The 2023 Stephen Lawrence Prize: RIBA Reveals 6 Captivating Projects for the Prestigious Award

The finalists for the 2023 Stephen Lawrence Prize have been revealed by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Baroness Doreen Lawrence OBE and Marco Goldschmied established the annual Stephen Lawrence Prize in 1998 in honor of Stephen Lawrence, an ambitious architect who was viciously killed in a racist assault in 1993. This year marks the award’s 25th anniversary. For the first time, the award will be given solely to projects directed by an early career project architect, typically someone qualified during the last five years before the project’s completion.
Percy Weston, winner of the 2022 Stephen Lawrence Prize and co-founder at Surman Weston, and Adefunmilayo Adebiyi, student juror on behalf of the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation, made up the 2023 Stephen Lawrence Prize jury. Matthew Goldschmied, managing trustee of the Marco Goldschmied Foundation, served as chair.

© Hampus Berndtson

Jury Chair and Managing Trustee of the Marco Goldschmied Foundation, Matthew Goldschmied, stated, “The 2023 Stephen Lawrence Prize’s selection highlights an incredible spectrum of imaginative projects and six wonderfully skilled first-generation architects, ranging from projects that use current buildings and ordinary materials to communal areas that unite people. These structures all work toward improving access and social fairness in some way, showing how good architecture can improve people’s lives.”

The UK RIBA Regional Awards winners were again considered for this year’s Stephen Lawrence Prize shortlist. Entry point identification of Project Architects included collecting information such as the year of certification. The ceremony for the RIBA Stirling Prize will take place at Victoria Warehouse in Manchester on Thursday, October 19, 2023.

The Shortlist for The 2023 Stephen Lawrence Prize

The 2023 Stephen Lawrence Prize’s selection presents a fascinating display of emerging talent in architecture, with projects as diverse as the first multi-story skatepark in the world, the transformation of an 18th-century structure into a contemporary, versatile public space, and a children’s home aimed at providing a peaceful and inspiring environment for its young occupants. These are the six projects that made the cut:

1) A House for Artists l Apparata Architects

© Apparata Architects

The ecological and low-cost design of A House for Artists is an inspiring example for the rest of us. After six years of work, the arts group Create London has opened up affordable housing for London’s artistic class. The result is a five-story, multi-use place for 12 artists to live and work. They have a glass-walled gathering place and outdoor exhibition space on the ground level, which they use to host free creative programs for the neighborhood in exchange for a rent discount.

2) Curzon Camden l Takero Shimazaki Architects

© David Grandorge

The new Curzon cinema is under the arched structures of Railway Viaduct 4, which form one side of a tight passageway used by people walking and driving just yards from some of Camden Market’s most hectic streets. The new theater has the form of a train, complete with seven separate cars and a central café area in the corner, plus platform seating for more people. Five separate screening rooms, each with 30 seats, are accessible via a passageway that leads off the corner where the café is located.

3) F51 Sports Park l Hollaway Studio

© Hufton + Crow

Folkestone, Kent, is home to F51 Sports Park, the first multi-story skatepark in the world. With support from local benefactor Sir Roger De Haan, it facilitates youth development through sport on the youths’ terms. F51 appears utterly unique from the outside, with its glistening aluminum exterior and glances of the tangerine-orange inside. The building has a palpable energy, home to the expected social and dual-purpose rooms, three floors of skating, a climbing wall, and a boxing club.

4) Lighthouse Children’s Home l Conrad Koslowsky Architects

© Edmund Sumner

At first glance, Lighthouse Children’s Home seems to be an architecturally unremarkable project that blends seamlessly with its surroundings in residential South West London. But once inside, the building’s top-notch interior and thoughtful arrangement pique guests’ interest in exploring.
The Arts and Crafts-style building, which had fallen into disrepair, has been renovated to include a sleeping-in room for overnight staff, a flexible apartment on the third floor for two care leavers (aged 16+), and six spacious bedrooms for children ages 12–17. There are two enormous living areas, one for socializing and one for learning. The home’s heart is a custom-made dining table that is the focal point of a double kitchen that can easily accommodate multiple young chefs.

5) Manber Jeffries House l James Alder Architects

© Hampus Berndtson

The Manber Jeffries House in London’s Willesden Green is a beautifully designed garden apartment addition to a Victorian partially detached home. The new 26-square-meter kitchen/dining room expansion effectively overcomes the challenge of a half-story drop to the garden. The expansion is significant and cozy simultaneously because of its dual manifestation as a high, vaulted volume and a semi-sunken room.

6) Museum of the Home l Wright & Wright Architects

© Hufton + Crow

The public gardens surrounding the museum’s Grade I-listed alms home buildings provide Hackney with an inviting haven of green. With new additions giving an 80% increase in exhibition space for the museum’s exhibits and a 50% increase in public space, the architects have exploited the site’s rich history to guide the rehabilitation of the early 18th-century buildings. Large, inviting signs have been installed across from Hoxton train station to direct guests to the new entry.