The Davidson Prize recognises transformative architecture of the home, championing innovation and multi-disciplinary collaboration. How does it contribute to shaping the future of architectural design for our homes?

The Davidson Prize is a £25,000 architectural ideas competition that focuses on the contemporary home, set up in the memory of the late pioneer of architectural visualisation, Alan Davidson. Alan established the Alan Davidson Foundation to create a meaningful legacy representing his life’s work and passions.

Each year a theme is chosen to engage the architectural and design community in forward thinking ideas to solve topical challenges for homes, housing and the communities that live there. Past themes include the future of homeworking, the principles of co-living, safe and dignified housing for the rising number of people facing homelessness and adaptive reuse solutions to address housing shortage in the context of climate change.

We believe that the Prize represents a great opportunity for architect-led multidisciplinary teams in the UK and Ireland to think creatively about the brief and present innovative ideas and solutions that can positively contribute to the conversation, and applied in a variety of settings.

Testament to this are the efforts of the past two winners to materialise part of their winning proposals, in collaboration with their local communities and authorities. In 2023, competition winner Helping Hands addressed the urgent need for temporary homeless accommodation and support services in Liverpool, with a particular focus on the needs of young people leaving the care system. The team’s project proposed a nurturing communal landscape for people facing homelessness – co-created by residents, neighbours and specialist support organisations. This year’s winner - Apartment Store - focused on a redundant Art Deco department store in Somerset, to explore how vacant retail space in the UK’s towns and cities could be reinvented as new homes and buzzing circular economy hubs. The model was designed to act as a defibrillator in increasingly hollowed-out town-centres.

How are the themes for each year’s competition selected, and how do the changing jury members influence the process?

We pride ourselves in selecting themes that are relevant to the current discussions about our built environment, and we are always pleased to see high-profile interdisciplinary teams getting together to tackle the annual theme, drawing from their experiences and expertise.

Once we have established the theme and drafted the brief, we seek feedback and advice from a trusted network of professionals and industry insiders to ensure that every aspect of it is well thought-out and will guide the teams to the best possible solutions. We then start looking into the jury panel, aiming to bring together a diverse group of people with relevant experience that will contribute to a creative dialogue around the entries.

How does having a multidisciplinary team, including representation of the end users, enhance the depth and quality of the design submissions?

Alan Davidson was a pioneer of architecture visualisations, aiming to break down silos in architecture and encourage cross-sector collaboration.

The Davidson Prize is guided by the same principles and encourages architects to team up with professionals who can bring different skill sets and experiences to the table, ensuring that their proposals have considered multiple different aspects of the home.

Over the years we have had a great plethora of professionals joining architect-led teams to develop submissions for the Prize, including mental health professionals, artists and even aviation specialists.

What do you think is the role of human-centred architecture in designing inclusive cities?

Inclusive cities are built on the foundation of empathy. It’s about a knowledge an understanding of the various types of people who will live, work and interact with these surroundings. If we can identify the most vulnerable among us and design with them just as much in mind as any other perceived end-user, we can start to change how our cities are shaped for the future.

In 2022, the theme was ‘Co-living – A New Future?’. Given that co-living draws on our past, how do we reintroduce communal living in a culture that has become increasingly disconnected due to digital communication, urbanisation, changing family structures, increased mobility and evolving work patterns?

‘Co-living – A New Future?’ gave the teams the chance to address multiple challenges including growing numbers of single-person and single-parent households, the shortage of homes, and a loneliness epidemic that the British Red Cross has reported is affecting up to 9 million people in the UK. The longlisted teams presented creative design approaches for rural and urban locations.

The winning entry ‘Co-Living in the countryside’ seeks to re-invigorate rural communities with co-living and a new type of shared, communal housing that is more focused on wellbeing and less reliant on car ownership. Addressing issues including affordability and loneliness, the concept promotes the principles of co-design and customisation alongside a new model of co-operatively owned and managed spaces that share resources and facilities. The team identified a typical new housing site in a real location as their testbed.

Co-living is not a new concept. It already exists in many forms including student accommodation, retirement communities, and multi-generational households.

Nowadays however, the demands being placed on the spaces we live in are perhaps more complex than ever before – and there has probably never been a better opportunity for design that rethinks our models of home while transforming lives and safeguarding the environment.

A unifying theme that emerged across the submissions in 2022 was care – from the care of ageing populations, children and marginalised groups to safeguarding the world’s resources of energy and embodied carbon.

How can we create co-living solutions that address these modern challenges while fostering genuine human connection?

At TLOA, we firmly believe the future is intergenerational. In light of an ageing population, and given this was a major part of the Prize’s 2022 submissions, how do you envision architecture and urban design can facilitate natural, everyday encounters and meaningful interactions between generations?

The demands being placed on the spaces we live in today are perhaps more complex than ever before.

Faced with the implications of a housing shortage, an ageing population, rising costs of care (both for the elderly and for children) and the climate emergency, the UK’s homes post pandemic are also increasingly moonlighting as places where people earn a living.

Meaningful design can offer creative solutions that tackle some of these issues by rethinking our models of home while transforming lives and safeguarding the environment.

One of the finalist submissions, It Takes a Village by Gankôgui, NOOMA Studio, London Early Years Foundation and Centric Lab, proposed a design concept for an urban community that fused inclusive, extended family co-living principles, anchored with affordable childcare, while the winning submission Co-Living in the Countryside by Charles Holland Architects with Quality of Life Foundation, Verity-Jane Keefe and
Joseph Zeal-Henry, addressed issues including affordability and loneliness, promoting the principles of co-design and customisation alongside a new model of co-operatively owned and managed space that shares resources and facilities.

The Davidson Prize focuses on brilliant design ideas. How can we “sell” these social design concepts to government or private developers, especially in a world that too often prioritises financial profit over long-term social benefits?

In the past few years, we have seen multiple community-led projects across the UK getting off the ground. Multi-disciplinary teams that enter the Prize often now include developers that advise on the financial viability of their suggested entries, and we are proud to see the past two winners, Helping Hands (2023) and Apartment Store (2024) now actively pursuing their proposals with the local communities and authorities.

Could you talk about your ongoing partnership with the London Festival of Architecture and how it contributes to promoting innovative architectural design?

Each year The Davidson Prize holds the awards ceremony and showcase of the longlisted, finalist and winning teams as part of London Festival of Architecture (LFA) which takes place in June.

This event draws over 100 guests attracting a wide-range of industry leaders including journalists, representatives from key cultural and education institutions, and leaders and influencers working in the built environment.

The theme of 2024, ‘Rethinking Home – Adapt and Reuse,’ invited creative solutions for the housing crisis through adaptive reuse. What have you learned from the submissions, and were there any surprising trends or discoveries?

As a response to the 2024 theme, we received some truly radical and exciting concepts for the sustainable creation of new housing. Recurring themes that emerged in the longlist included co-design and co-building, skills and materials exchange, education and workshops, on-site food production and urban farming, urban and rural wilding, and local circular economies.

We were also amazed by the diversity of the sites teams picked to turn in to housing including gasometers, electricity pylons, an abandoned quarry and an IKEA superstore all make an appearance in the longlist, along with proposals for transforming agricultural buildings, ex-telephone exchanges, empty office blocks and underused post-war civic infrastructure.

As you look to the future, what do you hope to be the enduring legacy and lasting impact of The Davidson Prize in shaping the future of architectural innovation and societal wellbeing?

As we prepare for our fifth year, we hope to continue pushing the boundaries of the design of the home and communicate unique ideas and design innovation that can be used for the betterment of all.