Tweet

In 2020, The Davidson Prize was launched in memory of the pioneer of architectural visualisations, Alan Davidson, to address contemporary challenges in housing and living through innovative design thinking, multidisciplinary collaboration, and compelling visual communication.

Each year, The Davidson Prize invites architect-led teams to explore a specific theme related to the future of home design, awarding three finalist teams with £5,000 each to develop their proposals, with an additional £10,000 awarded to the overall winner. To date, £125,000 has been granted to 15 projects at the forefront of change. The winning team also receives one week of visualisation studio Hayes Davidson’s support to help them engage key decision-makers in UK housing with their concept, with the ultimate goal of transforming brilliant and radical ideas into real-life projects that deliver more housing for the UK.

Judges for The Davidson Prize over the last five years range from architects and designers including Alison Brooks and Thomas Heatherwick to curators and commentators including Lucy Watson and Michelle Ogundehin, to developers including Jonathan Falkingham and Amandeep Singh Kalra.

A forum for ideas and innovation in housing

Five years on, while politicians convene on housing targets and deadlines for delivery, The Davidson Prize has become a crucial forum where leading minds come together to share ideas and solutions for how houses, villages, towns and cities are organised to better meet evolving housing needs – sparking conversations that frame housing as something more human and more desirable than a policy initiative, transcending the political divide.

The Davidson Prize has established itself as a place for provocation and future-thinking, for ideas that aren’t bounded by the normal constraints of work projects, and as a space for architects to think outside of the box around issues ranging from community regeneration to the plight of seaside towns, homelessness, co- living, and developing for biodiversity.

The themes and projects to have won The Davidson Prize since 2020, are:

• 2025 ‘Streets Ahead: The race to build 1.5m homes’: Winner – 300 Homes within a Union Street Mile, by Clifton Emery Design, Nudge Community Builders, Millfields Trust, Plymouth Energy Community and Devon and Cornwall Planning Consultants.
• 2024 ‘Rethinking Home – Adapt and Reuse’: Winner – Apartment Store, by Studio Saar, Landstory, Proper Good Films, BAS Consultancy, and Stories.
• 2023 ‘Somewhere to Call Home’: Winner – Helping Hands by Studio MUTT Architects, Neighbourhood, The Independence Initiative, Hugh Baird College, Islington Hostel Outreach, Amber Akaunu, Peter O’Neil and Dead Good Poets Society.
• 2022 Co-Living – A New Future?: Winner – Co-Living in the Countryside by Charles Holland Architects, Quality of Life Foundation, artist Verity-Jane Keefe and urban designer Joseph Zeal- Henry.
• 2021 Home/Work – A New Future: Winner- HomeForest by Haptic Architects, Squint/Opera, Coda to Coda, LionHeart and Yaoyao Meng.

Transforming ideas into tangible outcomes

For many teams involved, The Davidson Prize serves as an important stepping stone in transforming ideas and proposals into real projects, creating a positive impact for communities and delivering catalysts for change.

Since winning this year’s prize, the team behind 300 Homes within a Union Street Mile has developed a boardgame that encourages community-led discussions around proposed developments as a grass-roots approach to public engagement. The interactive modular board game was developed in collaboration with Hayes Davidson and piloted at the annual Union Street Party in Plymouth this September.

In 2025, Studio Saar hosted five design surgeries with the local community to discuss the Apartment Store proposal, exploring how the building could act as a catalyst for the regeneration of the town centre and support new models of community-led development. The team is currently pursuing fundraising opportunities to advance the project through a detailed feasibility study.

Meanwhile the team behind Helping Hands, winner of the 2023 Prize, have received a positive response from a pre-planning application, and the project continues to progress. They have also secured ARUP as a partner to undertake site surveys for structures, civil and ecology. The team is launching a fundraising campaign at the start of 2026 to take their idea for a communal residential development for those that have experienced trauma and homelessness in Bootle, Liverpool, into a fully realised project. Its ambition is to create a living blueprint for how thoughtful design and deep care can transform lives, and communities. The project’s progress can be followed on The Independence Initiative’s Instagram account: @TheIndyBootle.

After winning the 2022 prize for Co-Living in the Countryside, Charles Holland Architects has been awarded two rural housing projects which came directly out of their Davidson Prize winning project. As part of Charles Holland Architects’ ongoing interest in the topic, the Davidson Prize was an important part of the practice’s work and helped them to propose a genuine answer to issues of poor quality and affordability in rural housing.

HomeForest, the inaugural Davidson Prize winner, was developed by Squint/Opera into an Apple Vision Pro experience that creates a digital twin of a user’s home or office. Haptic Architects confirmed that since winning the prize in 2021, the ideas behind their HomeForest project continue to be woven into their work.

Marie Chamillard, Director of The Davidson Prize, said: “I never cease to be amazed by the breadth of creativity, ingenuity and care that our participants put into their entries every year. 5 years on, the Davidson Prize has reached a level of recognition beyond our expectations, and developed into a community of movers and shakers, who are so supportive of each other’s ideas. I hope all who take part have as much fun as I do with this initiative.”

The theme for The Davison Prize 2026 is due to be announced in December this year, with the competition open for entries from January. For all updates, and how to get involved, sign up to The Davidson Prize newsletter via thedavidsonprize.com and follow The Davidson Prize on Instagram @thedavidsonprize.