The Davidson Prize
Fostering innovation in residential architecture
The Alan Davidson Foundation proudly organises The Davidson Prize, an annual £25,000 design ideas competition that celebrates transformative architecture of the home. Established in 2020 in memory of Alan Davidson, the prize encourages innovative design thinking, multidisciplinary collaboration, and compelling visual communication to address contemporary challenges in housing and living.
Each year, The Davidson Prize invites architect-led teams to explore a specific theme related to the future of home design. The competition structure awards three finalist teams with £5,000 each to develop their proposals, with an additional £10,000 awarded to the overall winner.
Looking ahead
The Davidson Prize has quickly established itself as a platform for bold, thoughtful, and transformative ideas about the way we live. The Alan Davidson Foundation is committed to its continued success as a way to not only honour Alan’s memory, but also to foster the kind of creativity, interdisciplinary collaboration, and visual clarity he championed.
Through the Prize, the Foundation hopes to inspire the next generation of architects and designers to rethink how our homes can support health, connection, and quality of life in a rapidly changing world.
Winners and themes
2025
Streets Ahead: The race to build 1.5m homes.
This theme called for inventive solutions to address the UK’s ambitious goal of building 1.5 million homes over the next five years.
2025 winners
Streets ahead: 300 homes into a Union Street mile – a model for the delivery of community homes.
Clifton Emery Design
Neil Emery, Director
John Bird, Associate Director
Oliver Burton, Part 2 Architectural assistant
Nudge Community Builders
Hannah Sloggett, Co-Director
Millfields Trust
Lewis Allison, Joint Chief Executive
Plymouth Energy Community
Alistair Macpherson, Chief Executive
Devon and Cornwall Planning Consultants
Louis Dulling, Director
2024
‘Rethinking home - Adapt and reuse’
The brief asked multi-disciplinary teams to communicate inventive solutions to address housing shortage in the context of climate change.
2024 winners
Studio Saar, Landstory, Stories, BAS, Megaphone Creative
2023
‘Somewhere to call home’
The brief asked multi-disciplinary teams to communicate innovative design solutions for a home community where people who have experienced the trauma of homelessness and housing insecurity are given time to settle, recover and find their bearings.
2023 winners
Winner: Studio MUTT and Neighbourhood with 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?’
The brief asked whether co-living could offer a transformative key to the design of our homes – as well as our communities.
2022 winners
Winner: Charles Holland Architects with Quality of Life Foundation, Verity-Jane Keefe, Joseph Zeal-Henry
2021
‘Home/Work – A New Future’
The brief was prompted by the need to reassess how we want to live post-pandemic, with many people saying they would like to work from home more often.
2021 winner
HomeForest
