Tunnels of love: Elizabeth line wins Stirling prize

With the longest platforms, the biggest tunnels and the fastest trains on the London underground, the Elizabeth line boasts a dizzying list of superlatives, carrying more people a day than any other train line in the country.

- Oliver Wainwright

It is now deemed to have the best design, too-being named as the winner of the 2024 RIBA Stirling prize for the finest architecture in the UK.

The competition was stiff, from the National Portrait Gallery in London to the renovation of the Park Hill estate in Sheffield, from a Dorset farm conversion to social housing in Hackney and the 27-hectare regeneration of King's Cross in London (winner of the Stirling people's choice award).

The Elizabeth line is a worthy winner, providing a dazzling demonstration that, for all the chaos surrounding HS2, Britain is still capable of pulling off gargantuan transport infrastructure projects with style and panache. Stepping off the escalators and entering the streamlined white tunnels of the Lizzie line is like being teleported to a parallel universe, worlds away from the rest of the creaking, sooty tube network.

From the airy, clutter-free concourses to the soft acoustics, calm lighting and clear signage, every detail has been honed to make the passenger experience as simple and stress-free as possible. It is a model of standardisation and prefabrication, built with rare precision - its elegance belying the fiendish complexity of coordinating the 73-mile-long endeavour.