The winner of the 2025 RIBA Stirling prize offers an inspiring blueprint for addressing some of our current housing crises. It is also an opportunity to reflect on long-standing dilemmas in providing appropriate accommodation for all.
Architects Witherford Watson and Mann won the prize, for the second time, for the Appleby Blue development. Run by the United St Saviours Charity in Bermondsey, South London, it provides 57 units of one and two bedroom apartments for residents aged over 65, with 11 units fully wheelchair accessible.
It is explicitly a new take on urban almshouses, which date back to the Middle Ages. Throughout their history, almshouses have primarily provided accommodation for the elderly.
