King’s Grove, an elegant new house squeezed behind two Victorian terraces in Peckham, has scooped up this year’s Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) Stephen Lawrence Prize.

Intended to encourage fresh talent working with smaller budgets, the Prize rewards the best examples of projects that have a construction budget of less than £1 million.

The award, along with £5000, was presented to Duggan Morris Architects at a dinner reception in Manchester hosted by BBC Radio 4’s Mark Lawson.



The judges included Marco Goldschmied, Doreen Lawrence OBE and 2011’s winner, architect Phil Coffey, who all marveled at the home.

“We were entranced by the demure entrance to this new-build, all-brick house in the back lands of two Victorian terraces in Peckham,” said the judges. “The architects had to deal with local residents, party wall agreements and the local planning department to come up with a home that, inside and out, is practical, simple, subtle, timeless and elegant.”



The four other projects that were shortlisted for the prize were: Private House, Oxford by Adrian James Architects; Private House, Kent by Hampson Williams Architects; The Dellow Day Centre, London E1 by Featherstone Young and The Marquis Hotel & Restaurant, Dover by Guy Hollaway Architects.

The Stephen Lawrence Prize, sponsored by the Marco Goldschmied Foundation, is in memory of the teenager who was setting out on the road to becoming an architect when he was murdered in 1993.