New Routemaster playground bus wins 2026 Davidson Prize

The winner was selected on 4 June following presentations to the panel, Deborah Saunt, Founding Director of DSDHA; Zafir Ameen, Head of School Programmes at Open City; Russ Edwards, Project Director at Latimer and Neil Emery, Director of Clifton Emery Design. Dinah Bornat, Campaigner, Co-founder Director of ZCD Architects and author of All to Play for also provided expert advisory on the selection.

The People’s Choice Award went to "THE (Connected) GREAT (Green) PARK (Play) ESTATE" created by BPTW with Farrer Huxley, Julie Futcher, Arup, and Play:Disrupt which integrated play into housing estates.

Other finalists include "No Snakes, Just Ladders – Your Second Stairs Can Do More!" a scheme by Barr Gazetas, Trigon Fire Safety, Adam Nathaniel Furman and #toylikeme, proposed the transformation of spaces within second staircases and evacuation lifts into a shared asset. With this underutilised space occupying 325m², turning this into a place for everyday play is key to providing opportunity for safe discovery.

Also a finalist,"This Is Not a Road: A Community-Led Toolkit for Play" from Artform, CW Studio, Made It Together & Civic and Social, sets out play opportunities within the street to allow groups to reframe their local social infrastructure.

Deborah Saunt, Chair of the 2026 Davidson Prize jury, said: “We genuinely enjoyed learning from all three finalists’ proposals, but we were most impressed by R.U.A. Studio’s ability to integrate expertise from the fields of architecture, landscape design and psychology into PLAYDECK” Saunt said. “The judges felt that the winning design has strong potential to create a lasting impact beyond the immediate area.”

“The winning design highlights how the architecture of the ‘home’ should extend out of our doors and into communities, showing how we can reimagine and redesign our overlooked shared spaces as part of this,” said Marie Chamillard, Director of The Davidson Prize.

Saunt said: “[PLAYDECK facilities] seek to empower local people to re-engage actively with their neighbourhoods, while also providing the impetus for people of all ages to break free from their screens and rediscover the joys of physical, interpersonal and intergenerational interaction. As my fellow judge Russ Edwards said: ‘Somebody get Sadiq Khan on the phone and let’s make this happen!’”

R.U.A Studio team includes architects Ru Quan Phuah and Shaun Thomas, WW+P ; landscape architect and videographer, Esther Yik Chi Chan, WW+P ; landscape architect and writer Carmen Du, WW+P ; landscape architects Kelci Vittachi, Studio Egret West, and Jessica Huynh, WW+P, and clinical psychologist and consultant Dr Owen Walker.