Grand Designs House of the Year Season 8 Episode 4
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Hello, and here's the weather.
00:02For today's forecast, expect scattered flashes of design brilliance
00:06with prolonged periods of architectural showmanship.
00:09There's a strong chance of concrete at ground level,
00:12timber cladding moving eastwards and intermittent glimpses of polished terrazzo.
00:17Light will play a key role, occasionally dappled, frequently dramatic
00:21and sometimes rather boldly emerging from beneath the stairs.
00:26Temperatures are set to rise in kitchens with underfloor heating,
00:29particularly where there's a hidden wine fridge.
00:31Wind resistance may be tested in houses built on stilts.
00:36And viewers are advised to take shelter immediately if anyone talks about flow.
00:42Welcome to House of the Year.
00:45The competition is hotting up for the Royal Institute of British Architects' House of the Year
00:51as we welcome the last batch of long-listed homes.
00:55That's clever. Oh, heavens.
00:58The pressure's building, and the competition is fiercer than ever for a place on the shortlist.
01:03Oh, this is really, really good.
01:06From houses that were built whilst under attack from midges.
01:10We had to hide in a caravan for an afternoon.
01:13Three grown men hiding in a caravan.
01:16To homes that were built to the strictest of tolerances.
01:20Tim is known as Millimetre Tim in the business round.
01:24The houses we explore will be whittled down to a shortlist of just seven.
01:29I mean, what the heck?
01:30At the end, we'll discover which will be House of the Year 2025.
01:37So get ready.
01:38Grease all nipples and lubricate all joints.
02:04So far, five homes have claimed their place on the shortlist.
02:07Kirk and the Craig on the Isle of Harris.
02:11Hastings House, a triumph of engineering and elegance.
02:14And Triangle House, a house that takes you to the Caribbean.
02:19Then there's a Mento, a carefully crafted cruciform family home.
02:24And Jack's Barn, a barn conversion that keeps its character.
02:29There are two places left on the shortlist and five more buildings to explore.
02:37Snooping around these homes with me is the architect Damien Burrows.
02:42To have a courtyard garden here is quite something.
02:47And the conservation architect, Natasha Huck.
02:50Oh, wow, look at this.
02:54Some houses are born beautiful.
02:57Some acquire beauty.
02:59Others have beauty thrust upon them.
03:01Usually by an architect with a bold vision and a host of power tools.
03:05This category is all about transformation.
03:08And not the kind that involves a new doormat and a pharaoh and ball tester pot.
03:13These are epic, drafty bungalows, weary barns, structures long past their prime.
03:20Reimagined, reconfigured and re-emerged as architectural swans.
03:25They've been wrapped in zinc, filled with light, given poetry, purpose and soul.
03:31Oh, it's so stirring.
03:33I'm beginning to feel it'll transform myself.
03:36I might start wearing linen.
03:40Barth is experiencing a transformation of its own.
03:43You come here for Jordan grandeur, creamy stone and the odd bit of Regency cosplay.
03:50You don't come here for bungalows.
03:55But maybe you should.
03:58This is a house of wood shingle.
04:01A bungalow utterly transformed with a new skin of timber.
04:07Thousands of pieces of it.
04:12Hi.
04:13Hi.
04:13Good to meet you.
04:14Hi.
04:15The owners are Celia and Keith.
04:18Excellent place to be living.
04:21It's sort of picolic and befits a wooden house, I suppose.
04:24You've got a little shingle wooden house in the woods.
04:26Yes.
04:27Yeah.
04:27Yeah.
04:28It used to be a 1960s kind of low-energy bungalow.
04:34As you want to say, low-energy as in really poor...
04:36Poor energy.
04:37Poor, yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:38Yeah.
04:39And then we wanted to kind of upgrade it, retrofit it, so that we could put in some sustainable
04:45heating elements.
04:46Yeah.
04:47And then the shingle came along as a kind of cladding to cover all the insulation.
04:52But it looks beautiful.
04:53It is beautiful.
04:53It looks beautiful.
04:54Because they're coursed.
04:55Yeah.
04:56They're not, you know, dropping and rising.
04:58So they're coursed.
04:59Yeah.
05:00And, of course, they're overlapped so that the joints are always staggered.
05:04Yeah.
05:04If we did it again on a bungalow, I think it's not the place to do the cedar shingle because
05:10it's such a vast kind of amount of square meterage.
05:13Yeah.
05:14But it is beautiful.
05:16And from a drone shot, it looks great.
05:18When you're working with an architect, you're quite often taking a sort of godlike view of
05:24it.
05:24So you're seeing 3D models and you're looking and you're kind of seeing a building in a
05:29way that you never really truly see.
05:32Yeah.
05:32You go around to someone's house and knock on the door and they say, come in, would you
05:35like the tour?
05:36And you say, no, not really.
05:38Actually, no, I've just come to see you.
05:39Yeah.
05:40But when people come here, you should just say, would you like to see the roof?
05:43Yeah.
05:44We've got a ladder here.
05:45We've got a ladder, yeah.
05:45Get up there.
05:46It's a hidden asset, isn't it?
05:48A hidden beauty, a hidden gem.
05:49Hidden money pit.
05:51Yeah, OK.
05:55More like an investment, I'd say.
06:00Along the back of the house are the three children's rooms and parents' bedroom suite,
06:05all connected by a vaulted corridor with skylights that leads to the new entrance hall.
06:11At the near end of the front half is the glass-walled kitchen diner.
06:16Next to that is a TV room.
06:19And at the far end is the living room with views across the valley.
06:29Inside, this place does not feel like a conventional bungalow, compartmentalized and closed off.
06:36No, instead, you can see down the length of the building.
06:39It feels connected and open.
06:42It's really neat.
06:45Really neat.
06:47Celia and Keith's architect has pulled off a clever trick, too, in the way he's divided up
06:52the house.
06:53So this entire depth, this is social space?
06:59Yeah.
06:59Yes.
06:59And then all the rooms behind this are all the cellular bedrooms?
07:04Yeah.
07:06The living and sleeping spaces are separated by a corridor that divides the building into two.
07:12We can kind of close it off so that this space is completely separate from the rooms at the back.
07:18Yeah.
07:19It's almost like the back part of the house is what would traditionally be like the upstairs of a building.
07:25And then this front part is like the downstairs.
07:27So we continue that separation even though it's all on one level.
07:34Walking through the kitchen and down to the sunken living room, your perspective suddenly shifts.
07:40Oh, yes, down some steps.
07:43Oh, so the whole thing kind of expands.
07:47It lifts as you walk into it.
07:50It's like two or three and a half meters or something, that sheet of glass.
07:53So you step down into a sort of sky observatory, really.
07:58Yeah.
07:59Which is actually kind of almost exactly split across the middle so the horizon cuts halfway
08:06across those windows.
08:07Oh, and there's these clouds suddenly appear to be more powerful as you're framing this
08:12kind of great skyscape.
08:17What I love about this place is the variety of experiences that it offers.
08:21No two rooms in here are the same from a room which just grabs that huge expansive landscape and
08:29that view to Wales beyond to the most intimate private window that's nestled into the hillside
08:37and then into this.
08:38Oh, my Lord.
08:40This is the first bungalow I've ever seen that has a sort of ecclesiastical corridor with little
08:46cellular rooms off is like being in a monastery with these fantastic clear story lights that just grab
08:56sunshine, pull it into the building.
09:02I don't know why I'm whispering.
09:06Forgive me, bungalow, for I have stared, but beauty like this doesn't come easy.
09:13The process of making it can floor you.
09:18It was a long process.
09:20Yeah.
09:20And getting materials to the side.
09:22I mean, just the logistics of being here.
09:24That was tough.
09:25And I think we had, you know, quite a few phone calls.
09:27Because a private drive sounds like a nice idea.
09:30Yeah.
09:30Until you kind of realise that you can't get a big truck or lorry down the drive and they've
09:35left everything on a pallet half a mile away.
09:39Yeah.
09:40Or just refuse to deliver stuff.
09:42So there's a couple of kind of delivery drivers that we knew they could get in with one of their
09:48kind of grabbers and drop stuff off.
09:53They've gone to a lot of trouble reinterpreting this bungalow.
09:59This underrated building form, now reimagined, is once again taking its place in the spotlight.
10:08I suppose we think of bungalows as being background buildings, don't we know, part of the supporting cast of the
10:16theatre of architecture that makes our cities and our towns.
10:21But what this place demonstrates is that you can take an individual from that supporting cast, you can believe in
10:29them, remodel them, reclose them.
10:32You can give them a script that works for them and you can transform them into a glamorous, eloquent, witty
10:41centre-stage star.
10:52We've seen one shape-shifting home so far.
10:56Four more to see before we find out which will be shortlisted for the House of the Year 2025.
11:12The next longlister we're visiting in our Incredible Transformations category is in Suffolk.
11:19I'm off to see it.
11:22It's an exciting new set of buildings that transforms not something that was already there, but the very way we
11:29could build our homes.
11:33Most homes squeeze all of their functions underneath one single roof.
11:38But I'm off to see a home that transforms that very idea.
11:43Four different buildings, four separate functions and one family.
11:49Welcome to Housestead.
12:02Housestead is four buildings arranged around a cross shape in a central courtyard.
12:08To the south is a glazed thatch living pavilion with a kitchen dining area, a lounge and bathroom.
12:14To the west is a solid brick working block containing a main bedroom with en-suite and office above.
12:21To the east is the sleeping block with five children's bedrooms and a guest bedroom.
12:27There is also a greenhouse structure to the front which acts as a winter garden.
12:32The corrugated metal north building is the utility block with a boiler room, garage, general store and upper-level hangout.
12:41The owners are architect, husband and wife, Amir and Abigail.
12:46All of the elements of the building are so far apart.
12:49What was the idea behind that?
12:51One's a living function, one's a sleeping function, one's utility and one's work and study studio.
12:58It's really to sort of create four distinct zones where you have to go outside, experience the outdoors between the
13:05different functions.
13:06It wouldn't suit everybody, but I think if you enjoy being outdoors, you want a way of keeping a large
13:13family together as families develop.
13:17I think, for us, it's working brilliantly.
13:22As the children grow older, they can have their own space and come together with the adults here.
13:28This is the living block where the family can eat, chat and socialise.
13:33It's part sitting room, part kitchen, part dining space, with a mezzanine floating above.
13:40All gloriously open plan.
13:44Oh, hello.
13:46This is, oh my word, it's stunning.
13:51The thatched roof seems to float on improbably thin steel columns.
13:56We wanted everything to be as light as possible so it's not detracting from the view.
14:00Nothing is bigger than it needs to be, so, you know, it's been finely engineered.
14:04Steel could have felt like a cold industrial material to use here, but it doesn't.
14:10Thanks to the clever colour choice, Suffolk Pink, a colour used on buildings in the area.
14:16The Suffolk Pink came from the fact that they used pig's blood to become the sort of binding material.
14:24In a lime wash.
14:25So, you know, you mix protein and lime and it reacts and it creates the Suffolk Pink.
14:30So, this is dragging Suffolk Pink into the 21st century.
14:33This is giving you a bit of oomph.
14:35Exactly.
14:36And it's the last thing people expect when they walk in here.
14:39Yes.
14:40This is a gorgeous pink.
14:40This is a gorgeous pink.
14:45Then, outside to another extraordinary building in this 21st century house stead.
14:51So, we've come from a traditional thatch roof to lunar space module.
14:58You called it a lunar module landing and the way it was constructed really was very lunar-like.
15:03It was built in the area where we parked the cars, assembled and then raised by a crane and very
15:10lightly popped onto the roof, bolted down.
15:13In one section?
15:14The whole thing was built, bar the staircase, and the whole thing was built, raised up and popped down.
15:19It was great fun watching it go up.
15:21You have people reporting it, like there's a spacecraft landing next door.
15:25It's what's happening.
15:26It was a giant step for Suffolk.
15:28It's very much a lookout.
15:30It's very much a place for us to get away from everything else, but also our studio.
15:34And it's quite high up.
15:36Not quite 33 steps, but it's 31 steps.
15:39It's a very nice journey and you actually feel that you're just getting away from everything.
15:43You can go up there and just escape.
15:44Pick up a book, finish off a project.
15:47Curiouser and curiouser.
15:49From a space oddity to a greenhouse built into a bedroom wing.
15:54Nothing conventional about that either.
15:58This is a thermal camera and it's a great way of showing exactly where the heat is in a house.
16:05Now in a normal home, you'd expect to see hot spots around the radiators and chimney flues.
16:09But if we take a look down here...
16:13Wow.
16:14It's off the charts hot.
16:16By design, incredibly.
16:18This glazed corridor helps heat the hot water for the whole house.
16:23So we've got a sort of glazed corridor that is designed to get very hot during the day and helps
16:30provide us with all our hot water.
16:32So you've got all this hot air here.
16:35It's rising up through there, passing over the copper pipes and just heating up your hot water.
16:40Heating up the hot water.
16:41Meanwhile, the bedrooms behind remain really beautifully cool.
16:45Yeah, the temperature difference.
16:46You can really feel it, can't you?
16:48Yeah.
16:48You're in a greenhouse.
16:49I am.
16:49Oh, as soon as you come through here, it's just really cool.
16:56Just calm.
16:57It's really cool and calm.
16:59The transition between the cool, the hot and outside into the fresh in such a short distance of time, it's
17:06quite something.
17:08That's thanks to the thick timber walls between the greenhouse and the bedrooms which contain the heat.
17:14Ingenious engineering, thoughtful design and a love of innovation are all things to be admired about this house.
17:21Like all good things, though, Amir and Abigail had to wait for it.
17:26We didn't finish.
17:28We didn't arrive when it had finished because we first moved in when the building had power but no lighting.
17:35So we camped.
17:36We camped for quite a long time and we rigged up lights and because we wanted to be here, we
17:42moved in at the very first opportunity.
17:44So it's been very much an adventure, really.
17:48The children have been very patient.
17:52But now, now it feels like it's properly finished.
17:55There's this thing called Suffolk Time that we didn't know about but we kind of managed to work with it
18:00and it's, sorry, it's very different to London time.
18:05Well, Suffolk Time is, you know, you know, things happen when they happen, often.
18:10Not necessarily that we'd be aware that they're going to happen when they happen, but they do happen.
18:15They happen to a very good standard.
18:20I'll say, this is a family home for the 21st century, where children and adults each have their own space.
18:28Whether it's the utility block with its games room above or the private bedroom wings, where everyone can retreat when
18:35they need to.
18:36And then, when they're ready, they gather to cook, to eat, to live together.
18:44The watchtower, the thatched glazed pavilion, the Nissen hut.
18:51Individually, these are striking, odd, even a little eccentric.
18:56But together, they form something that is unique and compelling.
19:01They form architecture that is bold, inventive, and entirely personal.
19:10We've seen two remarkable transformations so far.
19:15Three more to go before we find out which will be shortlisted for the House of the Year 2025.
19:29Some things just seem understated.
19:32A navy blue Vauxhall, a pair of traditional brogues, Jeff from the parish council.
19:39And then, then you look closer and you discover that Jeff is actually a belly dancer,
19:44and that the brogues are handmade in Florence,
19:46and that the Vauxhall does nought to sixty in less than five.
19:55Think of our next longlister as Jeff.
19:58It's in the quiet rolling hills of Somerset.
20:01It used to look like this.
20:04Before it was knocked down and was reborn as this.
20:12Definitely an upgrade.
20:15This is the Orchards.
20:19The house is mostly single-story, stepping down gently with the landscape.
20:24You enter into a wide hallway, the heart of the home,
20:27which leads one way to the public spaces and the other to the private wing.
20:31In the public area, there's an open-plan kitchen, dining, and living space,
20:35which opens onto a veranda.
20:37A flexible room nearby serves as a playroom, gym, or guest space.
20:43In the private wing, there are two children's bedrooms,
20:46a family bathroom, and a main bedroom suite at the far end.
20:50There's also a small upper-level guest room.
20:53It's home to Jonathan and Kirsty.
20:56Hi.
20:57Hi.
20:57Kirsty, right?
20:58Yes.
20:59Hi.
20:59Hi, nice to meet you.
21:00And you too, Jonathan.
21:01Jonathan.
21:03This building catches you off guard, and that's entirely the point.
21:08Sometimes buildings are really loud, and, you know, they assert themselves,
21:12and this one does the opposite.
21:14Right up until the moment, you sort of get to there.
21:17It's a low-key entrance, and I think that fits us.
21:20We're sort of flashy on the inside, people.
21:26You walk into a beautiful open-plan kitchen.
21:30The RIBA judges admired the restrained material palette
21:34and touches a luxury inside a home that was respectful to its rural setting.
21:40It's really nice, isn't it?
21:43And they've taken special measures to keep it that way,
21:46to defend it from the ravages of children.
21:49What is that kitchen tabletop made from?
21:51Is that stainless steel?
21:53Yeah.
21:53Yes, it's stainless steel.
21:54Giant piece.
21:55Four, five millimetres thick.
21:57How did that materialise?
21:59This was your one.
22:00I think one of our themes throughout the whole house was,
22:03it's got to be robust.
22:05Yeah.
22:05If it looks perfect on day one, but gets beaten up by family life,
22:09it just won't work for us.
22:10And you've got another one over there, which is just as reflective and beautiful.
22:13And that's hugely long.
22:14Is that one piece of steel?
22:16It is one giant piece.
22:17One single piece of steel.
22:18I don't think we knew it when we set out to make it,
22:21but there's only one place in the country
22:23who could cope with a piece of steel that long.
22:27But this room isn't just built to be durable.
22:30It hides a few playful secrets.
22:33Is that a door, that thing, that great big piece of wall?
22:36One of our few kid-free spaces.
22:41So the little one didn't realise this was an actual room
22:44for, what, four or five months of being here
22:46because we kept that door closed.
22:48And then it blew her little mind one day
22:49when her brother had left it open
22:51and she discovered this whole extra space.
22:52How she is going to grow up is such a complex
22:55about deprivation, about being the junior, excluded member of the family.
22:59Or the joy of what's behind the door.
23:01Or that, yeah.
23:02Or she'll just love surprises, yeah.
23:07In this house, no room is quite what you think it is.
23:10One stayed hidden for months behind a barely noticed door.
23:14And the corridor turns out it's doing far more than getting you from A to B.
23:20So this is the corridor, stroke, street?
23:23Yes.
23:24Sort of public highway.
23:26It's almost become an extra room.
23:28It's where kids come out of the bathroom, we get them dry, dry hair, brush teeth.
23:33Spend, yeah, a lot of time in this as a space.
23:36You've got a place where they can easily come out and put on plays
23:40and have a chat and create a den.
23:43And I read somewhere that every house should have at least one space big enough
23:47to get a toddler up to full speed.
23:50Those bits in between, the not-quite-a-room liminal spaces,
23:55are what I find most interesting about this house.
23:58These are the bits that quietly steal the show.
24:02We love to have labels for rooms.
24:04And the moment it hasn't got a label, the moment it's ambiguous,
24:07we worry that it's wasteful.
24:09It's been a surprise.
24:10But, yeah, we really live in those in-between spaces.
24:15The rooms themselves aren't too shabby either.
24:19Full of personality and fun.
24:21That was important to the architect, Graham Bisley.
24:26Each room has a different character by what you see outside.
24:29That bathroom's almost like a little chapel.
24:31You kind of go in and the timber screen as you go in is a cross-shape
24:34and you go through and there's this little side chapel, which is the shower.
24:37Every day experience should be pleasurable.
24:40It's not just a functional thing, walking out of your room and going for breakfast or whatever.
24:44You can have an experience on that journey.
24:49This is a house that is thoughtful and full of surprise.
24:55It's calm but never dull.
24:58Every corner has been considered.
25:01Every detail earns its place.
25:06And the result is silently special.
25:09A home that works and one that keeps getting better the longer you spend time here.
25:15This is a quiet house.
25:19You know, it has its cholera and its eyes to the ground as it slowly slips its way through the
25:27grasses in the orchard.
25:29But, you know, it may be quiet, but it is also resilient and it's playful and it is strong and
25:40in places also ambiguous.
25:42I mean, it works a magic and I'm sure that if I spent time here in its company, my blood
25:48pressure would lower and I would perhaps be more at peace with myself and even perhaps a little happier.
26:09Oh, you know, you turn up at a party and somebody's just looking fantastic.
26:13And you think, what is it? Is it their hair? They've got new glasses? They've been to the dentist? What
26:18is it?
26:19And then you realise they sort of just know what they're doing. It's just a gentle, all-over, even lift.
26:26Yeah.
26:29Like this next place.
26:34I'm in London looking at our next Long Lister.
26:38This is a house that's been transformed, but rather than being turned into something completely new, it's been redefined as
26:46a sophisticated version of itself.
26:50This was an unremarkable 1960s terraced house.
26:55Now crafted into a piece of iconic-looking 1960s modernist architecture.
27:02The judges were awestruck by the fact it retained the character of the original building, yet was completely remade.
27:10In this masterfully reworked home, the ground floor is a spacious, double-height kitchen dining room, with a utility room
27:17and toilet next to it.
27:20On the first floor is a living room with outside balcony and a cosy snug.
27:25On the second floor are the two children's bedrooms and a bathroom.
27:30And on the third floor is the adult bedroom with en-suite.
27:38The architect who realised this extraordinary vision was Dingle Price.
27:42Hi, Danielle.
27:43Hi, welcome.
27:44Thanks, how are you?
27:45Well, you?
27:46You arrive into a small corridor.
27:49Above are stairs up to a living room and balcony, bedroom and bathroom.
27:54But the real magic is at ground floor level.
27:57It's so lush.
27:59The view teasingly opens out over the kitchen and dining room to an incredible garden beyond.
28:06What was here before?
28:08There was a kitchen on the left side and on the right there was a dining area.
28:12And of course it was all at the same level.
28:16It began as a bog-standard 1960s house.
28:20Now Dingle has remade it in the language of brutalism, the cutting edge of high-end design in the 60s,
28:26when exposed concrete and bold form were the height of architectural fashion.
28:32A lot of the concrete in the building is exposing beams that were already there but were uncovered.
28:38But then we've also introduced a certain amount of new concrete.
28:42It's only when you get to ground level you can fully appreciate this extraordinary room.
28:48There's so much drama to this space.
28:50I mean, the height of the ceilings and then this view out to this lush garden.
28:54I mean, it's really unexpected.
28:57What did you have to do to create it?
28:58Well, the key to it is the excavation.
29:00There was a Victorian building that stood on this site.
29:03Oh, the building before the 1960s building?
29:06It just turned out that the original building had very, very deep foundations.
29:10And that meant relatively easily we could dig away the earth to create this high space.
29:15So we've excavated a metre and a half down from the original ground floor level.
29:21But from then on, Dingle had set himself an incredibly hard task by choosing to keep everything exposed.
29:28It's a project with no paint.
29:30Everything is the exposed materials, which goes back to this sort of original idea of brutalism.
29:36But because of that, you know, it's very unforgiving.
29:39If you put a light switch in the wrong place, you can't just move it and repaint.
29:44You end up basically having to replaster the whole wall.
29:49There was nowhere to hide mistakes.
29:51No layer that could cover them up.
29:53Not the usual way of doing things.
29:55The contractor wasn't convinced to begin with.
29:59If I'm honest, we actually thought Dingle was going mad.
30:03Everything was experimental.
30:05It was definitely a challenge and it's not the way we usually do our projects
30:09because, you know, it costs a lot more money to experiment.
30:12I guess the most difficult for us was when we stripped the structure back to its original block work and
30:20brick work.
30:21We couldn't see the vision.
30:25But who could argue with the elegance of the end result?
30:29Though what looks effortless now took days of trial and error that tested the limits of everyone involved.
30:36It's the level of craft, care and control here that makes this retrofit so quietly radical.
30:44Everything about this house challenges what we would normally expect from a 1960s infill, from brutalist materials and from a
30:52retrofit.
30:53Instead of clearing everything away, the architect has made subtle adjustments to what was here,
30:58completely transforming the space and really making the most of the character of the existing house.
31:05We've seen four houses so far, transformed beautifully in different ways.
31:10There's one more to go before we find out which will make the shortlist.
31:14And then, from all those shortlisted homes, we'll discover which one will win the title for the House of the
31:20Year 2025.
31:30A key part of the architectural imagination is seeing how something can be transformed.
31:37To look at a building that's unloved and unused and imagine it as a place entirely new.
31:43Now, this building, built by the architects Tonkin knew, began life as a rusty old water tower.
31:51They had the vision to transform it, to turn the concrete stem into a staircase
31:57and the steel tank at the top into this beautiful living room with the best seats in the house.
32:04I mean, literally, it is a bold bit of re-thinking.
32:08But our next longlister, they've pulled off something arguably even more extreme.
32:17Once upon a time, on the Isle of Wight, in the early 1900s, a humble cowshed was built.
32:27With slurry underfoot, hay overhead and the occasional swallow nesting in the rafters.
32:36A hundred years later, it was deserted, derelict and forgotten.
32:42Until Joseph, an artist and academic, learned about it.
32:46I saw some photographs and I was immediately attracted.
32:50So much so that I told the kids, I'll be back in an hour.
32:54I identified where the barn was, got in the car, came here.
32:59Let myself in, it was open, sort of.
33:02And stood in the courtyard and thought, like, this is where I want to live.
33:09And so, the old baia was born.
33:13An extraordinary transformation.
33:15One that keeps much of what was there before, but gently adds newer elements.
33:20The space we're in at the moment is where I socialize and where I cook and where I spend the
33:25day and spend time with friends.
33:27This is a really open space, whereas the other barn, the 19th century barn, has smaller, more intimate spaces.
33:36My library, corridors, spaces for sleeping, bathroom, and spaces that can be used in the studios.
33:52So, in their nature, they're very, very different.
33:55The old baia is, in fact, not one, but two barns.
34:00One built in the early 1900s, the other in the 1960s.
34:03The newer barn houses the main living space.
34:06A bright open kitchen, a generous dining area, and a calm, stripped-back lounge.
34:12The older, L-shaped barn holds the bedrooms and a couple of quiet studio spaces.
34:18The RIBA judges admired the contrasts this project offered, where new and old materials and structures sit comfortably alongside each
34:27other.
34:28Nowhere more so than in the main living and working space.
34:33The roof is pretty much as it was.
34:35We reinforced it, visibly mended it, where we had to.
34:40There are still remnants of what is probably cow poo on the wall.
34:45There is a swallow's nest.
34:46There is hair.
34:47There are old nails.
34:48So, all of this is still in the walls.
34:52The construction approach was deliberately as rough and ready as the original building itself.
34:57The doors came from Spain, I think, which took a long time.
35:03One of the doors didn't quite fit.
35:05So, I rang the builder, and a few hours later, it was sorted.
35:08I think they shaved a little bit off the door frame, or the door, or either.
35:13I'm not going to ask.
35:16One of the greatest interventions here is what they've done to the front of the building.
35:21By day, it brings in soft light.
35:26By night, it glows.
35:30The facade that faces the courtyard is made from polycarbonate, so it looks like paper.
35:35It lets light in and brings light into the space.
35:40This insulated facade cost an eye-watering 17 grand, a unique expense in what was otherwise a cost-conscious home
35:47built for $360,000.
35:50Extraordinary for a project of this ambition.
35:53The budget was tight, but that led to most of the decisions we made about everything.
36:00I don't think there's anything where we thought we're going to spend more on this element.
36:04So, we tested thoroughly the costs of different approaches, and that's how we made decisions.
36:10So, no, I wouldn't say it was to do with spending more on certain elements.
36:21The old buyer is masterful, not a glossy reinterpretation of raw rusticity.
36:27New materials and ideas have here been finely tuned to an appropriate level of humility.
36:33With that comes a gentle, brutal honesty.
36:37It's a cowshed made livable, not just through redesign, but in the refusal to lie about what it ever was.
36:45Why did I keep the swallow's nest?
36:47What would be the advantage of removing it?
36:50Like, I would take away a story of the building.
37:00We've explored five remarkable homes so far, but which will earn their place on the coveted shortlist?
37:08The house of wood shingle, a 60s bungalow wrapped head-to-toe in timber, part house, part hedgehog.
37:15Housestead, four buildings, one family home, a place that rewrites the idea of what a house is.
37:22The orchards, barn on the outside, bond lair on the inside.
37:28London brute, a concrete wedge in a polite London postcode.
37:32Brutalism with a posh accent.
37:35The old buyer, a luminous barn conversion where the history is intact, swallow's nest and all.
37:46Joining me is the chair of the judges, David Kohn.
37:50David, how many projects from this category have you selected for the shortlist?
37:54So there are two projects in this category.
37:56First being?
37:57London Brutes.
38:01Of all the ones we saw, probably it's the project that is most concerned with elegance.
38:08It's a very refined, calm experience to be there.
38:13And I think the abiding memory one would have of the visit is the relationship of these exquisitely proportioned rooms
38:21and gardens.
38:25That's fantastic.
38:28Feels all of that work has been worthwhile.
38:35So what's the second house that you've chosen?
38:38The second house is house stead.
38:43Which is more than a house.
38:45It's a stead.
38:46It's an arrangement of buildings.
38:49Living, sleeping, service, quarter.
38:53Take away any one of the parts and it doesn't work.
38:55Yeah.
38:55It needs them all.
38:56And the house is all of them together.
38:58A lot of people won't like it.
39:00A lot of people will look at that and say, I'm not going to live like that.
39:03Why should I walk in the rain just to go and put a log in the wood burner?
39:07It is an experimental project.
39:08I think it's a project which takes a lot of license with a lot of things and makes something utterly
39:14unique.
39:18Being shortlisted is fabulous.
39:20It's brilliant.
39:20Really, really pleased.
39:22Yeah.
39:22Couldn't be more pleased.
39:24Fabulous.
39:24It's a great reward.
39:25Yeah.
39:26Thank you very much.
39:29So, Housestead and London Brute take their place on the shortlist.
39:34That's it.
39:35The shortlist is complete and we now have our seven finalists for the 2025 Royal Institute of British Architects House
39:43of the Year.
39:43In the running, we have Kirk and the Craig on the Isle of Harris and Hastings House on the South
39:51Coast.
39:52There's the glorious Triangle House, the Agricultural Janks Barn, Amento and then Housestead and London Brute.
40:04The judges have a very difficult decision to make.
40:11So, I'm walking up a hill to visit this year's winner of House of the Year.
40:16Now, I'm hoping the background is out of focus because it's important that you shouldn't be able to tell where
40:22I am.
40:22No, no, no.
40:23Come back here.
40:24Sorry.
40:25Not just yet.
40:27But what I'll say is, the building's right in front of me and it looks extraordinary.
40:38It is this incredible home that takes the prize.
40:42Kirk and the Craig on the Isle of Harris in Scotland, built through sleep and struggle and storm by its
40:50owners, Ailey and Jack.
40:52Hi.
40:52Yeah.
40:53Nice to meet you.
40:54Ailey, how are you?
40:55Hi.
40:55Good to see you both.
40:57Who, by the way, think I've just come to visit their shortlisted building.
41:00It's nice to show you in person and actually meet you.
41:03Yeah, well, no, it's so important, isn't it, to actually make the effort to go and visit something and be
41:07there and experience it.
41:08I mean, it's made from that.
41:10It's made from everything around it.
41:11So good.
41:12It's so good.
41:13And by the way, congratulations on making the shortlist.
41:16So deserving.
41:17Oh, sorry, I forgot to say, also, congratulations on winning.
41:20No way.
41:21Yeah.
41:22Incredible.
41:23This is House of the Year 2025.
41:24Wow.
41:29Oh, my God.
41:30How about that?
41:31That's fantastic.
41:31Sorry, I couldn't not tell you.
41:33I couldn't not tell you.
41:36Congratulations.
41:36Oh, my gosh.
41:37Thank you very much.
41:38So good.
41:39So good.
41:39And so well-deserved.
41:41Oh, my gosh.
41:42I can't believe it.
41:44Have you actually?
41:45Oh, my gosh.
41:45Yes, you have.
41:46That's why I've come to see you.
41:49Because it's so clever.
41:51Well, it's built from the landscape.
41:53And you point out this rock and everything is moving around it.
41:56Yeah.
41:57Yeah.
41:57Yeah.
42:00This house is crafted from the very rock that the island is made from.
42:05This is the local stone.
42:07Local stone.
42:08And it's called?
42:09Louisian Nice.
42:11From the Isle of Lewis.
42:13Yeah.
42:13Louisian Nice.
42:14But that's one of the most ancient stones on the planet, isn't it?
42:17Yeah, it's incredibly old.
42:18And it's the reason why Harris is still here.
42:20Here, because it's made of the hard rock.
42:24It makes your house a billion years old.
42:27Yeah, exactly.
42:29Louisian Nice.
42:30Tough as anything.
42:32And exactly what you want between you and a howling Atlantic storm.
42:35That protects the house.
42:38They've got this to protect the occupants.
42:41I love this.
42:41This is your fantastic threshold.
42:44A glorious entry.
42:47A beautiful porch.
42:48Very deep.
42:49Covered.
42:50Yeah.
42:50Yeah.
42:51The shelter's really important.
42:52Why is that?
42:55Is it?
42:56It gets a bit wind.
42:57Yeah.
43:00Nothing quite prepares you for the experience of walking in.
43:04Oh.
43:07This is unexpected, because you approach the building from the front,
43:10and it's like a pillbox.
43:11Yeah.
43:11It's like a very small.
43:13It's like a TARDIS in stone.
43:15Yes.
43:15Then reaches back.
43:16It thinks it's long and thin.
43:17It's not long and thin at all.
43:19I look down there, see the reflection.
43:21Yeah.
43:21There's the dining table, which is a lovely thing,
43:24because it's circular and welcoming.
43:25And then there's this view of just the rock on the hill.
43:28And what's clever here is the, it's like this floor on the outside.
43:33It's simply a continuation.
43:35Yeah.
43:35I think that's one of the hardest things that we find in architecture,
43:37is trying to allow, talk to people and say,
43:42that is a really good view, maybe the best view of the site,
43:45but don't just reveal it all straight away.
43:47You know, layer through it, like you were saying, almost like a story.
43:50Architecture should be this revealing, this kind of staged act, if you like.
43:55I think it makes it quite creative.
43:57Yeah.
43:57And I'm very taken with it.
44:00So what was it particularly that won over the judges?
44:05Why did you choose this to be the winner?
44:07It was, I would say, really hard, but unanimous decision.
44:12To do a project like this in such a remote location on that budget required a partnership
44:19that is really admirable, and I don't think every couple would survive doing that kind of self-built project.
44:29What an amazing achievement against lots of odds.
44:31I mean, this project's just been ambitious on so many levels,
44:34not only with the detailing, the way it's actually made and crafted,
44:38but also the couple and their plan to build the house themselves.
44:42Such a good point, isn't it?
44:43Yeah.
44:44Often the bigger and the baggier something is, the less energy it has,
44:48and you can find extraordinary energy in the small, perfectly made thing.
44:57It's this quiet, determined, palpable energy,
45:02born of hands that shape stone, of minds that listen to the land,
45:06that makes this building the House of the Year 2025.
45:13That building speaks eloquently of this entire place.
45:18It speaks of people.
45:19It speaks of the story of a handful of them carrying stone, drying wood,
45:25and crafting with their knuckles and their fingers every tiny square inch of this building.
45:32This is the future, isn't it?
45:35This points somewhere else.
45:37This doesn't say, look at me, I've got a huge cantilever.
45:40This says, I have a role, and an important role here,
45:45in responding to people and to place.
45:49It's almost as though this is the building
45:52that this island and this part of the world was waiting for.
45:55Thank you so much for listening.
46:31Transcription by CastingWords
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