A proposal reusing decommissioned buses as mobile playgrounds wins the 2026 Davidson Prize

A proposal to repurpose London's decommissioned New Routemaster buses into movable playgrounds has won this year’s Davidson Prize. 

Called PLAYDECK, the winning project was conceived by R.U.A Studio, an interdisciplinary team comprising architects Ru Quan Phuah and Shaun Thomas, landscape architect and videographer Esther Yik Chi Chan, landscape architect and writer Carmen Du, and Jessica Huynh, all of WW+P Architects. They were joined by landscape architect Kelci Vittachi of Studio Egret West and clinical psychologist and consultant Dr. Owen Walker. The team was unveiled as the winner and awarded £10,000 ($13,400) at a ceremony during the London Festival of Architecture.

This year’s theme was Changing the Game: Building Play into Housing, which invited multidisciplinary teams, including at least one registered architect, to rethink how play can be embedded into the design of the home and wider domestic environments. PLAYDECK responded by proposing to repurpose London's 1,000 New Routemaster buses, which are set to be phased out by 2030, into mobile, intergenerational playgrounds. They aim to catalyze outdoor play in existing and underserved residential neighborhoods.

The buses will occupy existing street parking and help reclaim overlooked boundaries, parts of the pavement, and underused green spaces to form an active and accessible community node. Each bus is fitted with multifunctional play blocks, such as puzzle pieces, that can be disassembled and used in the surrounding area. As the play blocks are removed, the vacant spaces form a maze-like interior. The resulting space is an adaptable, multi-level landscape for climbing, gathering, jumping, music-making, and more.

PLAYDECK, along with the two other finalists, No Snakes, Just Ladders Your Second Stairs Can Do More! by Barr Gazetas, Trigon Fire Safety, Adam Nathaniel Furman, and #toylikeme and This is Not a Road: A Community Led Toolkit for Play by Artform, CW Studio, Made It Together, and Civic and Social, was selected by a jury in April from a 12-strong longlist. Each shortlisted team was given £5,000 ($6,700) to develop their proposal, as well as a communication workshop with the Prize’s Creative Partner, visualization studio Hayes Davidson.

“We genuinely enjoyed learning from all three finalists’ proposals, but we were most impressed by R.U.A,” said Deborah Saunt, Chair of the 2026 Davidson Prize jury. “Studio’s ability to integrate expertise from the fields of architecture, landscape design and psychology into PLAYDECK to create a truly playful solution in residential areas. Equally, their proposal to repurpose a decommissioned London double-decker bus addresses the principles of the circular economy, while their management strategy tackles the unequal provision of play spaces across the city with a mobile solution.”

In addition to the cash prize, the winning team will receive a week of Hayes Davidon’s support to help them engage key decision makers, with the ultimate goal of realizing their concept.