The six best new buildings in the UK right now, in the words of the architects who helped build them

Big Ben’s Elizabeth Tower, the new London College of Fashion and AstraZeneca’s Cambridge headquarters are among six projects that have been listed for the 2025 RIBA Stirling Prize. The prize, presented annually, is awarded to ‘the architects of the building that has made the greatest contribution to the evolution of architecture in the past year’, and the winner will be announced on October 16 at a ceremony at London’s Roundhouse.

‘The prize is a bellwether of the industry's concerns at the moment,’ says Country Life’s architectural editor, John Goodall. ‘It tends to go to things that are striking in some way or another.’ One thing of particular note, this year, is the inclusion of a restoration project. ‘It's wonderful to have the Elizabeth Tower there, as in years gone by that kind of r