Stephen Lawrence Prize 2026 Shortlist news

Stephen Lawrence Prize 2026 Shortlist

10 August 2026

The Buttermarket, by Architectural Thread © Claire Fear

Emerging architects spotlighted for the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize 2026

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the shortlist for the Stephen Lawrence Prize 2026.

Now in its 28th year, the annual award was established by Baroness Doreen Lawrence OBE and Marco Goldschmied in 1998, in memory of Stephen Lawrence, a teenager and aspiring architect who was the victim of a fatal racially motivated attack in 1993, Intended to encourage new talent and inspire others in the early stages of their architectural career, the award exclusively recognises projects led by an early career project architect. This is typically someone who has qualified within five years prior to the project’s completion date.

This year’s shortlisted projects demonstrate excellence in social impact, sustainability and environmental stewardship, adaptive reuse, and community-focused design.

The six shortlisted projects are:
Justin Bean for Notting Hill and Ealing High School Junior School, by Hawkins\Brown
A new, environmentally responsible school in West London characterised by a series of warm, calm and nurturing spaces beneath pitched timber roofs.
Maija Viksne for Oru Sutton, by Samuel Chisholm Studio and Takero Shimazaki Architects

Conversion of a redundant department store into flexible, mixed-use commercial spaces in Sutton, South West London.

Damian Jakubek for Park Lane Stables RDA, by Architecture WK ltd
Sensitively reclaimed and adapted urban stables, transformed into new Riding for the Disabled Association facilities.

Ben Stuart-Smith for The Apple House, by Okra
A multifunctional communal barn in the centre of a former neglected orchard in Hertfordshire, hosting a year-round community programme focused on horticulture and environmental stewardship.

Claire Fear for The Buttermarket, by Architectural Thread
An old butter market in Redruth, Cornwall, transformed into a fully accessible, thriving community hub, bringing together food vendors, artists, small businesses and a diverse programme of community events.

Nita Kidd for Walled Garden, Auckland Castle, by MawsonKerr Architect
A revived Grade II-listed Victorian walled garden at Auckland Castle, County Durham, transformed into a thriving hub for education and community wellbeing.

Matthew Goldschmied, Jury Chair and Managing Trustee, The Marco Goldschmied Foundation said:
“Once again, the shortlist presented the jury with a diverse array of outstanding projects by early-career architects. Through excellence in community connection, regeneration of public spaces, education environments and ecological sensitivity, these projects collectively reassure us of the undoubted talent emerging into the profession.

Those shortlisted have become part of the living memorial to Stephen Lawrence, and we are looking forward to visiting all projects and meeting the project architects and clients behind them.”

Chris Williamson, RIBA President, said:
“This year’s shortlist is a powerful reminder of the talent, creativity and innovation emerging within our profession. From the sensitive restoration of historic buildings to the creation of new structures that support education, wellbeing and community, these projects demonstrate the enormous impact architecture can have when people and purpose are placed at its core.

Not only are these emerging architects shaping the future of our built environment, but they are already delivering projects of exceptional quality and social value.”
The Stephen Lawrence Prize 2026 jury comprised: Matthew Goldschmied (Jury Chair), Chair of the Marco Goldschmied Foundation, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon OBE, Alex Spicer, Matthew Lloyd Architects, Edem Torsutse, student juror, University of Greenwich

The Stephen Lawrence Prize 2026 shortlist is selected from winners of the RIBA UK Awards 2026. Project Architects – including their year of qualification – were identified at the point of entry. The winner will be announced at the RIBA Stirling Prize ceremony on Thursday 15 October 2026 at Old Billingsgate in London.

Notting Hill & Ealing High School Junior School by Hawkins\Brown – photo © Jack Hobhouse

Notting Hill & Ealing High School Junior School is a carefully composed and deeply considered educational building, one that balances contextual sensitivity with a confident contemporary identity. Set within a Victorian residential neighbourhood, its articulated forms and pitched rooflines respond harmoniously to the surrounding fabric, allowing the school to sit naturally in its setting while expressing a clear and purposeful architectural language. The architects have organised the building as a series of distinct yet interconnected volumes, each individually legible in function and character. Inside, generous circulation spaces double as informal learning and breakout areas, fostering visual connection and social interaction across the school. The layering of floors – aligned with the progression of age groups – offers a subtle reinterpretation of traditional school planning.

Notting Hill & Ealing High School Junior School by Hawkins\Brown – photo © Jack Hobhouse

The two teaching blocks are arranged either side of an atrium. At each level, open and informal teaching spaces are placed against this which not only breaks down the scale of the space for the pupils, but also enhances their spatial awareness of the school as a whole. These informal spaces support adaptable and varied modes of learning. Light, material, and atmosphere are central to the project’s success. Carefully proportioned windows frame views while enabling natural ventilation, creating bright and airy classrooms that support wellbeing and concentration. The use of cross-laminated timber structure, expressed internally, lends warmth and acoustic calm, producing a nurturing environment that is both tactile and robust. This material richness is complemented by inventive brickwork and glazed detailing, which give the exterior a sense of depth and vitality. Sustainability is embedded at every scale, from passive-first environmental strategies to the selection of low-carbon materials.

Notting Hill & Ealing High School Junior School by Hawkins\Brown – photo © Jack Hobhouse

Natural ventilation, photovoltaic panels, and an all-electric system contribute to reduced operational energy, while the exposed timber structure and durable masonry envelope reflect a long-term, resource-conscious approach. Importantly, these strategies are made visible, transforming the building itself into a teaching tool through which pupils can engage directly with questions of energy, carbon, and environmental responsibility. The project’s social and educational ambition is equally compelling. Delivered within a tight programme to minimise disruption, it was developed through inclusive engagement with pupils and staff, who were actively involved throughout design and construction. This process not only enriched the outcome but also positioned the building as a source of inspiration – particularly through the visibility of women across the design and construction team. In its synthesis of contextual sensitivity, spatial generosity, and environmental intelligence, Notting Hill & Ealing High School Junior School raises the standard for contemporary educational architecture. It is a building that supports learning not only through its programme, but through its very fabric – an environment that inspires, nurtures, and equips its users for the future.

Oru Sutton, by Samuel Chisholm Studio and Takero Shimazaki Architects © Anton Gorlenko

A highly creative conversion of a redundant department store on Sutton High Street into a flexible mixed-use commercial development, Oru Sutton has delivered exceptional value for the local community. It convincingly demonstrates that architectural quality, social ambition, and environmental responsibility can be achieved on a limited budget when underpinned by a clear vision and a forward looking client. Constructed in the 1970s, the five-storey building had been vacant since its former occupant, department store chain BHS, went into liquidation in 2016. Its upper floors were a maze of administrative and storage spaces that lacked natural light and airflow. Thanks to its remodelling by Samuel Chisholm Studio and Takero Shimazaki Architects, it now feels open, calm, and intuitively organised throughout. The design establishes strong spatial clarity through carefully placed cuts and voids, allowing daylight to penetrate what was once a deep, narrow plan, and creating a sense of connection between levels. Light and space are handled with confidence, transforming the experience of the interior without relying on heavy or costly interventions.

Oru Sutton, by Samuel Chisholm Studio and Takero Shimazaki Architects © Anton Gorlenko

It now accommodates a complex mix of functions, bringing together coworking, wellness, childcare, events, retail, and hospitality within a coherent architectural framework. A key reason for the project’s success is its stripped back, economical approach. The architects worked directly with the existing fabric, introducing only what was necessary and allowing the rawness of the building to become part of its character. This minimal-intervention strategy results in spaces that feel honest and inhabitable, with an appealing aesthetic that is deliberately non prescriptive. The building invites future adaptation rather than restricting it, reinforcing its long term usefulness and resilience. The jury were particularly struck by the inventive execution and the number of clever details throughout the project. Reused and reclaimed elements – such as kitchen units, fittings. and a spiral staircase – are integrated into the architectural composition, showing the effectiveness of circular economy principles when applied with care and intent. Where new materials have been introduced, they were selected for their low embodied carbon and, where possible, for their demountable and reusable qualities. Collaboration was fundamental to achieving such a strong outcome with minimal means.

Oru Sutton, by Samuel Chisholm Studio and Takero Shimazaki Architects © Anton Gorlenko

The close working relationship between the two architectural teams, the council, the client, and the contractor allowed for an iterative, responsive design process. This collective effort ensured decisions were pragmatic, well judged, and consistently aligned with the project’s social ambitions. The result is a robust and generous building that feels confidently resolved rather than compromised. Oru Sutton stands as a powerful demonstration of what can be achieved when a public minded client identifies the potential of an unused structure and invests in thoughtful architectural leadership. Its inventiveness, clarity of purpose, and compelling proof that high quality outcomes are possible even under tight financial constraints make it an exemplary model for future towncentre regeneration and sustainable reuse.

Park Lane Stables RDA, by Architecture WK ltd © Architecture:WK

Park Lane Stables RDA demonstrates how architecture can deliver profound social impact even at a very small scale. An inventive and compassionate conversion of a row of historic stables, Architecture WK’s scheme has successfully reclaimed and adapted these modest spaces, transforming them into a facility for the Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) that serves assisted riding, therapy sessions, and community wellbeing. Rather than relying on overt architectural gestures, the project is defined by careful spatial choreography and an intelligent reuse of what already existed. This approach allows the building’s history to remain legible, while enabling it to function efficiently and comfortably for contemporary use.

Park Lane Stables RDA, by Architecture WK ltd © Architecture:WK

A key reason for the project’s success lies in its deep community roots. Led by a local charity, it was supported by an admirable crowdfunding effort that directly shaped the design outcome. The jury were particularly impressed by the collective ambition shown by the client, architects, and wider community in bringing the scheme to fruition under extremely constrained circumstances. Their sense of shared ownership is embedded within the architecture itself, most notably through the permeable front elevation that blurs the boundary between building and street. The stables’ openness encourages engagement, allowing passers-by to encounter the horses or pop into the kitchen. This treatment of the life of the building as part of the everyday public realm makes it not just a facility for those living with disabilities or trauma, but also an antidote for loneliness in the wider community. Despite its small physical footprint, the project has a wide-reaching impact, significantly enhancing wellbeing for users and their families. The client’s commitment to inclusivity is clearly realised through the introduction of spacious consultation rooms and “Changing Places” toilets – which cater to wide-ranging mobility, disability, and caring requirements – all with level access, ensuring that people with complex needs can remain on site comfortably for extended periods.

Park Lane Stables RDA, by Architecture WK ltd © Architecture:WK

Environmental improvement is also thoughtfully addressed. The introduction of insulation and on-site photovoltaic panels has provided a more comfortable and resilient environment while reducing operational impact. These interventions are modest but meaningful, reflecting a pragmatic sustainability strategy appropriate to the project’s scale and resources. Internally, reused materials – including reclaimed brick and timber – add warmth and authenticity while reinforcing a careful stewardship of limited resources. Lighting designed to support the wellbeing of horses further evidences the project’s attentive, user-led approach. Park Lane Stables RDA is a trailblazing example of how social impact can be achieved through collaboration, ingenuity, and determination. The project powerfully affirms that meaningful architecture is not defined by scale or budget, but by the positive change it enables – returning a small historic building to life and placing it firmly at the heart of its community.

The Apple House, by Okra © Nick Dearden

Built in the grounds of the client’s own Hertfordshire home, The Apple House is an innoA new vative social enterprise – a modest structure with high ambition. In a single, deceptively simple building set in rural landscape, it seeks to embody and share the life’s work of Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith, who have spent their lives working in the fields of horticulture, landscape, ecology, mental health, and wellbeing. Tom is an internationally renowned landscape designer. Sue is a psychiatrist, horticulturalist, and author of ‘The Well Gardened Mind’, a book investigating the power of gardening in transforming lives. Their son Ben grew up playing, making dens, and getting to know this same garden. Now an architect, with an intimate knowledge and sensitivity for the client and the site, he has designed this communal building in the centre of this former neglected orchard, which Tom, Sue, and their team continue to re-cultivate. The simple, axial, multi-functional barn space frames and connects to the surrounding landscape in four directions through generous windows and openings.

A woodland lies to the south, the arrival area to the north, a vegetable garden to the east, and an extensive plant library to the west. A year-round community programme provides professional and public participation in horticulture and environmental stewardship, including to local schools, youth groups, mental health charities, residents, and designers. At first glance, this appears as a modest agricultural building, with a 45-degree pitched roof of black corrugated metal. Up close, it reveals itself as a highly crafted, hardworking, impeccably detailed piece of site-specific architecture. A spruce frame is infilled with hempcrete (carbon-neutral construction blocks made primarily of hemp and lime), framing huge openings that connect to the landscape. Earth-coloured, unfired clay tiles cover the floor and are both gentle and robust, able to patinate and improve with use. Rough, oversized, hand-clefted oak shingles clad the building, felled from a neighbouring forest and selected from areas of overcrowded oak trees.

The Apple House, by Okra © Nick Dearden

These simple shingles are easily replaceable and renewable, and resemble wide-spaced peeling bark, the gaps creating habitats for insects, bats, and birds. In 2024, a biodiversity survey on the site recorded 1,500 plant species across the plant library, 29 bird species, 13 mammal species including nine bat species, and some nationally scarce invertebrates, setting new records for Hertfordshire. In an increasingly digital world, The Apple House is an authentic reminder of the value of our connection to things that are analogue, natural, seasonal, constant, and renewable. It is generous, built to the highest quality, and does not reserve its benefits to certain groups – it exposes thoughtful, regenerative design and landscaping to those likely to benefit from it the most. These groups are often the least able to access and be indulged by thoughtful and beautiful design. The jury unanimously agreed that this relatively modest but ambitious project creates public benefit significantly beyond its scale.

The Buttermarket, by Architectural Thread © Claire Fear

The transformation of the Buttermarket in Redruth is an exemplar of intelligent, community-led regeneration within a UNESCO World Heritage Site – in this case, the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape. Led by social enterprise Redruth Revival CIC (community interest company), the project demonstrates how sensitive stewardship, technical rigour, and long-term vision can reanimate a historic civic space. Established in 1825 and later extended and partly rebuilt, the site consists of five historic buildings around a market courtyard. The buildings had fallen into disrepair, and only two were listed at the project’s outset, but the others were designated during the process, all at Grade II. The scheme navigated regulatory complexity with care, reinstating the old market square and working resourcefully and regeneratively with locally reclaimed materials. The result is tactile, robust, and quietly confident. The materials deployed are innovative and intentional.

The Buttermarket, by Architectural Thread © Claire Fear

A collaboration created a sparkling wall-hung tile type never used before, while the clients salvaged cast-iron columns and features from the locality to re-incorporate into this rejuvenated building. The jury was struck by the project’s emotional and design intelligence. This is architecture that understands trajectory – of time, of place, and of community. Rather than impose novelty, the architects have uncovered what was already latent: flexibility, adaptability, and collective ownership. Fully accessible and carefully planned for change, the various spaces accommodate pop-up food traders, markets, live music, workshops, and evening events, establishing a night-time economy where none previously existed.

A glitter ball shines brightly in the space, setting the tone for fun and community activity. There is a deliberate modesty here. The architecture does not intimidate; it invites participation. Over a year after it reopened, it feels embedded and resilient – with spaces and a programme of events that stand firmly on their own feet, and with a client eager to develop further facilities. The Buttermarket is not simply a refurbishment. It is a deeply considered act of continuity, demonstrating how heritage can be a platform for renewal and how architecture can work towards rebuilding a community as much as it rebuilds space and form.

Walled Garden, Auckland Castle, by MawsonKerr Architect © Oli Sturdy

The Walled Garden at Auckland Castle, in Bishop Auckland, has a rich and distinctive history. Originally the most northerly fruitful Victorian pinery on record, the site has long embodied a partnership between design and horticultural innovation. Its restoration by MawsonKerr Architects with landscape architect Pip Morrison strikes a compelling balance between sensitive repair and thoughtful reinvention. The Grade II-listed walls enclosing the garden have been meticulously restored and seem content to resume their role as a backdrop to a productive landscape after years of dereliction.

Walled Garden, Auckland Castle, by MawsonKerr Architect © Oli Sturdy

MawsonKerr’s new-build interventions are small, precise, and beautifully executed. The new maintenance block nestles discreetly into the bankside. Its careful blend of reclaimed and new brick, paired with a sedum roof, allows this functional building to merge seamlessly with the surrounding landscape. The level of care devoted to what could have been an ordinary element of the scheme is emblematic of the architects’ wider approach. These functional interventions ensure that the Walled Garden is more than a visitor attraction or productive plot. It now serves as a resource for education on seasonality and biodiversity, with produce grown on-site used in local restaurants and surplus donated to local charities. The estate’s Head of Parks and Gardens spoke proudly about how the project has allowed a typically “back-of-house” function to be celebrated – and the measurable uplift this has had on staff wellbeing and volunteering.

The jewel in the crown is undoubtedly the new glasshouse. Inspired by the “ridge and furrow” form of the Crystal Palace – famously designed by Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition of 1851 – the new structure sits gossamer-lightly on the footprint of the former pinery-vinery. Echoing the rhythmic crenellations atop the north wall of the site’s grand approach road, known as the Broadwalk, it gently concertinas across two zones that provide fully controllable environments for the estate’s gardeners and volunteers. Working hand-in-glove with structural engineers JC Consulting, MawsonKerr have produced a building that is light in every sense; its slender structure is striking, making the glasshouse both captivating and unobtrusive.

The architects’ commitment to delivering the project within a tight budget is also worthy of recognition. Through close collaboration with manufacturers, client, and contractor, they have created something genuinely special that could so easily have been ordinary. The project carries a timeless quality befitting the contemporary evolution of Auckland Castle. With this glasshouse becoming the third RIBA North East Award-winning project within a 100m radius, the commitment of the client, The Auckland Project, to regeneration through culture, heritage, and high-quality design deserves wholehearted praise.