RIBA 2026 National Awards Recognise 32 UK Architecture Projects

The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced the 32 winners of the RIBA National Awards 2026, recognising the best of United Kingdom architecture and providing insight into the country’s design and social trends. The awards, presented since 1966, this year showcase the breadth and ambition of construction across the UK, from a new footbridge across the River Severn in Worcester to a house built from site-sourced rammed earth. The winning schemes span infrastructure, housing at scale, workplaces, higher education, mixed-use developments, public realm enhancements, arts, culture, heritage, and private homes.
While many of this year’s winning projects are located in London, the awards celebrate architectural excellence across all four nations of the United Kingdom, from the Scottish Highlands and rural Powys to York, Cambridge, Bristol, Worcester and County Down. This demonstrates the breadth of outstanding design in cities, towns and rural communities. Innovative approaches to delivering homes at scale feature prominently. Canada Water Plot K1 provides 79 affordable homes forming the first phase of the area’s masterplan. Lion Green Road navigates a challenging suburban site in Croydon to deliver 157 dwellings with an equal mix of affordable and private housing. Para3
With sustainability at its core, Plashet Road provides 65 affordable, Passivhaus-certified council homes in Newham. The Brentford Project delivers over 800 new homes and helps regenerate the wider area around Brentford’s High Street. Arts, culture and heritage projects are also strongly represented. In Hertford, a 1970s theatre known as BEAM has been transformed into a vibrant new community and cultural hub. In London, a new dance theatre and school of choreography provide Sadler’s Wells East with a purposeful new home. In York, two modern projects adjoining York Minster – Heritage Quad and Technology Hub – create places where centuries-old craft traditions and cutting-edge technology can be explored and developed.
This year’s winning projects continue to highlight the growing importance of conservation, retrofit and adaptation. The heritage-led reinvention of Plant, a Grade II-listed 1970s office building in Basingstoke with distinctive roof gardens, and the transformation of Arding and Hobbs, a Grade II-listed Edwardian department store in Clapham Junction, demonstrate how existing buildings can be thoughtfully adapted for contemporary use. The restoration of Space House, another Grade II-listed Modernist landmark transformed into new work and retail space, and Highbury House and Studio, a former factory behind a Georgian terrace in North London, follow the same approach.
Infrastructure and civic projects also feature. Kepax Footbridge by Moxon Architects and Jacobs provides new pedestrian connectivity across the River Severn in Worcester. Paddington Square by Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with Adamson Associates redefines arrival to one of London’s most significant transport hubs. Education and research facilities include Pembroke by Mill Lane at Cambridge, the most significant expansion of Pembroke College since the fourteenth century, and UCL East Marshgate by Stanton Williams, a large academic building in the Olympic Park for University College London.
Focus on Sustainable and Community-Led Building
Commenting on the winning projects, 2026 RIBA Awards Group Chair, Neil Gillespie, said: “This year’s winners, while practicing in increasingly challenging times, illustrate how architects working with and for ambitious and enlightened clients can continue to create places and spaces of quality and value. Across a spectrum of scales, functions and locations, through a diversity of approach from the repair and re-use of existing buildings to new build, these architects and their design teams have placed people and place at the heart of their work.” He added that architecture must balance the demands of climate change, inclusivity, affordability, accessibility and safety in the pursuit of buildings that are useful, valued and beautiful.
The full list of 32 winners includes Rammed Earth House in Wiltshire by Tuckey Design Studio, Iorram cottage in Plockton by Baillie Baillie Architects, Tollymore riverside home in County Down by McGonigle McGrath, and the Urban Nature Project reimagining the Natural History Museum’s 5-acre gardens by Feilden Fowles. Entries are submitted to the region or nation in which the building is situated and are judged first for RIBA Regional Awards, then National Awards. The RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist will be selected from National Award winners and announced on 16 July, with the Stirling Prize announced on 15 October. For the first time, National Award winners will be showcased in a special exhibition at the Stirling Prize event at Old Billingsgate on 15 October 2026.