Thank you to everyone who came down to Heatherwick Studio to celebrate the 2025 longlisted, finalist and winning submissions of The Davidson Prize as part of the London Festival of Architecture.
The judging panel had three outstanding finalists to choose from and we are delighted to announce the winner of the 2025 Davidson Prize.
Congratulations to 300 Homes within a Union Street Mile, a proposal for an incremental transformation of Plymouth’s Union Street, on winning this year’s prize, worth £10,000. The winning proposal was conceived by an interdisciplinary team including Clifton Emery Design, Nudge Community Builders, Millfields Trust, Plymouth Energy Community and Devon and Cornwall Planning Consultants, and focuses on reusing and extending vacant structures along the high street with affordable community housing and residents’ amenities in order to revive the area.
A model for the delivery of community homes in Union Street, Plymouth, that can be applied to high streets across the UK. 300 Homes sensitively places a sequence of affordable rented homes with co-living features into the rich grain of an established urban high street, with multiple small interventions reinforcing the equilibrium of the whole community as well as local economies. Made off site and designed to a 600mm grid (from cabinet to room to home) the concept is replicable and energy efficient, providing imaginative communal spaces such as shared kitchens, workspaces and food growing areas alongside secure and comforting private home space.
Pooja Agrawal, Chair of the 2025 Davidson Prize jury, said: “The judges were truly inspired by 300 Homes within a Union Street Mile. We believe this proposal has the potential to be transformational. For too long, the sector has relied on and incentivised housebuilders as the primary solution to meeting ambitious housing targets. This proposal challenges that norm—demonstrating the need for more collaborative, grass-roots and innovative approaches that we believe are genuinely scalable. It captured all of our imaginations—not only for its mission to unlock the potential of our high streets and its commitment to affordable housing and community empowerment, but also for how precisely it identifies the barriers that local people and initiatives face when trying to engage with our planning and financial systems. We hope that winning The Davidson Prize will help elevate this initiative and open doors to meaningful engagement with key stakeholders—ultimately helping the team realise their ambition to revitalise Union Street and support the people of Plymouth.”
