The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has named Appleby Blue Almshouse as the winner of the 2025 Neave Brown Award for Housing, an annual honour recognising the UK’s most outstanding new affordable housing. And if you’ve walked down Southwark Park Road recently, you’ll know this isn’t just another housing scheme. This is a landmark moment for Bermondsey.

We previously featured Appleby Blue when it opened in People of Bermondsey editorial. Appleby Blue is a building that feels designed with real heart. A place that’s not just for the community, but part of it.

Designed by Witherford Watson Mann Architects in collaboration with United St. Saviour’s Charity and JTRE London, the scheme offers 57 affordable homes for older residents, reimagining the traditional almshouse model for 21st-century life.

The building was conceived as a response to a local need of affordable, dignified, supportive housing that lets Bermondsey’s elders stay rooted in the neighbourhood they helped shape. As we heard in our interview with Nigel Fleming and Juraj Marko of JTRE, the vision was always about more than just bricks and mortar. It was about people.

Inside, Appleby Blue is filled with thoughtful, human design: wide, sunlit walkways, shared planters, rooftop terraces, a double-height communal kitchen, and small gathering spots that invite connection. It’s housing that reduces loneliness, fosters independence, and welcomes you into a real, living community.

The 2025 RIBA jury praised the scheme as “a new benchmark for public housing in later life”  recognising that care and affordability don’t need to be at odds. Instead, Appleby Blue shows how smart architecture, civic values, and deep community roots can come together in powerful ways.

With this award, Bermondsey has once again proven that some of the most innovative and impactful urban design in the country is happening right here quietly, beautifully, and in service of the people who’ve called this place home for decades.

Take a closer look inside the building and hear directly from the team behind this award-winning development.
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Learn more about the project via RIBA’s official announcement or explore Witherford Watson Mann’s work.