Lion Green Road wins the Stirling Prize: look at the spaces between the homes

A housing award is most useful when it sends attention back to ordinary daily space. Lion Green Road in Coulsdon, south London, has won the 2026 RIBA Stirling Prize. The award announcement identifies a scheme of 157 homes in five blocks, designed by Mary Duggan Architects with RUFF Architects. The recognition was announced on 15 October. This is award recognition, not an announcement that the homes have just opened.

The project gives designers and readers a specific question to consider: can the arrangement between buildings help accommodate more homes without making shared outdoor space an afterthought? RIBA's account offers a documented design response. It does not substitute for hearing from residents, checking a particular home's condition or examining what it costs someone to live there.

Start with the ground, not the facade

RIBA describes a former car park with an eight-metre change in level, connecting a town-centre road with parkland beyond. Its project record describes separate pavilion buildings, retained mature trees, shared gardens, allotments and play spaces. In that account, the landscape is part of how the homes are arranged, rather than decoration added after a conventional street layout.

For someone reading a housing proposal, that suggests a useful first exercise: follow one route from a public approach to a home's entrance. Look for changes in level, shared areas and the point at which a space becomes private. Ask which parts of that journey the drawings actually explain. A plan can help identify a design intention; it cannot tell you how that journey feels after dark, in poor weather or with a particular access need.

Privacy is an arrangement, not just a boundary

The award account says the blocks are rotated and positioned to respond to the slope and views. It describes every home as dual-aspect and balconies arranged to avoid directly overlooking neighbouring homes. These are RIBA's descriptions, not daylight measurements or privacy checks carried out by PING. They identify decisions worth examining alongside a plan, rather than treating the appearance of an attractive facade as sufficient evidence.

The same distinction applies to shared gardens and pathways. A drawing can show a connection and an award citation can praise its ambition. Neither alone establishes who maintains it, how access is managed or what residents say about using it. Those are follow-up reporting questions, not findings that this scheme has a problem. PING has not conducted those enquiries or a post-occupancy study.

Keep design and delivery credits together

The RIBA project record explicitly credits Mary Duggan Architects for design and RUFF Architects for delivery. It names Brick by Brick as client and Mary Duggan Architects with Planit-IE for landscape. The practice's own news page also lists the wider project participants. That makes this a useful reminder that a building is not delivered by a single name, even when an award headline concentrates attention on its lead designers.

For a student or small practice, PING suggests comparing the stated design intention with the credited responsibilities. Which team worked on the landscape, construction or building services? What information would need to pass between them for a shared-space idea to survive delivery? Treat unanswered questions as a prompt for further reading, not an invitation to invent a behind-the-scenes account.

An award is not a complete housing assessment

RIBA says the development combines privately owned and socially rented homes. That does not establish today's available homes, eligibility, rents or service charges, and this article supplies none. Nor does award recognition independently verify comfort, energy bills, accessibility or residents' satisfaction. Those questions need their own evidence. The headline lesson is about a documented relationship between buildings and landscape, not a universal verdict on living here.

Lion Green Road is worth examining as a particular design response to a particular site. Read the plans and credits together, then distinguish the intentions being celebrated from outcomes still requiring reporting. Explore more source-led culture and design coverage in PING's reading archive.