The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Stirling Prize, recognising the best of the United Kingdom’s architecture. The list this year includes the restoration of the Elizabeth Tower, the institutional architecture of the London College of Fashion along the East Bank, the Discovery Centre (DISC), Appleby Blue Almshouse and two private residences, The Hastings House and The Niwa House. The six projects in the running for the country’s highest architecture accolade are primarily located in and around London, revealing a rather persistent geographical concentration.

“These projects demonstrate architecture’s unique ability to address some of the most urgent challenges of our time, responding with creativity, adaptability and care,” stated Chris Williamson, RIBA president, in an official release. However, the nominations of private residential architecture projects such as the Niwa House and Hastings House can be seen as causes of concern. While they might represent some of the most noteworthy recent residential projects in the UK, their inclusion even further highlights pressing concerns such as the lack of affordable housing and social inequity in the country, both on a dramatic rise. This is particularly visible in regions such as the Midlands and the North, where social housing shortages, rising rents and unevenly distributed public infrastructure remain prescient urban issues, and interventions that cater to these conditions are not only rare in number, they seldom end up receiving the same level of public and media recognition.

Of the two private residences on the shortlist, the Hastings House by British architecture practice Hugh Strange Architects is an extension of a 19th-century hillside home in the town of Hastings, fusing a historical structure with new interventions for a layered spatial design. Spanning three storeys, the residential design retains its finer details in stained-glass, moulding and flooring, while the concrete terraces are strengthened for durability. The forms intersect in a complex assemblage, creating remarkable joinery details in roughly cast concrete, galvanised steel, wood and fabric.

On the other hand, the Niwa House in South London by London-based Takero Shimazaki Architects aims to facilitate a serene built environment inspired by Japanese design. The hybrid structure comprising timber and stone features an open-plan layout and integrated systems for its wheelchair-user residents, ensuring inclusivity in design. The accessible design boasts large spaces that spill into each other across the submerged, irregularly shaped site, along with gardens and courtyards that fill the indoors with natural light.

The Appleby Blue Almshouse by Witherford Watson Mann Architects recognises the increasing isolation faced by the residents in old age homes. Located on Southwark Park Road in South East London, it prioritises spaces that encourage chance encounters and gatherings. With bay windows, a two-storey porch, terraces and other landscape design interventions, the architecture provides recreational and activity spaces for the residents to actively engage in socialising and gardening. The building carves out a central courtyard, along with communal areas on slightly raised areas, offering connectivity with the street.

The Discovery Centre (DISC) in the Cambridge Biomedical Campus by Swiss architecture practice Herzog and de Meuron and structural engineers BDP is a medical research facility. Using a curved triangular footprint and sawtooth roofline, the building commands a strong presence on the campus, featuring a courtyard in the centre. While the serrated facade design offers spill-over spaces for activities around the periphery of the building, the interior spaces feature glass enclosures, interconnected corridors and a two-storey basement to accommodate specialised scientific equipment.

Situated between the V&A East Museum and the BBC Music Studios, the London College of Fashion, by British architects and urbanists Allies and Morrison, is the tallest higher-education building in the UK. The spaces constitute a complex system of nodes and other intersecting spatial networks that provide a stimulating study environment, divided vertically into distinct zones. While the three lower storeys are used for student accommodation, the ‘typical’ mid-section offers classrooms, workshops and other essential spaces. The top zone is reserved for communal spaces.

One of the UK’s most noteworthy landmarks, the 1859-built Elizabeth Tower, which houses the Big Ben bell, has been restored by heritage consultants Purcell to ‘rectify’ the mistakes from previous years’ renovations. The lower levels underwent stone repairs, and the interiors were refurbished to house exhibition and administration spaces, along with a passenger lift for the visitors. Looking at some of the previous winners—London’s Elizabeth Line (2024) and the King’s Cross Station Redevelopment (2021)—one can recognise large-scale heritage and infrastructural projects predictably dominating the running for the prize in their respective years of completion.

While the shortlisted projects include distinct and remarkable public and private sector architecture, they also illustrate the geographical, often socio-political inequity surrounding architectural recognition in the country. This also brings into question the logic of media-centric architectural merit, that must conversely contribute to the documentation and identification of regional architecture on a national stage. Perhaps, a more balanced acknowledgement of regional issues and practices could assist in the emergence of a unified national architectural identity that actively works towards public welfare and addresses some of the key issues of our times that lie within the purview of architectural intervention.