This year's Stirling Prize has been cancelled for the first time since it was created in 1996 due to "ongoing public health concerns" over in-person judging due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced that the Stirling Prize, which is the UK's highest architecture award, will not be awarded as all judging of RIBA Awards has been stopped.
Stirling Prize cancelled "to maintain the consistency and rigour of judging"
The institution made the decision not to award this year's Stirling Prize, and the RIBA National Awards from which it is selected, due to concerns over judges visiting buildings across the UK.
"To maintain the consistency and rigour of our judging process, all RIBA Award-winning projects must be visited in person, therefore it is unfortunately not possible to continue with this year's awards," said a RIBA spokesperson. "All projects which have already been shortlisted for a 2020 RIBA Regional Award will be included in our 2021 RIBA Awards, which will open for entries shortly."

The decision means that no prize will be awarded in 2020. The Stirling Prize has been awarded every year since 1996 when Hodder + Partners won the prize for the Centenary Building at the University of Salford.
Since then it has been won by some of the UK's best-known architecture studios including Foster + Partners, which has won the prize three times ? most recently for the Bloomberg Building in L...