London School of Architecture module leader shortlisted for 2025 RIBA Stirling Prize
Posted on: 8 September, 2025
One of The London School of Architecture’s newest module leaders, Hugh Strange, has been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2025 – the UK’s most prestigious architectural award.
His project ‘Hastings House‘ has been recognised alongside the Elizabeth Tower, home to the iconic ‘Big Ben’ bell, and the London College of Fashion’s new home in Queen Elizabeth Park, Stratford.
The shortlist recognises a total of six projects that demonstrate architectural excellence, judged on design vision, innovation, originality, fitness for purpose, sustainability and their ability to inspire, engage and delight.
Hugh said: “We are thrilled to have been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2025. Although our project is a small building, it carries a large message: that an architecture for our age should prioritise repair and re-use, low carbon materials, and design for disassembly within a circular economy.”
The London School of Architecture (LSA) merged with the University of the Built Environment in May 2025.
The design challenges of ‘Hastings House’
Hugh Strange Architects’ ‘Hastings House’ reimagines a Victorian detached house on a dramatically sloping site above the Hastings seafront.
The steep terrain had forced the home to turn its back on its outdoor space, with unstable concrete terraces creating both physical and design challenges.
Rather than replace these, Hugh repaired and stabilised them, dramatically reducing embodied carbon while celebrating their character.
The house is now oriented towards its hillside garden through a series of carefully placed pavilions and light-filled rooms.
A new gallery space connects the kitchen and dining areas, while a new study, accessible only from the outside, is located further up the slope.
This interplay of built form and route “provides the focus of the property”, says Hugh, with distinctive details such as the visible circular concrete caps from the ground anchors contributing to the design language.
The project demonstrates how inventive reuse can transform difficult conditions into opportunities.
By weaving together extensions that negotiate the steep incline, the design allows the landscape itself to shape the structure and atmosphere of the home.
“Restrained, inventive reuse”
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) describes Hastings House as “an inventive home extension that celebrates the existing structure and materials to create a house of contrasts… a restrained, updated Victorian front gives way to a modern, timber-framed rear. The result goes beyond a house extension, transforming the entire home and producing a lesson in restrained, inventive reuse.”
RIBA President Chris Williamson praised this year’s shortlist as offering “a hopeful vision for the future, one where architecture strengthens communities and helps shape a more sustainable and inclusive built environment.”
The winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize 2025 will be announced later this year.
Find out more about courses offered by the London School of Architecture.
