AJ Small Projects 2025 opens for entries

AJ Small Projects 2025 launched last Thursday (24 October) with a party at Gensler’s London Offices, featuring views over the city.

The annual AJ Small Projects is a fantastic opportunity to publish and recognise schemes on more modest budgets.

From home extensions to workspaces, pavilions to shop fit-outs, restaurants and small houses, it is a chance to celebrate great architecture on a budget, as well as feature smaller schemes that are the bread and butter of many practices all over the country.

It also proves a fantastic showcase for the depth of design talent across the UK and highlights the work of often new and smaller practices, many of which have later gone on to greater – or larger – things.

Enter now

AJ Small Projects first launched in 1995 with Anthony Grimshaw Associates winning the inaugural award for Garden Gazebo. Since then, costs may have risen but the intention has remained the same: to give much-deserved recognition to schemes realised at a more modest budget.

Run in association with our long-time sponsor Marley, AJ Small Projects 2025 celebrates completed projects with a contract value of £399,000 and under – the maximum cost raised again to reflect inflation.

Earlier this year, Hayatsu Architects with Grizedale Arts won the 2024 award for the Farmer’s Arms Cold Food Store. The scheme was built on the side of a former pub in the Lake District for a local arts organisation specialising in crafts.

Source:Hayatsu Architects

AJ Small Projects 2024 winner: The Farmer's Arms Cold Food Store by Hayatsu Architects and Grizedale Arts

The jury was impressed with the ‘cultural exchange’ presented by the project, which they noted could only have been delivered by a Japanese architect working in the particular UK setting. They also acknowledged the embrace of the project by the Grizedale Arts charity and the local community.

Artefact received a highly commended for its Triangle House project while the Sustainability Award was awarded to Topo Architects for The NewBridge Project in Newcastle.

Commonbond Architects took the People’s Choice Award, for its Gardenhide Studio.

Is your project eligible to enter?It must have been completed between July 2023 and January 2025 and it must have cost £399,000 or under.

To celebrate the 30th year of AJ Small Projects, we’re also exclusively offering all entrants a 40 per cent discount on AJ subscriptions. You will receive this discount code upon submitting your entry.

As with past years, all projects entered will feature in the AJ Buildings Library and our shortlisted projects will be published in a special AJ Small Projects issue of the AJ which comes out in April.

Following this, there will be a celebratory event and exhibition in May to announce the winner of the 2025 award.

What are the judges looking for? They look for projects that perfectly fit their brief but also go beyond it. They must demonstrate big ideas but also sit lightly on the planet, embodying an emphasis on sustainability. And finally, we especially want schemes that have a scale of architectural ambition in terms of making space and in their use of material and detail.

Source:Anthony Grimshaw Associates

Inaugural winner in 1996: Garden Gazebo by Anthony Grimshaw

AJ Small Projects: past winners

1996 Garden Gazebo by Anthony Grimshaw (£57,500)
1997/1998 Princes Club Ski Tow Pavilion by Chris Wilkinson (£60,000)
1999 Glover Flat by Wilkinson King (£43,000)
2000 10 Market Stalls by Hawkins\Brown (£144,000)
2001 Holland Park by Boyarsky Murphy Architects (£120,000)
2002 London House by Simon Conder Associates (£98,500)
2003 TFL International by Studio BAAD (£217,000)
2004 Ola Mae Porch by Lucy Begg and Robie Gay (£3,600)
2005 Bell-Simpson House by NORD Architects (£80,000)
2006 Three Seton Mains by Paterson Architects (£200,000)
2007 Wallace Road by Paul Archer (£250,000)
2008 Wabi Tea House by Mole Architects (£7,000)
2009 Moonshine by Mitchell Taylor Workshop (£150,000)
2010 The Dovecote Studio by Haworth Tompkins (£155,000)
2011 Jellyfish Theatre by Koebberling and Kaltwasser (£17,000)
2012 Old Workshop by Jack Woolley (£232,000)
2013 Box House by Laura Dewe Mathews (£245,000)
2014 13 Wapping Pierhead by Chris Dyson Architects (£210,000)
2015 Maggie’s Merseyside by Carmody Groarke (£217,000)
2016 Contemporary lean-to by Doma Architects (£101,800), The Welcoming Shelter by Charlie Redman (£22,000), and Avon Wildlife Trust Cabin by Hugh Strange Architects (£32,000)
2017 Croft Lodge Studio by Kate Darby Architects and David Connor Design (£160,000)
2018 Wrong House by Matheson Whiteley Architects (£93,000)
2019 Conservatory Room by David Leech Architects (£49,750)
2020 House in North Wales by Martin Edwards Architects (£120,000)
2021 Common Room by Rashid Ali Architects (£9,500)
2022 Drovers’ Bough by Akin Studio (£70,200)
2023 Adelaide Street by OGU Architects and MMAS (£340,000)
2024 The Farmer’s Arms Cold Food Store by Hayatsu Architects and Grizedale Arts (£35,000)