The shortlist has been announced for the 2022 RIBA Stirling Prize, awarded each year to the UK’s best new building. Six projects will be in contention for the award, which is now in its 26th edition. Among the projects vying for the award are a college in Scotland, a school in London, and a library in Cambridge.

“As we grapple with housing, energy and climate crises, these six projects give cause for optimism, each offering innovative solutions to the challenges of today and the future,” said RIBA President Simon Allford on the shortlist. “From major capital city regeneration programs to new visions for higher education, they all share the ambition to deliver generous architecture fit for a low-carbon future.”

The overall winner of the 2022 Stirling Prize will be revealed on October 13th. Below, we have compiled the six shortlisted projects, along with an extract of the jury citation for each.

100 Liverpool Street, London / Hopkins Architects

Citation: "This refurbishment project transforms a former 1980s office building with deep floor plates into a high-quality, flexible commercial building fit for the 21st century. Its approach to reusing the existing building demonstrates clear strategic thinking, keeping what could be salvaged, unpicking what could not, and adding what was necessary."  

Forth Valley College, Falkirk, Scotland / Reiach and Hall Architects

Citation: "Forth Valley Campus is the final building in a decade-long redefinition of the college’s building stock after the two previous successes at Alloa, Stirling, and Falkirk. Replacing a 1960s building that had reached the end of its useful life on the site adjacent, the new campus buildings hark back to the architecture of the era with long, low-slung elevations, intentionally nodding to both the setting and the evolution of Reiach and Hall as a practice."

Hackney New Primary School and 333 Kingsland Road / Henley Halebrown

Citation: "Hackney New Primary School is an immense sculptural pink brute of a building, punctuating a busy junction on the Kingsland Road with a certain civic pride. The project comprises a school enabled by a new housing block, both on a single, tight urban site. Its size clearly challenges educational and environmental norms, with the elimination of internal corridors forming an inner world of a closely-knit courtyard and classrooms."

Orchard Gardens, Elephant Park, London / Panter Hudspith Architects

Citation: "Comprising 228 homes and 2,500sqm of retail and cultural spaces, Orchard Gardens is an entire city block and major component of Elephant & Castle’s regeneration. Designed to be viewed as a cluster of buildings, it wraps around a sunny communal garden with sophisticated and playful contrasting scales and heights, ranging from five to 19 stories."

Sands End Arts and Community Centre, London / Mæ Architects

Citation: "Located on the northwest corner of Fulham’s South Park, the new Sands End Arts and Community Centre is a collaborative development comprising several new connected pavilions arranged around the existing disused Clancarty Lodge, a popular landmark that was refurbished as an exhibition space as part of the same project."

The New Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge / Niall McLaughlin Architects

Citation: "A brief to create a college library with a lifespan of 400 years – to replace a library gifted to Magdalene by Samuel Pepys 300 years previously – is no small task. Niall McLaughlin Architects have certainly risen to the challenge with this deft and inspiring temple to learning. The library combines load-bearing brickwork with exquisitely detailed horizontal engineered timber structure to establish a lofty, surprisingly vertical space with a complex three-dimensional tartan grid."