London's ‘Tottenham riad’ named RIBA House of the Year 2023
Green House, the only London home shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2023, has been crowned the best new home in the UK.Designed by Spitalfields-based architecture studio Hayhurst & Co, the five-bedroom home occupies part of a back-land alley in Tottenham.
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00:00 Part of the responsibility of designing somebody's home as architects is to really take the time
00:05 to understand how they live and what their needs are and how they want to live every
00:09 day. They wanted something that was kind of innovative and experimental and they wanted
00:14 to try out things that hadn't been done before.
00:19 So the client's brief was really about a big house but with a little budget and about creating
00:23 a large amount of living spaces that were connected to the gardens but at the same time
00:27 creating five bedrooms.
00:30 We just kept our necessities quite minimal which is the number of rooms, open space and
00:36 light. It was really a fascinating process.
00:40 We both actively tried to give as open a brief to the architects as possible because we felt
00:46 that that's kind of a compromise so we might not have the best money but we'll be as open
00:52 to your ideas and open to the architect's creativity as we could be.
00:57 When we first started working with Tom and Amandine when we visited their house it was
01:01 full of plants and greenery and it was very obvious that was something that was part of
01:05 how they live day to day so that became quite an important part of the brief and design
01:09 point for this house.
01:10 One of the favourite elements of the house is the constant connection to nature so be
01:15 it through the front sliding doors or these windows or the roof light we've always got
01:20 a connection with what's going on outside and essentially the gardens just feel like
01:25 extensions of our living space.
01:27 We sat down with them for probably about two or three hours just talking about the spaces,
01:32 how they lived, the difficulties of where they were living at that particular point
01:36 and what they'd hoped for and what they were going to live in.
01:39 Working with the budget was a really interesting constraint on this project. There was a lot
01:43 of consideration about the kind of the judiciousness of how we spend that budget and how we spend
01:48 it intelligently.
01:50 So the house is constructed using cross laminated timber or CLT which gives it structural rigidity.
01:56 CLT itself, carbon footprint, is actually carbon negative so that actually helps to
02:00 offset some of the other elements which are more unavoidably carbon heavy.
02:03 When I walked into the house for the first time I really remember that feeling of light
02:12 and how the light changes throughout the day and how the bamboo gives us privacy to shield
02:19 us from the neighbours so it feels light until you want to close the curtains to go to sleep
02:25 and I think that's a real privilege to have that in London because we are surrounded by
02:30 neighbours and I love that about living in this house.
02:34 My favourite space is definitely the front of the house. The idea that all of the screens
02:38 can be totally closed up and feel quite insular. On the other hand it can be totally opened
02:43 up and expose all the bamboo hanging out in quite a wild and raw kind of way.
02:49 Basically the plan of the house is just a block form which also made it very efficient
02:52 and relatively simple to construct so we're not spending money on dressing and plastering
02:58 and plaster boarding and things like that and actually that informed quite a lot of
03:01 the aesthetic of the house.
03:03 We've used materials in an unusual way so the cladding externally is an agricultural
03:08 roofing sheet. There's also things like the flooring upstairs which is a cork rubber normally
03:12 used in gaskets and we've done quite a few unusual details such as we've cut the doors
03:17 straight into the cross laminated timber walls themselves so we've done away with all door
03:21 frames and things like that. It made a challenge to make us kind of more creative with materials
03:26 and how we might use them.
03:29 What I thought I really didn't want and I'm glad now I have is the broken plan. I just
03:35 didn't understand it and the other thing is the curtains. We thought it would be an absolute
03:41 nightmare and I love the curtains now and I love that we can close the living room off
03:49 and in the winter particularly that it makes it such a cosy little space so those were
03:54 the two things that they knew we needed and we would ultimately want. That collaboration
04:01 was very very helpful.
04:04 I think these types of devices are really helpful to begin to kind of open the space
04:09 up and close the space down. I wanted a house that flows well and that is easy to live in
04:15 as a family and practically that means easy cleaning, easy tidying, all those things that
04:22 make a space lovely to be in without being hard work. My favourite space in the house
04:28 is the central atrium space which we affectionately call the Tottenham Riad. It not only brings
04:32 light in and makes this kind of quite awesome double height space in the centre of the house
04:37 but it also connects all of the living spaces together so for example if the kids are playing
04:42 upstairs Tom and Amandine can still see and hear them. It's encouraged everyday togetherness
04:46 of the families but without feeling on top of each other we don't feel crowded but we
04:50 still feel connected. The narrative from many sources was very much this is a very silly
04:57 decision it's ridiculous that you're going to try and build a house in London while you're
05:02 pregnant without huge pots of money and we very quickly were drawn to Claire and Nick
05:08 and the team at Hayhurst because of their ability to kind of speak the truth and say
05:13 that actually self-building is completely feasible and is completely doable with the
05:17 right team and the right kind of hand holding I guess. I think as architects it's always
05:22 really satisfying to see the end result, seeing it being lived in and used. In a nutshell
05:27 a fun filled, bright, joyous family home. Low budget, super eco and a bit pop.
05:33 [Music]