Main Entrance Area - Barnsley Street NMHC / Image: thinkbuild
We are delighted to share that the Barnsley Street Neighbourhood Mental Health Centre (NMHC) in Tower Hamlets has won the Building Design Award at the Housing with Care Awards 2026, held at the Hilton Bankside, London on 5 June 2026.
Barnsley Street is England's first Neighbourhood Mental Health Centre — one of six national pilots chosen by NHS England — and the first UK application of the Trieste community mental health model: a recovery-oriented, low-threshold approach that brings clinical and community care together in a domestic, non-institutional setting. The centre is delivered by Look Ahead in partnership with the East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) and the Tower Hamlets Mental Health Alliance.
Our role was to translate the clinical ambition into spatial and atmospheric terms: a welcoming entrance, a central piazza with café and open tea-kitchen, shared gardens, and a tiered arrangement of spaces that quietly supports each person’s own path back to health. This is the active atmosphere approach in built form — architecture as an active part of recovery and daily life.
Barnsley Street NMHC — proposed ground floor and site plan, thinkbuild architecture BDA, 2024. / 3D orthographic project overview
The project was developed through an intensive interdisciplinary co-production process with clinical, estates, and community partners, and has been in operation for over ten months — drawing national attention including a visit from UKs Minister of State for Care, Stephen Kinnock and a recent feature on the BBC’s One Show. It has been a privilege to play a part in it, and an honour to see the work recognised in both shortlists.
Dr Sheraz Ahmad, Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Lead at the Barnsley Street NMHC, on site. / Image: thinkbuild
Barnsley Street is also shortlisted for a Community Benefit Award from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) — ceremony 15 July 2026. Fingers still crossed on that one!
Our warmest congratulations to everyone at ELFT, Look Ahead, and the Tower Hamlets Mental Health Alliance — and to Dr Sheraz Ahmad, Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Lead, whose clinical vision has been central throughout.