Appleby Blue Almshouse Southwark homes, South London older generation residential property, Housing images

Appleby Blue Almshouse Southwark

17 October 2025

UK’s best new building – Appleby Blue Almshouse wins RIBA Stirling Prize 2025 for architecture

RIBA Stirling Prize Shortlist 2025 Winner News

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has named Appleby Blue Almshouse, a social housing complex for over-65’s, by Witherford Watson Mann Architects, as the winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize 2025. Presented since 1996, the prestigious annual award recognises the UK’s best new architecture.

Stirling Prize 2025 Shortlist building + architects

5 September 2025

Appleby Blue Almshouse Shortlisted for UK’s Most Prestigious Architecture Award

5th September 2025 – Bath-based landscape architects Grant Associates celebrate Stirling Prize recognition for landmark almshouse project in Southwark.

Appleby Blue Almshouse, a pioneering development in Southwark designed by Witherford Watson Mann Architects with landscape design by Bath-based practice Grant Associates, has been shortlisted for the 2025 RIBA Stirling Prize – the UK’s most prestigious architecture award.

Photos by Philip Vile

Commissioned by United St Saviour’s Charity, the project reimagines the centuries-old tradition of almshouses for the 21st century, creating affordable, independent homes for older people in the heart of London.

Grant Associates created a landscape that fosters connection and wellbeing, integrating seasonal gardens at its heart and productive rooftop terraces to create a sense of sanctuary within the busy city. The design draws on nature to promote health, social interaction and resilience, while enhancing biodiversity in an urban setting.

Widely recognised as a model for later living, Appleby Blue demonstrates how architecture and landscape can combine to deliver inclusive, sustainable communities.

The winner of the 2025 RIBA Stirling Prize will be announced on 16 October 2025.

Keith French, Director at Grant Associates, said:
“It was a privilege to collaborate with Witherford Watson Mann Architects and United St Saviour’s Charity to help bring nature into the heart of this living environment. Our aim was to create a setting that supports wellbeing and community connection, where older people can thrive. We’re delighted the project has been shortlisted for the Stirling Prize.”

4 September 2025

Design: Witherford Watson Mann Architects

Location: Southwark, London, England, UK

Jury citation:

Appleby Blue Almshouse by Witherford Watson Mann Architects

Appleby Blue, in Southwark, represents an innovative approach to conceiving living spaces for the older generation – an almshouse for the 21st century. 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. The main entrances off the local high street sit discreetly within the two-storey ‘glazed porch’ within the more public elevation. On turning the corners down the side streets, the building steps down to two storeys and includes bay windows to reflect the adjacent Victorian terraces and semi-detached villas.

The building fills the site but steps down to the south and carves out a large linear sun-drenched courtyard at the heart of the building. A slightly higher landscaped garden holds raised planters for residents to use and outdoor furniture where friends meet outside to eat or chat.

The ground-floor level is raised above the high street, encouraging residents to use the slightly elevated communal facilities and allowing them to look down onto the activity of the high street and adjacent bus stop. This is a building with transparency at its core, encouraging residents in the public spaces to see and be seen.

The focus of the shared facilities is a kitchen and double-height garden room where large sliding doors face south and link to the lush courtyard garden. On entering the building, the activity and smells coming from the cooking lessons in the kitchen are wonderful. The double-height garden room is where residents come together for meals and various group activities. The local community is encouraged to use these spaces as well. Smaller, more intimate shared facilities occupy the first-floor level of the glazed porch.

All living accommodation is accessed off wide internal but unheated corridors that are flooded with natural light and provide benches and shared planters outside front doors for residents to personalise. The architects negotiated that these spaces would be deemed private open space for purposes of planning. This is essential to providing spaces that would help grow a community rather than individual balconies off each living space.

The brief and design are aspirational, and the client continues to undertake research within the community on the impact of the environment on the residents. This is a building about how to grow older gracefully in a supportive community, where every move in the design has been made to improve the quality of the residents’ lives.

Photos : Philip Vile

Witherford Watson Mann

Stirling Prize 2025 Shortlist building + architects

2025 RIBA London Awards Winners

Appleby Blue Almshouse Southwark homes, London – RIBA London Awards Shortlist 2025 images / information received 130525 + 040925

Location: Southwark, London, England, United Kingdom