The AJ Student Prize 2026 judges have been confirmed, with four practitioners brought together whose work spans sustainable design, small-sites development, cultural programming and theatre architecture. The panel will assess nominations drawn from 110 submissions across 61 of the 62 eligible UK architecture schools, with students tackling questions that reach well beyond the conventional production of buildings.
A panel built across disciplines
Tara Gbolade, co-director of Gbolade Design Studio and a mayor’s design advocate, brings expertise in sustainable design, urban development and public-sector design review. She is a trustee of the UK Green Building Council and a co-founder of the Paradigm Network, which champions diverse representation in the built environment. Her presence on the panel anchors the circularity and environmental systems thinking that characterises a number of this year’s entries.
Harriet Jennings, public programme and exhibitions curator at the Architectural Association, brings a curatorial lens to the assessment. Her work spans exhibitions, events and cultural programming at the AA, and she is also part of EYESORE, a cross-disciplinary collective focused on communicating experiences of the built environment and amplifying voices concerned with spatial justice.
Duncan Blackmore, founding director of Arrant Land and development strategy company Neighbourhood, practises as Arrant Industries across design, construction, creative investment, experimental urbanism and small-scale development. He has taught and lectured at various architecture schools. In 2018, 31/44 Architects’ Red House, designed for Arrant Land, won the Manser Medal.
Completing the panel is Steve Tompkins, founding director of Haworth Tompkins and a co-founder of climate network Architects Declare, launched in 2019. The practice is behind the Stirling Prize-winning Everyman Theatre. Tompkins stepped down from the practice in 2025 to pursue landscape painting.
Submissions reflect architecture’s expanding scope
The breadth of the AJ Student Prize 2026 judges mirrors what students are actually exploring. Projects entered this year range from design guides and planning frameworks to proposals addressing funding, phasing and delivery. Others examine circularity and material reuse, community engagement, and the wider social, political and environmental systems in which architecture operates, territory that aligns closely with the sustainability agenda now embedded in RIBA Sustainable Outcomes and LETI targets.
According to Marley, the prize is now in its seventh year, providing a platform to showcase the next generation of talent from architecture schools across the UK. Crucially, as The Architects’ Journal confirms, the prize is free to enter, keeping participation accessible to students at every accredited school. It is open to all ARB and RIBA-accredited architecture schools, with each school invited to submit one final-year undergraduate project and one final-year postgraduate project.
The full list of nominations will be published in the AJ Student Prize issue on Friday 25 September, with the feature going live online the previous day. Nominated students will be celebrated at the awards on Thursday 1 October at RSHP’s offices in the Leadenhall Building in the City of London, which the practice designed in 2015.
