A proposal to transform Plymouth’s Union Street through affordable housing and community-led regeneration has won the 2025 Davidson Prize.
Titled 300 Homes within a Union Street Mile, the winning concept was developed by an interdisciplinary team made up of Clifton Emery Design, Nudge Community Builders, Millfields Trust, Plymouth Energy Community, and Devon and Cornwall Planning Consultants.
This year’s theme, ‘Streets Ahead: The race to build 1.5m homes’, challenged teams to design a community of 300 homes in a real UK location, contributing to the government’s national housing target. Proposals addressed a wide range of site types, from urban high streets to rural areas.
The winning entry is described as:
A model for the delivery of community homes in Union Street, Plymouth, that can be applied to high streets across the UK. 300 Homes sensitively places a sequence of affordable rented homes with co-living features into the rich grain of an established urban high street, with multiple small interventions reinforcing the equilibrium of the whole community as well as local economies. Made off site and designed to a 600mm grid (from cabinet to room to home) the concept is replicable and energy efficient, providing imaginative communal spaces such as shared kitchens, workspaces and food growing areas alongside secure and comforting private home space.
The approach is seen as potentially scalable, with the team suggesting it could be applied to over 7,000 high streets across the UK.
Pooja Agrawal, Chair of the 2025 Davidson Prize jury, said: ‘We believe this proposal has the potential to be transformational. For too long, the sector has relied on and incentivised housebuilders as the primary solution to meeting ambitious housing targets. This proposal challenges that norm – demonstrating the need for more collaborative, grass-roots and innovative approaches that we believe are genuinely scalable.
‘It captured all of our imaginations – not only for its mission to unlock the potential of our high streets and its commitment to affordable housing and community empowerment, but also for how precisely it identifies the barriers that local people and initiatives face when trying to engage with our planning and financial systems.
‘We hope that winning The Davidson Prize will help elevate this initiative and open doors to meaningful engagement with key stakeholders – ultimately helping the team realise their ambition to revitalise Union Street and support the people of Plymouth.’
The runners-up were:
Ash Sakula with Human Nature
1 House, 2 Homes… make a neighbourhood
A new model that builds more homes on less land while enhancing the public realm, fostering active streets, and creating space for local economies and green infrastructure. On a test site at Seaham in County Durham, 1 House, 2 Homes doubles density without increasing footprint. By integrating seamlessly into existing streets, it makes infill and large-scale urban regeneration faster, more viable and less carbon-intensive than car-dependent expansion. The innovative house typology ensures every home has its own front door and reduces per-home material use, operational carbon, and infrastructure strain while delivering high-quality, affordable homes at scale.
FLOC + MAZi Architects, Hyem, Stef Leach, Broaden, Thurston Illustration, SHED, Artis, Henna Asikainen
Positive Disturbance – Realising Brownfield Potential
Positive Disturbance is an adaptive framework for transforming brownfield sites into thriving places where homes, landscapes, communities and economies can grow together towards a reimagined future. On an ex-industrial test site at Clasper Village, Gateshead the project explores ways of redefining urban living as a dynamic, evolving ecosystem – rooted in place yet adaptable anywhere in the UK. As part of a living landscape, the lifetime neighbourhood of diverse tenures draws on positive ideas of degrowth to foster coexistence between humans, wildlife, and ecology while reimagining resources, movement, and sustainability.
Marie Chamillard, Director of The Davidson Prize, said: ‘It was incredible to see the high calibre of entries to this year’s prize, and we genuinely enjoyed learning from the finalists’ proposals. We were also pleased to see that all three finalists chose to engage with communities outside the capital, showcasing the relevance of architectural imagination throughout the country. The winning scheme perfectly illustrates the ethos of The Davidson Prize, highlighting the transformative power of innovative architecture of the home on individuals and communities.’
Pics of the winning scheme: © Clifton Emery Design
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