The Davidson Prize

2025 RESULTS

The fifth theme of the annual £25,000 Davidson Prize was: Streets Ahead: The race to build 1.5m homes. This theme called for inventive solutions to address the UK's ambitious goal of building 1.5 million homes over the next five years.

WINNER

Clifton Emery Design, Nudge community builders, Millfields Trust, Plymouth Energy Community, Devon and Cornwall Planning Consultants

300 Homes within a Union Street mile is the winner of The Davidson Prize 2025, and £10,000 prize money.

This proposal looks at regenerating a Plymouth high street through community empowerment, and focuses on reusing and extending vacant structures along the high street with affordable community housing and residents’ amenities in order to revive the area.

PEOPLE'S CHOICE PRIZE

The winner of the People’s Choice Prize was F.U.N.N.E.L by A is for Architecture, WSP and Spacehub, which aims to densify existing suburban neighbourhoods in Melksham using standardised designs and financial incentives for the current residents.

1 House, 2 Homes... make a neighbourhood

Ash Sakula with Human Nature

A new housing typology for existing streetscapes that doubles density without increasing footprint

300 Homes within a Union Street Mile

Clifton Emery Design, Nudge community builders, Millfields Trust, Plymouth Energy Community, Devon and Cornwall Planning Consultants

Macro placemaking and micro homemaking – a balanced model for integrating community homes on high streets

Positive Disturbance – Realising Brownfield Potential

FLOC + MAZi Architects, Hyem, Stef Leach, Broaden, Thurston Illustration, SHED, Artis, Henna Asikainen

Re-greening brownfield sites for lifetime neighbourhoods set in productive landscapes

THE LONGLIST

F.U.N.N.E.L

A IS FOR ARCHITECTURE, WSP, Spacehub

An alternative to mass housebuilding – contextual design prototypes and a finance model for densification of small-town streets

Hardworking Landscapes

AOMD, Edit, Periscope, Dion Barrett, Ruth Lang

A new rural hamlet typology sharing infrastructure, domestic labour and agrarian responsibility

WearWork

CARD Projects, PATCH Collective, and Maria McLintock

Reinventing industrial heartlands as self-sustaining, self-building neighbourhoods arranged around convivial yards

Between the Lines - Living with Industry

daab Design Architects, HomeGrown Plus, Expedition Engineering, Robert Bird Group, Third Revolution Projects, Atelier Crescendo

Rethinking planning and typologies around Strategic Industrial Locations to co-locate housing and employment

Permitted Development +

‘Elephant in the City’ - Morris+Company, Hub, Stantec/Hydrock, Studio Knight Stokoe, DP9

Embedding placemaking, sustainability and housing quality into office-to-residential conversions with kit-of-parts approach and design codes

Metroland

Harper Perry, Urban Design Works, and Studio Mint with North East Combined Authority and NEXUS Tyne and Wear Metro

Mirroring new neighbourhoods with existing public transit routes to counter greenfield development and car-dependent living

The Rail Belt

James Waddington with Nathaniel Welham and WSP

An innovative rail-overbuilding system for London to create space for 250,000 homes

Beta Boroughs - How Could Better Data Help Us Beat the Housing Crisis?

RCKa

Tackling missed housing targets with ‘beta boroughs’ – a hyper local approach to transformative and experimental planning and development

Kommuna Palace

Studio Woodroffe Papa Ltd, Lawrence Barth, Almitra Roosevelt and Anagha Othalur of AA Housing and Urbanism, Whitby Wood, XCO2.

The contemporary urban villa – a deep-plan housing and mixed-use typology for shared living and collective wellbeing

Forever Island - A New Model for Young Islanders

The Place Bureau

Keeping young people on the Isle of Wight with a community ecosystem of housing, sustainable skills training and work while promoting environmental stewardship