Our RIBA Stirling Prize-shortlisted projects in film
Lion Green Road wins the 2026 RIBA Stirling Prize
Lion Green Road has won the coveted 2026 RIBA Stirling Prize, the UK’s most prestigious architecture award. We worked on the landscape-led residential development with Mary Duggan and RUFF Architects delivering the MEP design.
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Lion Green Road, a council-commissioned housing scheme in Coulsdon, delivers 157 dwellings, divided across five blocks, combining privately-owned and socially rented homes for Croydon Council.
The scheme responds to a challenging sloping site while creating a distinctive new neighbourhood that combines higher-density housing with generous open space, biodiversity and strong connections to the surrounding landscape. Each of the five sculpted buildings is built to similar specifications; however, each responds individually to the site's topography in its arrangement, maximising daylight, privacy and views.
A fabric-first approach combines highly insulated, airtight construction with high-performance glazing and careful detailing of thermal bridges. Materials were chosen for their modularity, thus reducing upfront and embodied carbon. We developed the MEP design to the Employer's Requirements Stage 3 and undertook sustainability, energy, and overheating modelling to support planning, helping to shape a scheme that prioritises comfort, resilience, and low operational energy use.
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“At a time when we urgently need to deliver more homes, Lion Green Road shows that density can be achieved without compromising the quality of the places we create.
Through a consistent specification, with subtle variation in height and orientation, it offers housing at scale without uniformity. The architects have created a new kind of garden neighbourhood that balances privacy and generous views with a strong connection to nature - it's a living landscape.
This is thoughtful, resourceful architecture that proves that even the most challenging of sites can be transformed into truly distinctive places for people to call home.“
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The RIBA Stirling Prize celebrates outstanding architecture in the UK, highlighting projects that demonstrate exceptional design, architectural quality and sustainability. All projects that make it to the shortlist have also won regional and national awards. The judges consider the projects on their design vision, innovation and originality, sustainability and accessibility, functionality and fitness for purpose, client satisfaction and ability to engage, stimulate, and delight users and visitors.
This year we had four projects shortlisted for the Stirling as well as five special awards:
Lion Green Road with Mary Duggan and RUFF Architects - also shortlisted for the Naeve Brown Award
Mill Lane, Pembroke College with Haworth Tompkins - shortlisted for the Stirling Prize and the Conservation Award
BEAM with Bennetts Associates - shortlisted for the Stirling Prize
River Wing, Clare College with Witherford Watson Mann - shortlisted for the Stirling Prize
Rochdale Town Hall with Donald Insall Associates - shortlisted for the Conservation Award
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“It’s fantastic to see Lion Green Road recognised as the Stirling Prize winner. Congratulations to the client, both architects and the wider project team for creating an exemplary development that demonstrates how great design and environmental performance can work hand in hand.
Through a fabric-first approach, passive environmental design and significant on-site renewable energy generation, the project sets a benchmark for sustainable housing.”
Neil Smith
BEng EngD CEng FIMechE
Director, MEP Engineering
Partner
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© Lorenzo Zandri
©Lorenzo Zandri
© Lorenzo Zandri
© Lorenzo Zandri
© Lorenzo Zandri
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“We believe the significance of Lion Green Road lies in what it says about the future of housing: that architectural ambition, social value and generosity can co-exist within the realities of contemporary development.
The project transforms a challenging suburban site into 157 homes woven through a mature, accessible landscape, using topography, shared space and carefully calibrated thresholds to support a rich culture of dwelling. Its transformative values are not expressed through spectacle, but through the everyday experience of living in a secure, generous environment - supporting privacy and encounter, independence and belonging, and the multiple patterns of contemporary domestic life.“
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