Davidson Prize longlist revealed for inclusive play designs

The longlist for this year’s Davidson Prize has been announced, with 12 teams competing to create spaces that promote inclusive play across the UK.

Launched in November 2020 by the Alan Davidson Foundation, the £25,000 award celebrates innovative architecture that improves how we live at home. 

This year, teams were asked to submit designs that ‘rethink how play can be embedded into the design of a home’ and propose ways to support ‘safe games and spontaneous play.’

The 12 longlisted projects are:

• Artform, CW Studio, Made It Together & Civic and Social – This is Not a Road: A community-led toolkit for Play
• Barr Gazetas, Trigon Fire Safety, atelier ANF, #toylikeme – No Snakes, Just Ladders – your second stairs can do more!
• BPTW with Farrer Huxley, Julie Futcher, Arup, and Play Disrupt – THE (Connected) GREAT (Green) PARK (Play) ESTATE
• erz Studio and Vasantha Piyasena – TENEMENTAL PLAY: Transforming the iconic Scottish housing typology into an indoor outdoor playscape
• Field Section LLP + Dr Asa Roast + Studio Zine – Court Rules
• India Aspin Studio & Helen Bickford – RWP: Retrofitting Water Play
• Intervention Architecture, Parakeet & Oobe – SLOW PLAY
• Places not Postcodes – Toy Box
• Root And Erect, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Gemma Keaney – Play Your Part
• R.U.A Studio – PLAYDECK
• Urban Radicals with Sebastian Tiew, Derin Fadina, Webb Yates – Mewsings on Play
• Wiggle Works – Follow the Worm (to a place it calls home)

Deborah Saunt, co-founder of DSDHA and chair of the judging panel, said: ‘We were really impressed by this year’s entries. The longlisted teams harnessed the power of multidisciplinary collaboration and their own playful imaginations to create inventive proposals that integrate play into domestic environments.’

‘Above all, we admire the teams’ desire to engage their communities and go beyond surface-level design and outdated assumptions to create real social impact that brings positive intergenerational outcomes,’ she continued. 

Three shortlisted teams will each receive £5,000 to further develop their concepts and the overall winner will get an additional £10,000. 

A public people’s choice vote remains open until 28th April and the winner will be announced at the prize ceremony in June. 

In 2025, the prize was won by The Apartment Store – a concept to reinvent empty retail space as homes – designed by Studio Saar with Landstory, Stories, BAS and Megaphone. 

More details about this year’s entries can be found here. 

Image: Wesley Tingey/UnSplash

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