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A suburban housing development in south London has won the UK's most prestigious architecture award, with judges praising its sensitive design and integration into the surrounding landscape.
Lion Green Road in Coulsdon, comprising 157 homes across five distinctive 13-sided blocks, was named winner of the 2026 Stirling Prize by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba).
Designed by Mary Duggan Architects and built with RUFF Architects, it combines affordable and private housing for Croydon Council.
Replacing a former car park on a challenging, sloping site that varies in height by eight metres, Riba president Chris Williamson praised the design as a "new approach to higher density development" creating "a new connection between the bustling Lion Green Road and a distinctive area of green parkland beyond".
Nestled amongst trees on the edge of green-belt land, the development's soft purple and pink brickwork blends high-density housing into an area of natural beauty.
At a time when housing developments are often judged by their cost and number of homes they can deliver, the project was recognised for the way it responds to its surroundings.
Williamson said "the housing blocks blend into the parkland beyond, while small variations in pattern add texture and give each building its own identity."
He added: "The way it fits into the hillside - it doesn't look like a large housing scheme.
"It has community gardens, it's the sort of place i would have liked to have grown up in."
Duggan, who was brought up in south-west London, said the scheme "challenged conventional suburban housing layouts centred on roads, private gardens and clearly defined front and back spaces".
Winding paths and planting weave between the blocks, connecting them and linking shared outdoor spaces.
She said she wanted it to be a public space people felt they could belong to.
"Housing needs to be progressive. People who live in the building have access to green space, allotments."
The site fronts onto Lion Green Road, with low-rise green belt housing set on higher ground to the south and traditional suburban streets to the north.
The project was funded by Croydon Council as a public asset, and a change in building regulations meant it "fought against five or six circumstantial elements beyond the normal challenges".
The building was praised by the jury for its "inventive and site-specific response to a highly constrained plot".
Buildings are assessed across a range of criteria, including design vision, innovation, sustainability, functionality, and the ability to delight users and visitors.
The other finalists:
A house at Fairmead, High Beach, Epping Forest by Sergison Bates
BEAM, Hertfordshire, by Bennetts Associates
Paddington Square by Renzo Piano Building Workshop (Paris) in collaboration with Adamson Associates (London)
Pembroke, Mill Lane by Haworth Tompkins
River Wing, Clare College by Witherford Watson Mann Architects
