and above practical needs.

Of all the candidates, McLaughlin’s housing scheme is as close to a perfect answer to its brief as any. As a model for other housing associations and local authorities to follow, awarding it the prize would send out a powerful message about where thoughtful architecture is most needed right now.



The shortlist

Burntwood School, Wandsworth, SW17

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Odds: 8/1

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A striking throwback ... the new Burntwood building recalls school design from another era. Photograph: Timothy Soar/PA

A welcome timewarp, this £40m secondary school complex in south London takes its cue from the 1960s campus that stood on the site, originally built under the direction of Leslie Martin (whose assembly block remains) and the architects’ department of the Greater London Council. With six new teaching blockshas moved into a purpose-built new facility in the heart of the Unesco World Heritage-listed maritime centre of Greenwich, together with the departments of landscape, arts and the main university library.

It is a vast building, cleverly shoehorned into a tight site by Irish architects Heneghan Peng, whose small office is used to tackling projects of an unlikely scale and international scope – from the gargantuan Grand Egyptian Museum being built near the pyramids of Giza, to the Palestine Museum under construction in the West Bank, and the Stirling prize-shortlisted Giant’s Causeway visitor centre.

Too many cooks spoil Greenwich University's £80m new building Read more

Their buildings often have a geological feel, as if hewn from the landscape, and even in Greenwich, they have brought their tectonic sensibility. Like a big