Social housing for over-65s wins the 2025 RIBA Stirling Prize

Witherford Watson Mann Architects, with their “Appleby Blue Almshouse” social housing complex for the over-65s in Southwark, London, are the winners of the 2025 RIBA Stirling Prize, the UK's most prestigious annual architecture award promoted by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and assigned to the designer who, in the last year, has completed on British ground the most relevant work for the evolution of the country's architecture in terms of design vision, innovation and originality, sustainability and accessibility, functionality, and client and user satisfaction. Witherford Watson Mann Architects had previously won in 2013 for Astley Castle and had been shortlisted in 2023 for Courtauld Institute of Art and 2019 for Nevill Holt Opera. The jury recognised in the winning project the potential of architecture to contribute concretely to the improvement of people's lives in an era increasingly afflicted by inequality and social isolation.

It is no coincidence, therefore, that the award went to a project that highlights the fragility of ageing and the psychological and physical well-being needs associated with it: by radically rethinking the institutional elderly housing model, Appleby Blue Almshouse aims to offer residents a co-living experience centred on communal spaces, where isolation and alienation are countered by social interaction and contact with nature. The complex comprises 59 spacious and bright apartments, arranged in a U-structure around a central courtyard with a garden and water features. A series of shared spaces encourages spontaneous interaction, from the light-filled paths with seating and planters linking the apartments, to the accessible terrace with roof gardens, to the large double-height “garden room”, to the communal kitchen. Speaking on behalf of the RIBA Stirling Prize Jury, Ingrid Schroder, Director of The Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture, said: “Designing social housing for later life is too often reduced to a simple provision of service. Appleby Blue, however, is a provision of pure delight. Its architects have crafted high-quality spaces that are generous and thoughtful, blending function and community to create environments that truly care for their residents. This project is a clarion call for a new form of housing at a pivotal moment. Built against the backdrop of two crises, an acute housing shortage and a growing loneliness epidemic among older people, Appleby Blue offers a hopeful and imaginative response, where residents and the surrounding community are brought together through the transformative nature of the design”.

The winning project was selected from six finalists which, addressing the crucial challenges of today (social inclusion, culture and creativity, research and innovation, restoration and memory), display through a variety of design approaches the dynamism of the current British architectural scene. Among the new works are the “vertical” campus as a contemporary creative laboratory inspired by 19th-century mills  ("College of Fashion" by Allies and Morrison, Stratford, London); the accessible and flexible “house with a garden”  ("Niwa House" by Takero Shimazaki Architects, London); the research centre that redefines the concept of scientific facility, combining state-of-the-art laboratories with welcoming public spaces (DISC by Herzog and de Meuron/BDP, Cambridge). Among the projects on existing buildings, are the sober but creative extension of a Victorian country house ( ("House on a Hill" by Hugh Strange Architects, Hastings) and the philological restoration of the iconic Big Ben tower (Elizabeth Tower by Purcell, London).