Co-living ideas explored in Davidson Prize longlist

The judges of the 2022 Davidson Prize have selected a longlist of 14 teams. Responding to this year’s theme of Co-Living – A New Future, the longlisted teams represent diverse and exciting collaborative approaches to transforming the architecture of the home. The Davidson Prize is a design ideas and communication prize established in 2021 in memory of architectural visualisation pioneer Alan Davidson. Following the success of the inaugural Prize last year, in 2022 teams made up of architects working collaboratively with other disciplines were asked to consider whether current notions of home in the UK are keeping step with the 21st century.

The organisers claim that the demands being placed on the spaces we live in are perhaps more complex than ever before – and there has probably never been a better opportunity for design that rethinks our models of home while transforming lives and safeguarding the environment. Challenges addressed by the teams in 2022 include growing numbers of single-person and single-parent households, the shortage of homes, and a loneliness epidemic that the British Red Cross has reported is affecting up to 9 million people in the UK.

The longlisted teams offer clearly communicated creative design approaches for rural and urban locations. A unifying theme emerging across the submissions was one of care – from the care of ageing populations, children and marginalised groups to safeguarding the world’s resources of energy and embodied carbon.

Exciting ideas range from new ways of embedding supportive social networks in cities and towns to new models of multi-generational living and innovative retrofit solutions.

 

The 2022 Longlist:

• Azhar Architecture – Co-Living Retrofit
• Baillie Baillie Architects and Community Land Scotland – A Culture of Community
• Charles Holland Architects, Quality of Life Foundation, Verity-Jane Keefe and Joseph Zeal-Henry – Co-Living in The Countryside
• Child-Hood – It Takes A Village
• Child Graddon Lewis, Split, Eley Kishimoto & Hungry Sandwich – Curious Minds Society
• Heta Architects – Recipro-City
• Living Streets – Urban Network of Collective Care
• Moebius Studio – Communiversity
• NAME Architecture + digital – Afterlife
• Team 5 – Retrofitting Co-Living
• The Progressive Housing Design Group – A Model for Progressive ‘Family’ Housing
• Tonkin Liu – Care / Ring
• Will King and Hari Kumar – A Taste of Home
• Workhome Projects – Co-Living Works!

To see the longlisted submissions, please visit www.thedavidsonprize.com/results

This year, The Davidson Prize will also be running a People’s Choice Award which is sponsored by VitrA. The public is invited to vote for its favourite project from the 2022 longlist. The project with the most votes will be awarded with the People’s Choice Award at the ceremony in June. You can vote for your favourite entry here until 06 April 2022.