The RIBA Journal

With its blend of public space and social homes, RCKa’s Highgate Newtown Community Centre brings a fresh, promising focal point to a quirky and characterful corner of Camden. Can it live up to its potential? Highgate New Town was the ambitious working title that stuck. It was given to Camden Council’s high-density, low-rise housing development built in the area just south of Highgate Cemetery in phases over a decade from the early 1970s.

Our first memory was of Sydney on a winter’s morning, where my son and I arrived in Australia for a month-long trip at the end of June. After a brief sleep, we walked down the hill past the naval dockyards to the Royal Botanic Garden and then, suddenly, shimmering like the ripples of white crests on the water on the horizon, was Ove Arup, Peter Hall and Jørn Utzon’s Opera House.

Purcell’s restoration of the Grade I-listed Elizabeth Tower – home of Big Ben – is the first conservation project to be shortlisted for the Stirling Prize. As part of the Palace of Westminster, it faced the added challenges of a sensitive and high-profile context, quite apart from the technical complexities of the conservation itself. Completed in 1859, the tower was designed as part of Charles Barry and AWN Pugin’s rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament.

In a visual synecdoche, a box of Jenga sits on a shelf in the living space of Niwa House, a home that looks as if it is built with it – but of Brobdingnagian proportions. Designed by Takero Shimazaki Architects, it sits on a completely hidden, landlocked site in southeast London, created for a couple – one of whom had undergone a recent life-changing accident – and their young family.

Faced with mind-boggling challenges such as the housing crisis, the melee of competing statistics surrounding us can make seeing the big picture more difficult, reflects RIBAJ deputy editor Jan-Carlos Kucharek It was 19th-century prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, who reputedly coined the aphoristic phrase ‘lies, damned lies, and statistics’. But what makes an aphorism an aphorism is that it contains some truth.

On a Hastings hillside, Hugh Strange Architects’ extension to a detached Victorian home cascades its way up a steep and complex site. Three new timber-framed structures trace the existing concrete terraced garden, rising to a pergola with views of the coastal town and sea beyond. The client, a property developer, had wanted to move closer to his family and appointed the practice in 2021 during the home purchase.

Appleby Blue reimagines the traditional almshouse for the 21st century. Located on a disused care home site in Bermondsey, it provides 57 high-quality supported apartments for seniors, all for social rent. Funded via a Section 106 agreement, it is owned and operated by United St Saviour’s Charity (USSC). The project, which has been shortlisted for the Neave Brown Award for Housing 2025, represents architecture as a vehicle for social change.

The Discovery Centre – DISC – gives new form and expression to science buildings. As a type, labs have strict security requirements and are often hidden away. Herzog & de Meuron and BDP’s biomedical research base for AstraZeneca, by contrast, was designed for an urban site in Cambridge and puts science on display, both to the staff and the public. A triangular glass disc with rounded edges sits on three pairs of rectangular glass boxes, encircling an open courtyard.

Shaping a cultural quarter for London, in a fragile era for arts and education, is a responsibility. In 2015, following an international competition, a team led by Allies and Morrison – a practice with over a decade in Olympics planning behind it – was appointed to masterplan Stratford Waterfront.

Outdoor pockets of urban leisure space for children can be as site-responsive, characterful and technically robust as the developments they serve In high density urban developments, making space for play is no longer a nice-to-have. It is a planning requirement. In London, policy S4 of the London Plan requires developers to provide safe, accessible and engaging play opportunities on-site.