News and events

The Davidson Prize, now in its 4th year, held the award ceremony at Impact Hub in London Euston on June 19th as part of the London Festival of Architecture. Over 100 guests gathered to watch the Apartment Store team win both the main prize and the People’s Choice, with over a quarter of the 1,800 votes.

The annual charity fundraising run organised by Hayes Davidson has again raised over £35,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

In February 2024, the Trustees met the team at the University of Oxford working on the “Making MND Preventable” research project.

The Foundation scholarship is now supporting the architecture school at the University of Edinburgh where Alan graduated from in 1984. The scholarship will support home students applying for the Access Edinburgh funding.

The Foundation and PlayGC Theatre Company have created a new theatre writing bursary to support theatres and writers to produce new work. The first year funds have been awarded to The Royal Court Theatre in London.

The Foundation proudly sponsored the Under 26 category of the 6th John Ruskin Prize: “Seeing the Unseen, Hearing the Unspoken,” which was awarded in January 2024.

This year, The Davidson Prize is proud to announce its partnership with headline sponsor, Total Synergy, as it celebrates its fourth year.

The Davidson Prize, now in its fourth year, has announced its 2024 brief:
Rethinking Home – Adapt and Reuse

Alan Davidson Foundation Trustee Jane Craik celebrated with Alice Garner as she received her degree from Kent School of Architecture and Planning.

The Foundation has committed its largest pledge to date, supporting MND-SMART with a £1.275M investment. Following this pledge, the Trustees met the team in Edinburgh in August 2023, visiting the Euan MacDonald Centre for MND Research and the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic.

In August 2023, the Alan Davidson Foundation team visited MND Scotland in Glasgow, the MND-SMART team at the Euan MacDonald Centre, and the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture where Alan had studied.

HD5K returned to Hyde Park on May 25th for its 6th installment, welcoming over 100 runners from the architecture community, raising funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Association in memory of Alan.

Congratulations to Studio Mutt and Neighbourhood with The Independence Initiative, Hugh Baird College, Islington Hostel Outreach, Amber Akaunu, Peter O’Neil, Dead Good Poets Society on winning this year’s £10,000 prize.

In November 2022, Marie Chamillard was delighted to witness the first ADF scholarship student receive their degree.

In late 2022, the foundation was able to allocate a one-off gift of £5,000 to support Euan’s Guide.

The Davidson Prize returns for a third year with the theme: “Somewhere To Call Home”. An obvious solution to homelessness is more homes. But until those homes are built, more and more people are in urgent need of a place of shelter.

As part of the London Festival of Architecture 2022, The Davidson Prize presents an awards ceremony and drinks reception hosted at Pearson Lloyd’s Yorkton Workshops in Hackney to celebrate the longlisted, finalist and winning teams.

Alan Davidson Foundation is delighted to support a PhD student at King’s College London over 3 years starting in Autumn 2022. Leon will focus his research on TDP-43, a complex DNA and RNA binding protein central to the development of MND.

The Davidson Prize returns for a second year with a new theme:  “Co-Living, a new future?”. The winner of the £10,000 Davidson Prize will be announced in June 2022.

Alan Davidson Foundation awarded a gift of £210,000 to the University of Oxford for the Making MND Preventable research project.

During a brief Covid respite, the Alan Davidson Foundation had the pleasure to host a ceremony to celebrate the finalists and winning teams of the 2021 Davidson Prize, showcase the submissions and hand-over well deserved trophies.

In November 2021, the Alan Davidson Foundation awarded £5,000 of unrestricted funds to help Scottish Huntington’s Association run their important work in Scotland.

In recognition of the important work St John’s Hospice is offering in palliative care, the Foundation is delighted to award £10,000 of unrestricted funds, as a yearly commitment.

The Archiboo Awards 2021 ceremony was held at the Bureau on Oct 14th, a new members club for people working in the creative industries in North Greenwich Design District.

Alan Davidson Foundation awarded a £4,000 grant to Favell Day Services to purchase a SEERS medical adult hydraulic adjustable shower trolley for changing and personal care.

Alan was a great believer in education and one of his final wishes was to support a student through university to study architectural visualisation. The £10,000 scholarship is awarded annually to a home-student showing great promise and talent.

One of Alan’s final wishes was to donate to The Long Now Foundation, Wikimedia and Electronic Frontier Foundation to support the initiatives that he greatly admired and supported.

This inaugural year saw entries of incredible high standards, which made the shortlisting and final judging very difficult but equally thrilling and inspiring. Congratulations to the winning team HomeForest.

Alan Davidson Foundation awarded a £5,000 grant to the Hospital of Neuro-disability towards a research project into the care and treatment of people who require long term-care.

Archiboo returns with a relaunched Alan Davidson Award for 2021. The new criterias aim to harness the power of storytelling through visual communication applied to real life projects. Judges will be looking for examples of compelling stories that are pushing project communication in new and exciting directions.

On the 22nd May 2021, a wide range of runners from around the world took part in the virtual 5km run event organised by Hayes Davidson for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

The Alan Davidson Foundation is delighted to be launching The Davidson Prize 2021, a new architectural prize rewarding innovative concepts that imaginatively rethink the design of the contemporary home.

The Alan Davidson Award 2020 ​is calling for entries, judges are looking for visualisations that immerse the viewer, with their own character that allow for more informed and richer conversations about the built environment.

The Alan Davidson Foundation is delighted to be sponsoring two of The Big Draw’s awards in 2020. As a visualiser, Alan always had a pen in his hand, a black PaperMate Fineliner to be precise.

To commemorate our dear Alan on what should have been his 60th birthday on July 9th 2020, we put together 60 photos, drawings, images of his life. Happy birthday Alan, you are always with us.

The Foundation, committed to match fund any money raised with HD50 2020, decided to increase the gift to MNDA with a donation of £40,000.

The archiboo web awards 2019 has re-named one of their awards in memory of Alan Davidson. Judges are looking for visualisations that immerse the viewer, with their own character that allow for more informed and richer conversations about the built environment.

On the 16th May 2019, a hundred and twenty of the UK’s top architects and designers competed in a 5K race in London’s Hyde Park. The event, ‘HD5K’ was conceived and organised by Hayes Davidson, and raised – for the second year in a row – over £60,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

On the 17th May 2018, a hundred of the UK’s top architects and designers competed in a 5K race in London’s Hyde Park. The event, ‘HD5K’ was conceived and organised by Hayes Davidson, and raised over £60,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. Alan Davidson, the founder of Hayes Davidson, was diagnosed with MND in 2012.