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Changing the Game: Building Play into Housing
In 2026, the Davidson Prize is inviting multidisciplinary teams to explore play for all, with the aim of generating new thinking and solutions that inspire vitality, joy and opportunities for interaction both inside and outside our homes. The Davidson Prize is an annual design ideas competition, established in 2020, to promote design innovation and encourage new ways of visually communicating ideas around the themes of home and housing. The competition is open to teams that include an architect registered with the ARB (UK) or RIAI (Ireland). Play is a fundamental activity for people of all ages. It shapes learning, fuels creativity, builds social bonds and supports both physical and mental wellbeing. Yet today, there are an estimated 7,000 ‘No Ball Games’ signs in London alone, discouraging around half a million people from being active. At a time when daily life is increasingly dominated by screens, playful movement and activity are needed more than ever to get us out of our chairs. Far from being an everyday universal commodity, spaces for play are increasingly under threat, siloed, and becoming more of a luxury than ever. With individual and collective wellbeing at its core, the theme of this year’s £25,000 Davidson Prize is Changing the Game: Building Play into Housing. The competition challenges teams to rethink how play can be embedded into the design of the home. Too often, play is treated as a separate playground ‘over there’, but what if play were part of the kitchen, the hallway, the communal areas, or the roof? What if homes could become safe, joyful, intergenerational playgrounds, where every person has the opportunity to move, connect and have fun?
The brief asks multidisciplinary, collaborative teams to present a compelling visual argument for approaches that enable inclusive play either within the home and its transitional spaces, in the public realm and across communal areas, or through blended solutions that bridge the inside and outside. Teams are invited to develop proposals for a site of their choice anywhere in the UK or Ireland, presenting new models that support safe games and spontaneous play at home and in public, while balancing considerations of neighbourliness, property and maintenance. The full brief for the 2026 prize can be found on The Davidson Prize website at
www.thedavidsonprize.com/the-prize
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