HCD2025 Awards: Winners revealed

The Awards also offered an opportunity to honour one of the great minds in the field and a huge supporter of the Congress over the years, the late Professor Rachel Cooper, who we so sadly lost earlier this year to cancer. As a tribute to her and her work, the Design Champion Award – in recognition of an outstanding individual whose body of work has truly advanced the field of healthy cities – will now bear her name as the Rachel Cooper Design Champion Award.

Trophies were presented across seven categories, encompassing design for homes and neighbourhoods, workplaces, placemaking, transport and mobility, social infrastructure, the public realm and, finally, the contribution of the research community to advancing knowledge in this field. And this year, to add an extra layer of robustness to the Awards, all the shortlisted entries presented their projects in live judging sessions, either via webinar or in person at the Congress.

Winner of the ‘Healthy homes and neighbourhoods’ category was Citizens House, Lewisham, London, UK – a permanently affordable housing project co-designed by the community, commissioned by London Community Land Trust and designed by Archio.

Topping the ‘Regenerative design for the public realm’ category was Woodside Making Places, a £3 million project commissioned by Queens Cross Housing Association to improve public spaces in the Woodside area of Glasgow. Designed by RaeburnFarquharBowen Landscape Architects, the project involves creating better streets, green spaces, and play areas by introducing features such as cycle routes, sustainable drainage, community gardens, and improved pedestrian crossings.

Designing for children and young people was a theme of two category winners. In ‘Healthy placemaking for community impact’ – one of two categories where the shortlisted projects presented to the judges live in person – the prize went to Shadsworth Youth Hub and Park. Based in Blackburn, the space has been designed and co-created with local young people, ensuring that it truly reflects their needs, voices, and aspirations. Commissioned by Together Housing and Newground Together, the hub and park have been designed by MCAU.

Dubbed “the greenest school in the UK”, St Mary’s Catholic Voluntary Academy, commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE), took home the award for ‘Healthy social infrastructure’. Architects Hawkins\Brown say the school is the first in the UK built to meet the DfE’s GenZero specification, adhering to passive design principles to minimise energy use.

Another green initiative that impressed the judges – this time in the ‘Healthy workplaces’ bracket – was Project Emerald, biopharma company GSK’s new headquarters in London. Featuring live plants, circadian lighting, and smart tech, the new offices have been designed by PENSON.

The award for ‘Healthy transport and mobility’ – another category decided by in-person live judging – went to City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council for walking and cycling improvements in Bradford City Centre. The scheme has created a safer, greener and better-connected city centre through a range of design features and amenities.

In addition to the above practice-based categories, awards were also presented in ‘Design research for healthy cities’. In this class, first prize went to Jiayi Jin (lead author), from Northumbria University, Richard Laing (co-author), from the same university, and Mingyu Zhu, from University of Glasgow. Their research paper was titled ‘Co-mapping future scenarios and uncertainties amid climate crisis: A collective study of coastal towns and the Port of Tyne’.

The final award, the prestigious Rachel Cooper Design Champion for 2025, was presented by Rachel’s husband, Sir Cary Cooper, to Beatrice Fraenkel, an industrial designer and ergonomist, who also works in health and regeneration, specialising in delivering social and economic improvements through working with local communities and a range of public, private and third-sector partners. Former chair of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust and a current non-executive director at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, Beatrice also works with stakeholders in helping to develop design approaches that will deliver spaces and environments that support mental and physical wellbeing.

• In addition to the main awards, certificates were also presented in three ‘Best in Congress’ categories. The ‘Best Poster’ category went to James O’Connell, a specialist registrar in public health medicine at Health Service Executive in Ireland. His poster, ‘Neighbourhoods, growing up and mental health: Evidence from a longitudinal study’, investigated how urbanicity (the degree of urbanisation) and neighbourhood social conditions are longitudinally related to child mental health.

‘Best Research Paper’ was won by Sarah Foster, associate professor at RMIT University in Australia, for her talk, ‘The policy and practice of designing healthy, equitable apartment buildings’.

And ‘Most innovative idea’ was awarded to Michael Rigby, data partnerships manager at Impact on Urban Health, for the Urban Health Index (UHI). This locally tailored social progress index has been developed to better understand and address the deep-rooted health inequalities affecting communities in Lambeth and Southwark – two of London’s most diverse and densely populated boroughs.

HCD 2025 Awards – highly commended and winners

The full shortlist, with winners and highly commended, is as follows:
To view images of all the winning and highly commended projects, click here.

Rachel Cooper Design Champion

Beatrice Fraenkel, Design regeneration and health consultant, UK

Healthy homes and neighbourhoods

Winner:
• Citizens House

Commissioned by London Community Land Trust

Designed by Archio

Highly Commended:
• Future Phases of Eddington, North West Cambridge

Commissioned by University of Cambridge Estates Division

Designed by Hawkins\Brown

Highly Commended:
• The Finley Street Cottages

Designed by Kronberg Urbanists + Architects

Highly Commended:
• Healthy Thermalscapes: Landscape Design for Extreme Heat Adaptation

Designed and developed by Texas A&M University, Department of Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning

Lead judge: Sunand Prasad, Perkins&Will, UK
Panel judge: Max Farrell, LDN Collective, UK

Healthy transport and mobility

Winner:
• Bradford City Centre Walking and Cycling Improvements

City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council

Highly Commended:
• Care in Transit: Designing for Passengers, Transport Operations and Homeless Support

Transport for NSW & La Trobe University Collaboration with support from Sydney University

Design lead Inclusive Design

Funded by iMOVE TfNSW & La Trobe University

Lead judge: Camilla Siggaard Andersen, Occasio Insights, UK
Panel judge: Blake Jackson, NORR, USA

Healthy workplaces

Winner:
• Project Emerald GSK HQ

Commissioned by GSK

Designed by PENSON

Highly Commended:
• Arup’s Birmingham Office at One Centenary Way

Commissioned by Arup

Designed by HOK

Delivered by Overbury

Highly Commended:

• Lenovo Farnborough

Commissioned by Lenovo

Designed by Area

Lead judge: Prof Jeremy Myerson, HCD2025; WORKTECH Academy; HHCD, Royal College of Art, UK
Panel judge: Esme Banks Marr, BVN, UK

Healthy social infrastructure

Winner:
• St Mary’s Catholic Voluntary Academy

Commissioned by the Department for Education,

Designed by Hawkins\Brown

Highly Commended:
• The Homestead Community Network

Designed by Makower Architects

Lead judge: Beatrice Fraenkel, Design regeneration and health consultant, UK
Panel judge: Jim Chapman, Independent design consultant, UK

Healthy placemaking for community impact

Winner:
• Shadsworth Youth Hub and Park

Commissioned by Together Housing and Newground Together

Designed by MCAU

Highly Commended:
• Queensland Gardens

Commissioned by Southside Housing Association

Designed by RaeburnFarquharBowen Landscape Architects

Highly Commended:
• The Super Slow Way Linear Park

Commissioned by Super Slow Way

Designed by BDP

Lead judge: Lourdes Madigasekera-Elliott, East Sussex County Council, UK
Panel judge: Ben Cave, BCA, UK

Regenerative design for the public realm

Winner:
• Woodside Making Places

Commissioned by Queens Cross Housing Association

Designed by RaeburnFarquharBowen Landscape Architects

Highly Commended:
• Santa Brígida Town Square

Commissioned by Instituto20grados

Designed by LPA Studio

Highly Commended:
• Designing Heat-Healthy Cities: Landscape Strategies to Mitigate Extreme Heat in El Paso

Designed and developed by Texas A&M University, Department of Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning

Lead judge: Sue Morgan, Around the Block; SALUS Global Knowledge Exchange, UK
Panel judge: Graham Marshall, Prosocial Place, UK

Design research for healthy cities

Winner:
• Co-mapping future scenarios and uncertainties amid climate crisis: A collective study of coastal towns and the Port of Tyne

Lead author: Jiayi Jin, Northumbria University

Co-authors: Richard Laing, Northumbria University; Mingyu Zhu, University of Glasgow

Highly Commended:
• Healthy cities: A visual conceptual framework for moving knowledge into urban planning practice

Lead author: Anna Gabriela Hoverter Callejas, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya

Co-authors: Pere Vall Casas, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya;

Giselle Sebag, International Society for Urban Health

Highly Commended:
• A healthy placemaking approach for London Bridge: The role of Business Improvement Districts in promoting health and wellbeing

Authored by: Rob Anderson and Daniel Reast, Centre for London

Funded by: Team London Bridge

Lead judge: Dr Mark Drane, Urban Habitats; SALUS Global Knowledge Exchange, UK
Panel judge: Dr Helen Pineo, University of Washington, USA