A council housing estate in Coulsdon has been named Britain’s best new building after winning the 2026 Stirling Prize, the UK’s most prestigious architecture award.
Lion Green Road, a 157-home development in the south London suburb, was revealed as this year’s winner at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in central London on 15 October, seeing off five rival shortlisted projects to claim the honour.
The estate was designed by Mary Duggan Architects with RUFFARCHITECTS, commissioned by Croydon Council and developed by Brick by Brick. It transforms a former car park on a sloping site into five sculpted brick pavilions arranged around landscaped courtyards, with an emphasis on generous, family-sized homes.
Mary Duggan Architects led the design, working with delivery architect RUFFARCHITECTS to realise the scheme, which had already picked up national and London architecture awards earlier in the year before taking the top prize.
The five blocks step down the hillside, their angled brick forms designed to sit comfortably among the Victorian and Edwardian streets around them. Every one of the 157 homes is dual aspect, with windows on two sides pulling daylight deep into the rooms and giving residents views over the shared gardens. Careful brickwork, communal courtyards and a layout that puts pedestrians before cars complete a scheme the judges praised for its generosity, craftsmanship and deep understanding of suburban family life.
The prize jury described the development as proof that council housing can stand shoulder to shoulder with the country’s finest private schemes. They highlighted the quality of the homes, the generosity of the shared outdoor spaces and the way an awkward brownfield plot has been turned into a place that feels settled, permanent and unmistakably part of Coulsdon.
First awarded in 1996, the Stirling Prize is the highest honour in British architecture. Each year a six-strong shortlist is drawn from the winners of the national architecture awards, and the jury visits every shortlisted building before choosing a winner. The prize has previously gone to museums, universities, transport projects and private houses — but a suburban council estate taking the top award shows how far the conversation about what counts as great British architecture has moved.
The win comes as Croydon grapples with some of the most acute housing pressures in the capital. The borough’s cabinet recently approved a four-year plan to cut spending on temporary accommodation and save £10m, while new landlord licensing schemes have come into force covering thousands of privately rented homes. Against that backdrop, a council-commissioned estate being judged the best new building in Britain is a powerful statement about the role local authorities can still play in building well.
Across London, demand for genuinely affordable, well-designed homes continues to outstrip supply, with grant funding being released for hundreds of new social rent homes in places such as Ilford. Lion Green Road offers a template: suburban, family-focused, architecturally ambitious council housing that refuses to compromise on design quality.
For Coulsdon, a suburb more often in the headlines for its high street than for design awards, the prize puts the area on the national architectural map. The estate’s success is likely to sharpen the debate about how outer London’s suburbs should grow — with the same craftsmanship and care the jury found on Lion Green Road.
The 2026 Stirling Prize cements Lion Green Road’s place among the landmark buildings of modern British architecture — and sets a demanding new benchmark for every council estate that follows it.
