{"id":93600,"date":"2025-08-26T09:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T09:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/93600\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T09:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T09:19:10","slug":"manser-medal-aj-house-of-the-year-2025-finalists-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/93600\/","title":{"rendered":"Manser Medal \u2013 AJ House of the Year 2025 finalists revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

They include Carmody Groarke\u2019s transformation of an apartment in a 19th-century Grade II-listed merchant\u2019s house<\/a> in Covent Garden with the addition of a folded aluminium rooftop pavilion. The 14m-long pavilion takes the form of a pitched roof extension, with large openings that mirror the window patterns below, and is constructed from 25mm-thick solid-plate sanded aluminium.<\/p>\n

Also on the shortlist is Graeme Williamson\u2019s Twin House in Stoke Newington, Hackney<\/a>, which flips spatial hierarchy in a two-gabled form so living rooms are placed on the first floor with bedrooms below. The two-gabled profile is clad in a striking red cement board.<\/p>\n

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Twin House by Graeme Williamson Architects<\/p>\n

Outside London, a Paragraph 84e house situated in a designated National Landscape cuts into the Yorkshire landscape and mimics natural organic forms through its copper-clad \u2018flutes\u2019, while new practice Templeton Ford\u2019s rural West Sussex self-build home features a large concave roof, inspired by the legacy of Arts and Crafts buildings in the area, as well as vernacular clay tiles. In Perthshire, Mallet uses blackened timber and local stone to transform a former ploughman\u2019s cottage.<\/p>\n

Studioshaw has been shortlisted again for its Catching Sun House in Walthamstow, which has also been shortlisted in the Project under \u00a3500,000 category. Finally Takero Shimazaki Architects and Sanei + Hopkins Architects make the list of contenders for a hybrid timber and stone Japanese-inspired house in South London and a reimagining of the the traditional country lodge in Suffolk, respectively.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0longstanding prize<\/a>\u00a0recognises the best house in the UK completed over a preceding 12-month period, and was named after renowned British architect\u00a0Michael Manser<\/a>\u00a0(1929-2016), a former RIBA President and Royal Academician.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Manser Medal<\/a>\u00a0was launched in 2001 to inspire innovation in house design and began life in partnership with the AJ. The inaugural winning project was Cezary Bednarski\u2019s\u00a01A Merthyr Terrace<\/a>\u00a0in Barnes. Other winners have included Mole Architects\u2019\u00a0Black House<\/a>\u00a0in 2004 and Skene Catling de la Pe\u00f1a\u2019s Flint House in\u00a0Buckinghamshire in 2015<\/a>. The Manser Medal became part of the AJ Architecture Awards again in 2019.<\/p>\n

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Covent Garden Apartment by Carmody Groarke<\/p>\n

Surman Weston\u2019s self-build project, Peckham House, won last year\u2019s Manser Medal<\/a> \u2013 AJ House of the Year Award, while Reciprocal House by Gianni Botsford was highly commended.<\/p>\n

The project, a contemporary take on the terrace<\/a>, has a simple four-square form and was given character and texture through its distinctive hit-and-miss brickwork. Occupying a former piece of scrubby grass \u2013 next to a Brutalist car park in Peckham, south London \u2013 the judges liked how it successfully fitted into its eclectic context.<\/p>\n

\u2018It stands out but blends in,\u2019 said one. \u2018Unique, but doesn\u2019t seem out of place. Brilliantly contextual,\u2019 said another.<\/p>\n

The scheme, described as \u2018pure passion\u2019 by one judge, saw the architects work as client, designer and contractor, updating the traditional terrace house form with features including the main garden space on the roof \u2013 complete with greenhouse.<\/p>\n

The judges also decided to award a highly commended for the first time to Botsford\u2019s Reciprocal House for its refinement and the single-minded intensity of its conception and execution.<\/p>\n

The house, sited in Hampstead, is essentially an extension of an extension \u2013 the older structure to which it attaches being a 1968 Norman Foster-designed addition to an old coach house. The coach house has now been replaced by this new structure, which \u2018reciprocally\u2019 picks up the spirit of Foster\u2019s addition in its uncompromising simplicity and economy of means.<\/p>\n

A total of 120 projects have been shortlisted across 19 categories for the eighth AJ Architecture Awards, the annual showcase of the very best built projects in the UK. More than 20 projects were submitted for the Manser Medal \u2013 AJ House of the Year category this year. The rest of the category shortlists were revealed last week.<\/p>\n

The expert judges, who are in the process of travelling the country visiting every shortlisted scheme, include returning judges Eleanor Fawcett of Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation, Alpa Delpani, head of strategic planning and design at London Borough of Waltham Forest, fellow of Cullinan Studio Robin Nicholson and strategist Daisy Froud.<\/p>\n

In addition to stand-out 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 2024 and 31 July 2025.<\/p>\n

The winners in the 19 categories, plus the three editorial-chosen awards, will be announced at a celebratory dinner event at another new venue this year \u2013 Royal Lancaster London \u2013 on 27 November 2025.\u00a0More information can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Last year\u2019s winner: Peckham House by Surman Weston<\/p>\n

The Manser Medal \u2013 AJ House of the Year shortlist<\/p>\n

A contemporary home for a couple, in a protected landscape by Architects Group and Rural Solutions
\nBlack and Stone by Mallett
\nCatching Sun House by studioshaw
\nClay Rise by Templeton Ford
\nCovent Garden Apartment by Carmody Groarke
\nHousestead by Sanei + Hopkins Architects
\nNiwa House by Takero Shimazaki Architects
\nTwin House by Graeme Williamson Architects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They include Carmody Groarke\u2019s transformation of an apartment in a 19th-century Grade II-listed merchant\u2019s house in Covent Garden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-93600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}