: Like many conservation projects, appreciating the achievement requires some investigation. The shape of the tower, the clock faces and the sounds of the bells are mostly appreciated from a distance, as a dominant presence within one of the world’s most recognisable skylines. The jury’s inspection was carried out from within, after entering through a very modest door to one side of the main thoroughfare of MPs and parliamentary staff going about their business.

Work led by Purcell at the lower levels included extensive stone repairs, the refurbishment of various interior rooms for exhibitions and admin, and the clever insertion of a passenger lift which must be a welcome addition to the clock engineers and tour guides.

Contractor Sir Robert McAlpine

Architect, lead designer, principal designer Purcell

Building control SOCOTEC

CDM advisor AtkinsRealis

Cost manager Currie and Brown

Fire assurance Falck Consulting

Fire engineer Buro Happold

Fire assessor Ashton Fire

M&E engineer SI Sealy

NEC supervisor Purcell with Buro Happold and Alan Baxter Associates

Project manager Lendlease

Structural engineer Aecom 

 

London College of Fashion by  Allies and Morrison 

RIBA London Award 2025 winner

Located in the cultural heart of the Queen Elizabeth Park in Stratford, the new home for the London College of Fashion brings together its 6,000 staff and students for the first time. A constrained site prompted a vertical campus rising to 17 storeys, with dramatic staircases unfurling through a shared “heart space” to encourage collaboration.

A restrained palette of materials allows the building to act as a canvas for its occupants, while long sightlines and flexible workspaces promote adaptability. Subtle nods to the area’s industrial history create the feeling of a thriving “factory for fashion”. 

The jury said: Limited in site area, the 40,000sq m of accommodation could only be provided by building tall on the square plot. To deal with a complex brief and realise a building which would be stimulating but not overwhelming, this required a rational plan, which succeeds in creating a very legible organisation.

The sophisticated cross section is just as instructive in achieving this – clearly zoning the accommodation into a three-storey publicly accessible base, a middle zone the architects describe as ‘typical’ and a ‘communal’ top.

The resulting building bills itself as the tallest higher-education building in the UK, and offers stunning views. This vertical legibility is reinforced by a material language: three materials are rigorously applied throughout.

Contractor Mace

Structural engineer Buro Happold

Environmental/M&E engineer Buro Happold

Quantity surveyor/Cost consultant Gardiner & Theobald

Project manager Mace

Acoustic engineer Buro Happold

Access consultant Buro Happold

Landscape architect LDA Design

Interior design Allies and Morrison

Lightning design Buro Happold

Sustainability Buro Happold

Facade engineer Buro Happold

Principal designer PFB

 

Appleby Blue Almshouse by Witherford Watson Mann 

RIBA London Award 2025 winner

Replacing an abandoned care home, Appleby Blue radically reimagines the traditional almshouse to foster community and reduce isolation among residents. The layout flips a centuries-old typology, placing communal spaces at its heart to encourage interaction, while bay windows at street level connect residents to the outside world.

Thoughtful details, such as the timber-clad interior, discreet accessibility features and terracotta paved hallways bursting with benches and planters, aim to deinstitutionalise the typical model of older people’s housing. The result is a new standard for inclusive social housing in later life.

The jury said: The architects were aware that one of the biggest challenges of growing older is increased isolation. The design attempts to remedy this by creating spaces that encourage chance meetings, places to chat with friends or sit together with a glass of wine and watch the world go by.

The bulk, massing and materiality of the building offer a contemporary but appropriate response to the context. 

Contractor JTRE London

Structural engineers Price and Myers and Pringuer James Consulting Engineers

Environmental/M&E engineer Skelly and Couch and AWA Consultants

Fire consultant The Fire Surgery

Principal designer Bespoke Safety Solutions

Planning consultant DP9

Quantity surveyor/cost consultant Thompson Cole

Landscape architect Grant Associates

Social historian Ken Warpole

Facade consultants Ramboll and  XCO2

Acoustic consultant Hann Tucker

 

Hastings House by Hugh Strange Architects 

RIBA South East Award 2025 winner

Instead of demolishing an ageing hillside home, Hastings House reuses and celebrates the existing structure and materials to create a house of contrasts. A restrained, updated Victorian front gives way to a modern, timber framed rear, while a rough concrete courtyard celebrates its industrial character.

A series of stitched extensions step up the hillside, blending inside and outside to cleverly create light-filled, open spaces. The result goes beyond a house extension, transforming the entire home and producing a lesson in restrained, inventive reuse. 

The jury said: The detached house is barely altered and beautifully refurbished, retaining fine mouldings, stained glass, fretted barge boards and decorative hung clay tiles. At ground-floor level, however, the openings in its rear wall – which previously accessed a gloomy full-width lean-to extension – are adjusted, with no loss of solidity, to form a threshold into a new world of cellular spaces that ascend the rear terraced garden.

Wide timber-framed sliding glass doors, which enclose the new rooms, open onto a repaired but still rough concrete yard that has the promise of becoming the most important room in the house.

Structural engineer Price and Myers

Environmental/M&E engineer Ritchie and Daffin

 

Niwa House by Takero Shimazaki Architects

RIBA London Award 2025 winner

Meaning “garden home” in Japanese, Niwa House is a pavilion-like oasis built on a previously derelict South London plot. Sprawling across and downwards to navigate planning constraints, this “horizontal home” is a masterclass in craftsmanship and restraint.

Subtle interventions, such as a flowing open-plan layout and integrated accessibility features create a seamless experience for its wheelchair-user resident while futureproofing it for later life, demonstrating how inclusive design can be functional yet elegant.

A hybrid timber and stone structure, paired with floor to ceiling windows, bathe each room in light, while a courtyard garden rising through both floors underlines the serene sense of escapism.

The jury said: Carefully designed and located courtyards puncture the lower level and flood the bedrooms and circulation areas with natural light, creating lovely vignettes of gardens and sky. The quality of light throughout the home is breathtaking.

Large, full-height sliding doors and full-height glazed walls seamlessly blend indoors and out – opening spaces to gardens, courtyards and balconies. It is difficult to see where the building ends and the gardens begin.

Contractor New Wave London

Structural engineer Webb Yates Engineers

Environmental/M&E engineer Webb Yates Engineers

Landscape architect Rich Landscapes

Quantity surveyor/Cost consultant Box Associates

Interior design Covet Noir