Reach for the skies

Vertical campus and Big Ben's revamped Elizabeth Tower on Stirling prize list

- Catherine Slessor

Rather like contenders for best in show at Crufts, where the perfect chihuahua is pitted against the perfect great dane, the British buildings vying for 2025's Stirling prize are dissimilar in scale, style and purpose.

The shortlist encompasses a medical research centre, almshouse, college of fashion, two houses and a national monument.

Geographically, though, they are less disparate - four in London, one in Hastings and one in Cambridge, which raises the question: is there really no noteworthy new architecture north of the Fens?

Historically associated with pastoral benevolence and distressed gentlefolk, the almshouse gets a modern reboot by the architects Witherford Watson Mann. Their Appleby Blue development in Bermondsey, London, is a place of care and shelter, but above all, social connection. The human theatre of residents in its voluminous garden room can be appreciated from the street through a glazed walkway projecting out along the main facade like a shop window.

"The idea was to build right in the heart of the community, not to hide people away," says the project architect, Stephen Witherford.