The second annual Davidson Prize for thought-provoking ideas around the design of the home has revealed its 2022 finalists. Selected from a longlist of exceptional quality, the three design concepts represent diverse and innovative approaches to this year’s theme of Co-Living – A New Future? 
 
The 2022 Davidson Prize longlist spanned themes including modular solutions, retrofit, networks of community care, rural development, humanising the city, food as the basis of community and rethinking housing models for single-parent families.
 
The three finalist projects are very different but each communicates a strong, innovative concept in a compelling way along with a clear direction for potential roll out. Each of the proposals advances discussion around co-living as a design solution and is born out of a multidisciplinary approach.
 
The Finalists will be given £5,000 to develop their ideas in the form of a visual media presentation. The Davidson Prize overall winner will be announced in June 2022 during the London Festival of Architecture and will be awarded a £10,000 prize.
 
 
The 2022 Finalists:Co-Living in the Countryside by Charles Holland Architects with Quality of Life Foundation, Verity-Jane Keefe, Joseph Zeal-Henry
This proposal seeks to re-invigorate rural communities with co-living and a new type of shared, communal housing that is more focused on wellbeing and less reliant on car ownership. Addressing issues including affordability and loneliness, the concept promotes the principles of co-design and customisation alongside a new model of co-operatively owned and managed space that shares resources and facilities. The team identifies a typical new housing site in a real location as their testbed.
 

Communiversity by Moebius Studio (Moebius Studio, Totem Record, OHMG Video, The Panics, Alex Klein Productions, Armanios Design)
Communiversity is an educational institution and social enterprise – a way of facilitating co-living by providing knowledge and resources. The idea is to address the lack of support and guidance available for people interested in pursuing communal living by disseminating hard and soft skills. The model incorporates learning by doing while transforming empty office and commercial spaces into an interconnected campus of physical space and online networks.

It Takes a Village by Child-Hood (Gankôgui, NOOMA Studio, London Early Years Foundation, Centric Lab)
A design concept for an urban community that fuses inclusive, family co-living anchored with affordable childcare. The child-centred approach combines expertise in early years education, neuroscience and social impact asset management, taking domestic functions out of isolation to offer better quality spaces and more social interaction. Play and social infrastructure lie at the heart of the design model, which centres around nature-focused inside / outside play spaces.

The 2022 jury panel is comprised of architects Paul Monaghan (Allford Hall Monaghan Morris), Mary Duggan (Mary Duggan Architects) and Agnieszka Glowacka (Haptic Architects), journalist Amy Frearson (Dezeen Editor-at-Large), multi-disciplinary artist Yinka Ilori (Yinka Ilori Studio) and educator and curator Manijeh Verghese (The Architectural Association and Unscene Architecture).

The Davidson Prize judge, Manijeh Verghese said: “The Davidson Prize is unique in the platform it creates to develop new ideas around the home, encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and celebrate the role of architects as communicators. I am really enjoying being part of the process with such a wealth of innovative ideas about co-living to learn from. The proposals from the three finalists showcase the breadth of ideas presented spanning the urban and the rural, from grassroots initiatives to new institutional models. It will be exciting to see how these three concepts will be brought to life in the next stage as they each reveal how the home can be transformed into a collective and collaborative space in the future.”
 
To see the finalist and longlist submissions, please visit www.thedavidsonprize.com.
 
The Davidson Prize said “Thanks to the generous support of VitrA Bathrooms, the judging sessions for the 2022 Davidson Prize were hosted at the VitrA London Design Hub on Turnmill Street, Clerkenwell. VitrA Bathrooms also sponsored this year’s People’s Choice Prize, the winner will be announced during the ceremony in June 2022”