A 157-home council housing scheme in Coulsdon, south London, has won the RIBA Stirling Prize 2026. Lion Green Road was designed by Mary Duggan Architects with RUFF Architects and built for Croydon Council by main contractor CField Construction under a £34m deal.
The development is arranged across five blocks on the site of a former car park. Its sloping ground varies in height by eight metres, a condition the design uses to organise the buildings and outlooks rather than treating it only as a constraint.
Jury citation
The RIBA jury said the scheme creates a new connection between the busy Lion Green Road and a distinctive area of green parkland beyond. It described the result as a "living landscape" for 635 residents, formed by the arrangement of homes and the use of changing levels and views.
Chris Williamson, RIBA President, speaking on behalf of the jury, said the project showed that density could be achieved without compromising the quality of the places created. He pointed to a consistent specification, with subtle variation in height and orientation, as a way of providing housing at scale without uniformity.
Williamson also said the architects had created a new kind of garden neighbourhood. In his remarks, he said it balanced privacy and generous views with a strong connection to nature, and demonstrated that even the most challenging sites could be transformed into distinctive places for people to call home.
Delivery approach
The project used efficient construction methods, simple finishes and a more streamlined building process to cut carbon emissions. The combination of those methods with the architectural response to the site is central to the scheme's award-winning profile.
The Stirling Prize recognition places the Croydon Council scheme in the national spotlight at a time when the jury said more homes are urgently needed. The project's key claim, as framed by the jury, is that a dense council housing development can still offer privacy, views and a relationship with landscape.
The award is for Lion Green Road as a completed scheme. It recognises the roles of the architects, the council as client and CField Construction as main contractor, while the jury's comments focus on how the design handles scale, repetition and a difficult sloping site.