A modern-day Coronation Street of terraced houses without gardens last night won the Stirling prize, Britain’s premier architectural award.

The Accordia estate, built in Cambridge, features flat roofs and tall chimney stacks. It includes houses of up to six bedrooms for £1m as well as terraced houses and mews apartments.

The project beat favourites such as the Westminster Academy school in London and the £113m Civil Justice Centre in Manchester to scoop the prize at a ceremony in Liverpool last night.

The development — built at a density of almost 20 homes to an acre — eschews individual gardens for roof terraces and communal playing areas. The judges spoke of “a post-Thatcherite development that is not afraid of communal aspirations and aesthetics”.

They claimed that residents spoke about liberation from gardening.

“Instead, there is common land where children safely play as if in some idyllic throwback to the 1950s,” said the judges.

Keith Bradley, one of the architects, said: “The principal concept is about living in a large garden.”

Hugh Pearman, the Sunday Times architecture critic, said: “I am surprised it has won but it is very good. The judges are trying to send out a message that volume housebuilders can create high-quality homes. But this is Cambridge; it’s not exactly Gateshead.”

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