A council housing project in Croydon has won the RIBA Stirling prize, Britain's most prestigious award for new buildings. Lion Green Road, designed by Mary Duggan Architects with Ruff Architects, delivered 157 homes on a steeply sloping site where the council originally requested 80 units.
The development rises from bluebell woodlands and overlooks allotments, playgrounds and rolling hills in south London. The cluster of pink and brown brick towers features generous flats arranged in a design that preserves mature trees and integrates the landscape around it.
This marks only the second time the RIBA Stirling prize has gone to a council housing project. Goldsmith Street in Norwich won in 2019 for its rows of low-energy brick terraces. The Croydon win comes as the government prepares to invest £39bn into the housing sector.
The project carries complicated history. Croydon council created Brick by Brick, a council-led housebuilding company under the previous Labour administration, to deliver ambitious housing targets. The company halted operations in 2020 after the council filed for bankruptcy, forcing cancellation of numerous projects. Lion Green Road survived that collapse.
The award reignites attention on housing design quality at a moment when national policy emphasizes expanding council home provision. The judges appeared to value both the architectural ambition and the social purpose of the scheme, which demonstrated that a tightly constrained site could deliver substantially more homes than initial briefs suggested, without compromising amenity or design standards.