Previous winner David Kohn Architects is again in the running for the prestigious honour – the annual prize given to the best one-off house or major extension in the UK and part of the AJ Architecture Awards since 2019.

In 2023, its Cowshed retrofit, a house created out of a converted shed on a Devon dairy farm, won the Manser Medal – AJ House of the Year Award. This year the practice has been shortlisted for House on a Hill, a central London rooftop penthouse with a stepped façade.

The scheme – also known as Smart’s Place – won a RIBA National Award in July this year.

House on a Hill by David Kohn Architects

Source: Will Pryce

It is one of four London projects on the eight-strong Manser shortlist. The other three are Rodić Davidson’s Muse House, a ‘museum within a home’, featuring a unique display of sculptural fashion; emerging practice Wadhal’s Wade House, a reinterpretation of a 1930s suburban semi on a brownfield site in Ruislip, west London; and West London House in Chiswick by Goldstein Heather, an end-of-terrace expansion featuring quadrant arches as its main motif.

Also on the shortlist is the radical Rammed Earth House by Tuckey Design Studio, one of a few homes in the UK to use unstabilised rammed earth – a circular construction method that uses no cement in the earth mix.

Outside London, Hollaway Studio’s second project for Dungeness in Kent, is also vying for the award. In line with Dungeness’s strict planning rules, where only replacement dwellings are permitted, the house’s form and silhouette closely follow the previous property’s scale, footprint and massing.

Rammed Earth House by Tuckey Design Studio

Source: Fran Mart

In Carmarthenshire, local practice Rural Office’s traditional Welsh farmstead-inspired home completes the list alongside Studio Weave’s adapted agricultural barn on the Isle of Wight.

The longstanding prize recognises the best completed house in the UK and was named after renowned British architect Michael Manser (1929-2016), a former RIBA President and Royal Academician.

The Manser Medal was launched in 2001 to inspire innovation in house design and began life in partnership with the AJ and later became part of the RIBA’s awards programme.

The inaugural winning project was Cezary Bednarski’s 1A Merthyr Terrace in Barnes. Other winners have included Mole Architects’ Black House in 2004 and Skene Catling de la Peña’s Flint House in Buckinghamshire in 2015. The Manser Medal became part of the AJ Architecture Awards again in 2019.

Last year’s Manser Medal – AJ House of the Year was won by Takero Shimazaki’s Niwa House, a lightweight, pavilion-like structure, while Catching Sun House by studioshaw was highly commended.

Niwa House is a 365m² house consisting of a single storey and basement behind a row of terraced houses on a previously derelict and contaminated site requiring extensive remediation. It was also shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2025 and was constructed by specialist contractor New Wave London.

Last year’s Manser Medal – AJ House of the Year winner: Niwa House by Takero Shimazaki Architects

Source: Felix Koch

A total of 123 projects have been shortlisted across 21 categories for the ninth AJ Architecture Awards, the annual showcase of the very best built projects in the UK. The shortlists were revealed last week.

The expert judges, who are travelling the country to visit every shortlisted scheme, include Open House founder Victoria Thornton, winner of this year’s AJ100 Contribution to the Profession prize. Joining her are celebrated Czech-born architect Eva Jiřičná; RCKa founding director Russell Curtis; Dow Jones director Biba Dow; V&A head of capital programme Ingrid Petit; Jas Bhalla Works principal Jas Bhalla; and strategist Daisy Froud.

In addition to outstanding design, the judges will consider how each project has met or exceeded its brief, how it has promoted client or community engagement and how it has excelled in the use of space or sense of place. They will also strictly analyse what sustainability measures have been put in place. Each project must have been completed between 1 January 2025 and 31 July 2026.

The winners in the 21 categories, plus the three special award winners selected by the editors, will be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Royal Lancaster London on Thursday 26 November. More information can be found here.

South Barn by Studio Weave

Source: Lorenzo Zandri

The Manser Medal – AJ House of the Year shortlist

House on a Hill by David Kohn Architects
A 210m2 rooftop two-storey apartment above a Victorian warehouse in central London, formed of a lightweight, prefabricated engineered structure with high-performance glazing and stepped terraces.

Muse House by Rodić Davidson Architects
A four-storey brick house on a mews in central London that doubles up as an environmentally controlled exhibition space for the client’s collection of sculptural garments and features an aluminium façade.

Pantybara by Rural Office
The reinterpretation of a traditional Welsh farmstead in Carmarthenshire which combines a new-build farmhouse, designed to Passivhaus principles, with a set of single-storey repurposed former agricultural buildings.

Rammed Earth House by Tuckey Design Studio
A 520m2 new-build house on the site of a former brickworks in rural Wiltshire formed from clay excavated from the site, demolition aggregate from out-buildings and locally quarried limestone gravel.

South Barn by Studio Weave
A light-touch, open-plan family home embedded on a working farm on the Isle of Wight, created from the minimal adaption of a 1970s agricultural barn with many details developed on site with a maker.

Wade House by Wadhal
A two-storey, two-bedroom new build house that maximises the potential of a 70m2 backland garage plot in Ruislip’s Manor Estate. Aesthetically mirrors its 1930s Metroland homes neighbours through bay windows, mock-Tudor gables and traditional hipped roofs.

West London House by Goldstein Heather
The expansion of an end-of-terrace dwelling in Chiswick enabled by the redevelopment of an adjacent disused territorial army site and featuring quadrant arches throughout as a repeating motif.

Westview Cottage by Hollaway Studio
An ad-hoc 130m2 coastal home in Dungeness, Kent, formed of a series of linked timber-clad and glazed forms, that echoes the silhouette and incremental additions of the cottage it has replaced.

 

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