The future of British homes is rooted in the past. The shortlist for the annual House of the Year competition was announced today by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba), and the six contenders are futuristic takes on traditional forms. On the list are a floating “spaceship” influenced by an Indian fort, a brutalist Scottish castle clad in recycled TV screens, a 1970s cowshed made cool, an Arts and Crafts tribute with triple glazing, a high-tech box inspired by a riad, and a precision-engineered timber cube attached to a period stone cottage. Here’s our lowdown on the contenders and our pick for the winner, which will be announced November 30.
Raise the roof
Victorian seaside architecture was influenced by the exotic — onion domes, pagodas, tropical glasshouses. Saltmarsh House, a new home that overlooks a tidal marsh on the Isle of Wight, has put a 21st-century spin on the fancy seaside spectacle. Set in the gardens of a Victorian manor house, it was inspired by the delicate glasshouses that once stood here — and the Victorians’ fascination with all things Asian, according to its architect, Niall McLaughlin.
Other influences include a 10th-century fort in Jaipur (which inspired the elaborate four-pronged columns) and contemporary indoor-outdoor houses in Australia. Prefabricated off-site, the steel-framed home comprises an open-plan living/dining room, with triple-glazed windows that drop below the floor, as well as a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. With an exaggerated canopy copper roof held up by gold-painted riggings, and a base raised on invisible stilts, it calls to mind a Japanese pavilion, hang-glider, spaceship and boat all at once. It is an awesome creation that seemingly floats above the lawn, and it will likely soar to victory.
Screen play
A cross between a baronial castle and a brutalist estate, Hundred Acre Wood is what medieval nobility would have built had Le Corbusier been roaming the Highlands in the Middle Ages. From a distance it appears to be pebbledash, but the cladding is actually made from recycled TV screens — the owner, a financial adviser, hates television, and presumably refuses to have one in the seven-bedroom, 7,000 sq ft house, designed by Denizen Works.
Outside it looms dramatically over the banks of Loch Awe in Argyll and Bute. Inside it’s the stuff of childhood fantasy: a six metre-high entrance hall was designed to accommodate a large Christmas tree, and is topped by a gold-leaf oculus (a circular opening). One of the seven bedrooms is a dormitory with eight bunk beds (the owner has six children and six grandchildren), and a trick bookcase in the library swivels to reveal a hidden study.
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Holy cow
Most people think of barn conversions as rustic timber projects with ancient beams. No longer. Cowshed is the conversion of a utilitarian 1970s agricultural shed using concrete blocks and cedar boarding. The owners, Peter Redstone and his artist wife, Suzanne Blank Redstone, have lived on their farm in the Rocombe Valley, south Devon, for 50 years, but during the past 15 years have gradually converted the outbuildings into a housing community.
Cowshed is the grand finale of all the conversions, and home to the Redstones. Designed by David Kohn Architects, the 3,190 sq ft home comprises four bedrooms, an artist’s studio, office and living space, with a covered veranda at the front.
Pitch perfect
Arts and Crafts houses are not as popular with homeowners as Victorian and Georgian are, perhaps because of their tendency towards low ceilings and dark, poky rooms. Middle Avenue House, a new three-bedroom house that replaced an interwar bungalow in Farnham, Surrey, is Arts and Crafts for the modern age.
Designed by Rural Office it’s a blend of the traditional (red clay tiles, white gables, dormer windows, timber and brick interiors) and the modern (a triple-height entrance hall, skylights, triple glazing, open-plan living and a work space under each dormer). If William Morris were alive today, he’d live here.
A green house
Hidden down a back alley in Tottenham, north London, Green House is an astonishing creation. The five-bedroom house replaced a dilapidated HMO (house in multiple occupation), cost £559,000 to build and is a harbinger of the future: the greenery that adorns its façade is irrigated by a water butt on the roof terrace, where solar panels are hard at work; the façade is clad in cheap but stylish polycarbonate roof sheeting and corrugated Onduline (made from organic materials and bitumen). The entrance hall is a riad-style atrium that fills the interior with light from above. Designed by Hayhurst & Co Architects, it’s a green machine for living.
Touch wood
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Made of Sand, a one-bedroom annexe, is actually made of timber. It’s a two-storey extension to a traditional stone cottage that was built on the site of a former sandpit in the Blackdown Hills in east Devon. Its owners, Tom Baker and Natalie Silk (who founded the Field Day music festival in 2007), built it for guests or as a rental workspace for artists. It has a separate entrance, with a bedroom suite and kitchen on the ground floor and the living space upstairs, with window seats looking onto a wildflower meadow.
Designed by Studio Weave, it is a mixture of technical engineering and organic materials: Douglas fir panelling, red western cedar cladding, handmade terracotta floor tiles and rust-coloured clay plaster walls, all crafted by a traditional cob building specialist.
Which building do you think should win House of the Year? Vote below:
