With houses in London now selling for as much as £26 million, the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize shortlist offers some slightly more attainable inspiration for anyone with the time and energy to build from scratch.
All six projects on the Stephen Lawrence Prize shortlist ? including a school, a travelling artists' studio, a London house extension and a multi-house mews development ? were built in the UK for £1 million or significantly less.
The shortlisted projects are: Exhibition Mews, Hampshire by Ash Sakula Architects; House of Trace, London by Tsuruta Architects; Mellor Primary School, Stockport by Sarah Wigglesworth Architects; Modern Side Extension, London by Coffey Architects; The Observatory, Hampshire by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios; and Tin House, London by Henning Stummel Architects. The annual prize was launched in memory of Stephen Lawrence, a British teenager and aspiring architect who was murdered in 1993. It is intended to encourage fresh architecture talent and reward projects with a construction budget of less than £1 million.
The prize is part of a wider awards programme by the Royal Institute of British Architects, which includes the Stirling Prize for the UK's best new building and House of the Year.
A winner will be announced as part of the Stirling Prize ceremony in London on 6 October.
Last year's prize went to The Fishing Hut in Hampshire by Niall McLaughlin Architects, a shelter and storehouse on a picturesque lake.
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