Major housing project of the year

Winner

Linden Homes: The Village, Caterham-on-the-Hill, Surrey

Linden Homes has confirmed its dominance of the housebuilding sector this year with this wonderful exemplar of sustainable, well-designed and, most of all, liveable development. The 366-home conversion of the 23 ha Caterham Barracks contains every element of a truly sustainable community - sports and leisure facilities, a supermarket, offices, a nursery, dance studios, medical provisions, a community farm and animal hospital and an enterprise centre, to name but a few. Public realm features give a sense of place, while the involvement of the public from very early planning stages has made for major buy-in from the existing local community. The homes are beautifully designed, too, proving that perfect integration of new-build housing with existing Victorian structures is not just a utopian vision, but a realistic aim.

The Village was designed around a traditional village green to encourage community interaction

Runners up

Chetwoods: Chapel, Southampton

London-based architect Chetwoods took its housing expertise to Southampton to regenerate St Mary's, one of the most rundown areas of the city centre. Taking into account the former lorry park's position in the flood plain of the River Itchen, Chetwoods cleverly raised the ground floor by a metre to avoid flooding, while ensuring a minimal environmental impact by limiting the number of parking spaces. High-density criteria were also met, with a density of move that 100 dwellings per hectare, while the colourful design was of the highest order.

Places for People: Broughton Square, Milton Keynes

Places for People's great achievement with its mixed-tenure Broughton Square was to prove that a high-standard of ecological building doesn't need to cost the earth - the developer claims that it reached its EcoHomes "excellent" rating with a pricetag of just £1887 for each of the 210 units. The judges were also impressed by the seamless integration of the different types of tenure on the 3 ha site, with shared-ownership, rental and private-sale homes indistinguishable from each other. PRP Architects and contractor Willmott Dixon should be proud of their contribution to this excellent development.

Pollard Thomas Edwards: Adastral South Village, London

Pollard Thomas Edwards made it into the shortlist this year for its 321-dwelling development for the Notting Hill Housing Group and Bellway Homes on part of the former Hendon RAF base. Adastral South Village features striking architecture and high-density living while retaining a modest scale of development . Testament to its success has been the extension of the regeneration zone to the next-door Grahame Park site, which PTE has jointly masterplanned with Levitt Bernstein Associates. The judges were impressed by the beauty of the public spaces within the project and the efforts made to ensure the success of the new community.

St James (South Thames): Kew Riverside, London

St James' place in the finalists was earned by its hugely successful Kew Riverside development, a scheme of more than 500 houses and flats of one to six bedrooms. The Regency influence on the architecture has allowed the project to merge harmoniously with its surrounding area in south-west London, while its inward-looking configuration focuses the homes on wonderful landscaped gardens and away from the nearby retail park and water treatment park. A further feature to impress judges and residents alike was the provision of underground parking, removing cars as far as possible from the public realm.