The win for Appleby Blue follows Mæ Architects’ 2023 Stirling Prize success with the John Morden Centre in Blackheath, which also addressed the design of housing and community spaces for older people.
Later living scheme in Southwark wins UK architectural prize
Appleby Blue Almshouse in Southwark, designed by Witherford Watson Mann, has been announced as the winner of the 2025 RIBA Stirling Prize at an event at The Roundhouse in London last night.
Commissioned by United St Saviour’s Charity, the £25m scheme provides homes for older residents and seeks to reimagine the traditional almshouse for contemporary later living.
The project on Southwark Park Road includes 57 one-bedroom flats arranged around a landscaped courtyard, with shared spaces intended to encourage interaction between residents and the wider community. A ground-floor hall and kitchen open to the street for use by local groups, while access balconies overlook the courtyard and provide areas to sit and socialise.
>> Read Thomas Lane’s building study: A new model for later living: Appleby Blue in Southwark
Stephen Witherford, director of Witherford Watson Mann, said the practice had worked closely with United St Saviour’s Charity to create “an environment that reduces loneliness, encourages connection, and supports a good later life”. He added that the charity had “made social housing aspirational, enabling people to grow old locally with the right support, benefiting both residents and the wider Southwark community”.
Jury chair and Architectural Association director Ingrid Schroder said the project demonstrated “how architecture can blend function and community to create environments that truly care for their residents”. She described Appleby Blue as “a hopeful and imaginative response” to the challenges of housing shortages and loneliness among older people, adding that it showed how “design, when infused with deep care, can meaningfully address the pressing issues of today”.
The jury panel also included Anna Lisa McSweeny of Built by Nature, RIBA president Chris Williamson, Neill McClements, director at Grimshaw and winner of the 2024 Stirling Prize, Simon Gillis, technical director at Autodesk, and Victoria Tang-Owen, a design consultant who served as the lay assessor.
Appleby Blue Almshouse also won the Neave Brown Award for Housing, while United St Saviour’s Charity was named Client of the Year.
Other winners on the evening included Sheerness Dockyard Church by Hugh Broughton Architects, which won the Reinvention Award.
Hugh Broughton, the firm’s director, said: “It is so exciting to win this fabulous award. Alongside Martin Ashley Architects, we have been so lucky to work with the amazing Dockyard Trust on the reinvention of George Ledwell Taylor’s remarkable Dockyard Church, revealing its architectural splendours and elegant proportions once more for the people of Sheerness to enjoy.”
St Mary’s Walthamstow, led by project architect Alex Spicer at Matthew Lloyd Architects, received the Stephen Lawrence Prize, which recognises schemes led by early career architects.
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