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00:00Hmm. Not bad. It's not bad.
00:03I mean, I like the spatial arrangement,
00:06play of light and all that,
00:08but you don't need the bifold doors, OK?
00:11And what I'm really saying is that you're not quite ready
00:14for the Royal Institute of British Architects
00:17House of the Year competition, you know?
00:19Maybe next year.
00:21However, this lot are good to go.
00:27Yes, it's that time again
00:29when Britain's boldest new homes step into the spotlight,
00:33while the rest of us wonder
00:34if we've chosen the wrong shade of greyish.
00:37Dear Santa,
00:40could I please have a house like this yours, Kevin?
00:48The judges have chosen a long list
00:50of Britain's most remarkable new buildings.
00:53Fantastic view.
00:55I mean, that could be the Mediterranean there.
00:57From houses that squeeze into the tightest of corners.
01:01You had to get everything past that drain pipe.
01:04It was like building a ship in a bottle.
01:06To bungalows that feel like basilicas.
01:09Oh, my Lord.
01:11This is the first bungalow I've ever seen
01:12that has a sort of ecclesiastical corridor.
01:15The houses we explore will be whittled down
01:18to a short list of just seven.
01:20The range on offer is really, really exciting.
01:23I think it'll be really exciting
01:24to see the house that wins and shines through.
01:27Before we find out in the final programme,
01:30which one is the House of the Year 2025?
01:35So, come and get some tips
01:37as we show you the next set of nominees.
01:39And by the way, those big green ceramic bowls
01:43that look like cabbages.
01:44I mean, they're just weird.
01:46So far, two homes have claimed their place on the short list.
02:11Kirk and the Crepe, a jewel set deep in the Isle of Harris.
02:17And Hastings House, a triumph of engineering and elegance.
02:25Now, there are six more buildings to explore.
02:30Oh.
02:31Oh, that's good.
02:33You know the feeling.
02:34It's when you arrive and exhale
02:37and it might be the smell of the salt air
02:40or it could be a reflection on a polished floor
02:43or just that somebody else is doing the washing up.
02:45But whatever it is, you know you are on holiday.
02:49But what if that feeling wasn't restricted to two weeks in August?
02:53And what if your home, the place where you live,
02:56could make you feel like that every day?
03:00This week, we are escaping to houses that do just that,
03:05that pick you up and drop you somewhere utterly magical.
03:09Of course, they offer the delights of great design.
03:12But they also promise escape.
03:21Snooping around these homes with me this time
03:23is the architect Damien Burrows.
03:26It's a certain amount of design
03:27and a certain amount of just making it work.
03:36Now, I'm off to visit our first long-listed house in North London,
03:41where, tucked into these tightly packed city streets,
03:45is a piece of remarkably clever design.
03:47This is Catching Sun House.
03:52Hemmed in on all sides.
03:54It's been shaped to drink in daylight from morning till dusk.
03:58Step inside and you're somewhere else entirely.
04:02The architect and owner is Mark Shaw.
04:05Hello.
04:07Hi.
04:08Hey, Mark.
04:09Hello. How are you?
04:10Yeah, really well. How are you?
04:11I'm very well.
04:12Thanks for coming.
04:13This is a lovely, lovely place to arrive at.
04:15I've just come off this very British street
04:17into something that is from the other side of the planet.
04:19It's like something from Asia or Australia.
04:22That is the most common response.
04:25And that's what I was trying to do, actually,
04:27to have that escape from life.
04:29And, you know, I'd spent, I don't know,
04:3116 years living in a Victorian terraced house,
04:34which faced north and west,
04:36and there was never any light in the house.
04:39So I wanted to have as much light as possible in here.
04:47Mark designed the house around the movement of the sun over the plot,
04:51so he could bring light into every room.
04:54On the ground floor, there's a kitchen, dining, living space,
04:57a bathroom, two bedrooms, and then above, a study.
05:04The RIBA judges praised the ingenuity of the architect
05:08in creating an unexpected and serene home.
05:12I love the fair-faced blockwork walls,
05:16the smooth, polished concrete floor.
05:19But this is a new one.
05:22What is that?
05:24So I hate kitchen extractors,
05:26and I had a brainwave where I remembered when I was at college
05:30and I used to do welding.
05:31Yeah.
05:32So this...
05:33You put one in.
05:34This is a welding extractor which you can pull down,
05:36you can have a big piece of meat on here,
05:38and all the fumes just get extracted out.
05:40Amazing.
05:41It's like one of those kind of things at the dentist,
05:43where you have, you know, they do an X-ray.
05:44They all leave the room.
05:45That's what I want to do, why don't you switch that on.
05:47How noisy is it?
05:48Uh, I can switch it on.
05:50It's not that noisy.
05:51No?
05:52Need a bit of paper.
05:53I've got a handkerchief.
05:54Hang on a minute, it's clean.
05:56Okay, so let's just find out.
06:01Yes!
06:02Most of them are bright yellow and really ugly.
06:04Yeah.
06:05Yeah.
06:06Eventually found this one, um, it's from Poland,
06:09and it's dim steel.
06:10So I shit, I FedExed it over from Poland.
06:12No.
06:15Tracking down an industrial welding extractor in Poland?
06:19That was the easy bit.
06:20But getting permission to build the house at all
06:23meant negotiating with the neighbours,
06:25a task as appealing as diffusing a bomb while wearing a blindfold.
06:29And it was Emma Hugh, the project architect,
06:32who got handed the wire cutters.
06:35So with this kind of site,
06:36probably the biggest challenge was the fact
06:38that there's 27 neighbouring properties around it
06:41and we needed to get agreement with those 27 neighbours
06:45that we could access their gardens
06:48to be able to build the building
06:49and replace the wall that was at the end of their gardens.
06:52So that was a complicated process
06:55that took quite a bit of time.
06:5727 neighbours, five months of garden diplomacy,
07:04a legal jigsaw of party walls and permissions.
07:08But back inside, all that hassle evaporates.
07:12The master bedroom is calm and elegant
07:16with a view that feels almost Mediterranean.
07:19Lovely room with a beautiful, again, lifted ceiling.
07:25So you get that.
07:26View of the sky.
07:27Fantastic view.
07:28Sky, greenery.
07:30But this, this is...
07:32So you've got a shower in the bedroom.
07:34No, you haven't got a shower in the bedroom.
07:35You've got a...
07:36That's the bedroom. This is the shower.
07:37This is in the outside world.
07:38Yeah.
07:39Right, I'm with you.
07:42Where did this idea come from?
07:44I was on holiday in Thailand
07:47and was staying in a sort of typical Thai sort of bungalow
07:51and the bathroom, it was just out the back
07:54where there was just a sort of pipe coming out of the wall
07:57and no shower tray
07:59and it was surrounded by, like,
08:01really amazing tropical plants.
08:04And I just thought,
08:05how can I transport this magical feeling to...
08:07But you've done it here, haven't you?
08:08To East London.
08:14And in a dense part of the city,
08:16plots like this are tight.
08:18So Mark's made every inch count.
08:21This pigeon-step staircase is allowed just
08:24because it only leads to a single room above.
08:28It's clever, compact and just wide enough
08:31if you breathe in.
08:34So you might be thinking, as I am in this moment,
08:37two or three questions.
08:38How do I navigate a staircase like that?
08:41Does it meet building breaks?
08:43It does.
08:45And what happens when I'm drunk?
08:49But I'm not.
08:50I'm sober,
08:51lithe as a mountain goat,
08:53and...
08:55I am blown away by this.
08:58It's a study with a view
09:00like none I've seen in a built-up urban area.
09:06How can your soul not be touched by that?
09:10Which was once a disused MOT garage.
09:16That's the magic.
09:17It's not so much of architecture,
09:19but of the architectural mind.
09:22These are people, like Mark,
09:24who can turn scraps into things of beauty.
09:28who can see the potential of something where no one else can see it.
09:34Who can take things which are free, like the sun and the wind and the rain,
09:40and from them craft experiences which are priceless.
09:45Priceless.
09:51We've seen one house so far.
09:53Five more to go before we find out who will be shortlisted for the House of the Year 2025.
09:59Designing your way to paradise sounds appealing,
10:13but it's a fine line between escapism and theme park.
10:17I mean, one minute you're painting a wall coral pink,
10:19the next minute there's a flamingo in the loo
10:21and a pineapple-shaped lamp,
10:23judging your life choices.
10:25Anyway, this next house doesn't mess about with props.
10:29It built its fantasy properly,
10:31with geometry and conviction and a cocktail of its own.
10:34One part drama, one part delight.
10:36Shaken, not stirred.
10:38Mmm.
10:41Oh.
10:43That tastes like regret.
10:47I'm in Surrey to visit our next longlister.
10:51This is Triangle House,
10:53a mid-century home which has had a Caribbean-inspired reworking.
10:59The RIBA judges praise the playful and inventive use of materials,
11:03color, and form that propel it into something exceptional.
11:15Inside, there's a double-height hallway
11:17that connects the living room, TV room,
11:20and storage space of the original house.
11:23There's a long kitchen diner split by brick partitions
11:27with a larder at the front and doors to the garden.
11:30Upstairs, there are three bedrooms connected by a bridge
11:34and a bathroom.
11:37It was designed by architects Benedetta Rogers and Daniel Marmot.
11:41Benedetta, how are you?
11:42Hi, nice to meet you. Welcome.
11:44Nice to meet you.
11:46Where did this overhanging canopy and V-shaped structure come from?
11:50We added this quite colorful canopy and column
11:53which sort of wanted to show that something slightly different
11:56was happening beyond.
11:57Looking at the house, it's got a really strong identity.
12:00The client gave us this book called Caribbean Style,
12:03which is an amazing reference book of kind of different colors
12:06and atmospheres in traditional Caribbean houses
12:09and some more modern ones.
12:10And they really wanted to bring some of that flavor
12:13through into this house.
12:14So we really wanted this feeling of a house that's transportative
12:17when you step through the front door.
12:19And when you step into the kitchen, it doesn't disappoint.
12:24This just makes you happy, doesn't it?
12:28Yeah, I mean, the yellow was like a really important color for the client.
12:32They really love this idea of it feeling like a really sunny, optimistic interior.
12:36But it's not just the color that lifts you.
12:41It's the way the house opens up.
12:43There are no corridors, no rigid plan, just a gentle sequence of spaces,
12:48each one giving you a glimpse of the next.
12:51The client at the beginning, they were quite clear they didn't want it to be open plan.
12:57But we've created something which feels like an overall space,
13:01but it's also got very distinct qualities.
13:04And yet the result still feels expansive and open.
13:09In Caribbean homes, open layouts are often used to keep heat from building up.
13:15Here, they're used for a different reason.
13:18Every time you have a doorway, you have to buy the door,
13:21you have to pay for the hinges, you have to install it,
13:23you have to paint it, you have to line it.
13:25So doing away with doorways was a way of both taking the cost out of the project,
13:29but also creating this spatial experience.
13:31Wow. And when you take that and then multiply it by 10, 20,
13:36these are significant savings.
13:38And we call this an envelope of spaces almost,
13:40like you might get in an art gallery where you walk from one room into another, into another,
13:44but you always get views from one room to the next.
13:47So, for example, if you're in the kitchen cooking, you get a glimpse of the dining hall,
13:50but you don't feel like the kitchen and the dining hall are all open plan.
13:54So it's kind of somewhere between open plan living and a series of isolated rooms.
13:59Step out into the garden and you really couldn't feel further away from suburban Surrey outside.
14:06This is the space, isn't it? This is what it's all about.
14:09It's about being out here. This relationship with the garden, it's just magical.
14:14It's funny, the clients call this space Club Tropicana,
14:16because it does feel like it's quite unusual in this setting.
14:20So you've got these kind of big banana palms and all the really lush planting,
14:24make it feel like you're not in the UK.
14:27The careful use of colour inside continues outdoors,
14:31where the blocks making up the triangular columns aren't quite the familiar grey.
14:36They're a very subtle shade of blue.
14:39And all of those colours from inside, those bright, vibrant colours,
14:43they're pulled through into here, but then just slightly notched down a tone to this wonderful kind of aqua blue.
14:52Well, it's funny that you say wonderful, because these have actually never been specified before this house.
14:56They were so unpopular when the company launched them,
14:59that we showed them to the client and they really loved them.
15:02So we asked for some, they said, actually, well, we're not really producing them anymore.
15:05They've been discontinued. They're so unpopular.
15:07But we managed to find a dusty pallet in the corner of their factory that was left over.
15:12So we took that and brought it to site.
15:13And then the builder really skillfully cut them into these triangular columns.
15:17They didn't throw money at it. Instead, they found value in the overlooked, the dusty and forgotten,
15:27allowing them to focus on what's really important.
15:31By stripping out expensive finishes and complex detailing, they've allowed this house to truly sing.
15:38Which means that every single day, it transports you to a tropical paradise.
15:47Architecture can do many things. It can shelter you. It can cuddle and exalt you.
15:57It can impress your neighbors. It can even drain your bank account.
16:01And sometimes it can do all of these things at the same time.
16:05But the best architecture messes with your sense of place. It can transport you.
16:13So you walk into your front door in, I don't know, Splott, which is in Cardiff.
16:19And suddenly you are taken to a completely different place.
16:25Our next house in the running for a place on the shortlist is in South London and was commissioned by a young couple, Iroki and Rachel.
16:33A few weeks after Rachel and I got married, I was cycling through Regent's Park and hit a car.
16:42So it was my fault. And, yeah, got rushed to A&E at St Mary's Hospital.
16:50Four or five hours later and I saw you in a hospital and you were laying in the bed and they told us he was never going to walk again.
17:03Out of this life-changing event emerged an idea for something extraordinary.
17:08We started to think maybe we should think about building.
17:11And then we had a very, like, actionable reason that we needed to do this.
17:16This is Niwa House, formerly a derelict infill site, given new life.
17:28The RIBA judges praised this hidden gem as a secluded oasis that allows escape from the noise of the city.
17:36In this intricate home, there's a study that looks out onto the garden.
17:42A living room, which connects to a dining room, kitchen and utility room.
17:47In the basement is a main bedroom with an accessible wardrobe.
17:52A bathroom, two further bedrooms and a cinema and gym.
17:59Iroki was born in Japan, which has been a powerful driver for some of the design.
18:04We've definitely been influenced through a lot of the principles that we think represents Japanese culture.
18:11We always knew that that was something that, you know, we connected with.
18:17The architecture is based on a traditional Japanese summer pavilion, or azumaya.
18:23There is an engawa, a covered Japanese porch that runs around the house.
18:28The forest of columns inside is taken from traditional Japanese temple architecture.
18:35There are subtle nods to Japanese design throughout.
18:40It's like when you go to Japan and you go to the temples and all of the doors, like, slide to one side when you open them.
18:46And then very similarly here, if you slide all the windows open, you're out onto the garden.
18:50Walls that discreetly melt away and consistent floor levels aren't just good accessible design.
19:00They're good design.
19:01I don't think you come in and go, oh, this is a wheelchair accessible house.
19:08There are obviously, like, individual smaller things where, you know, there's grab rails in the bathroom and things like that.
19:14And even there, we've tried to do it in a way that makes it a bit more muted than in your face.
19:21More through the choice of materials and things like that.
19:24I'd say 90% of the accessibility is not specifically making it accessible, but factoring it in as you design a house.
19:35Architecturally, it was very important that it doesn't feel like it was designed by guidelines and, you know, design codes for accessibility.
19:43So we discussed a lot about how the house needed to be uncluttered, open, very kind of generous.
19:53So there's plenty of open-planned space with generous wide corridors and an easy transition between ground floor to basement in a lift.
20:02Below, Hiroki and Rachel can train in the gym or watch a film with their kids.
20:07One of their proudest spaces, though, is the garden.
20:12Niwa means garden in Japanese.
20:15Having a home where, from every angle, you can see something of nature, I think makes a big difference.
20:22The ambition here was not to frame a view of the garden. It was to live in it.
20:28It almost feels more like a house that's in a walled garden than a house with, like, a garden attached to it.
20:36This house is connected to nature everywhere, through large openings and long views, which make all the difference.
20:50We really, really love it here. Even when you've got this chaos around you with kids and, you know, you still have these moments of relaxation and peace and tranquility.
21:03It enables me to live much more freely as well. And I think that says a lot for, you know, what they did designing this house.
21:16So far, we've seen three houses that take you on holiday. But there are three more to explore before we find out which will be shortlisted for the 2025 House of the Year Award.
21:29Oh, to be beside the seaside, eh? Thing is, many of us do harbour some dream to recreate those childhood holidays.
21:50Up sticks, relocate to the coast, all in the pursuit of this idea of creating the perfect, permanent vacation, right?
22:01Except it's not like that, because the realities of the everyday, pressures of work, money worries, they soon find out where we live.
22:09And yes, before long, they've moved in as well.
22:13However, this next family, I think, may have cracked that problem.
22:17What's that?
22:20Oh, I've gone overdrawn again!
22:27Our next home vying for a place on the House of the Year shortlist is on the glorious Kent Coast.
22:34This is Sea Sky House, a big, beautiful beach hut of a home, but one mercifully lacking in seaside cliché.
22:42Not an anchor or porthole in sight. No, this is an elegant Scandi Coastal home, minimal, clean, full of natural materials, with an enveloping sense of coziness.
22:55Its architects and owners are David and Sophie.
22:58We were in London, in Hackney. We were expecting our second child and decided that we wanted to escape the city.
23:09We came down on a Sunday, and the sailing fleet was going out, and we got some fish and chips on the beach, and we were sold.
23:18The plot was expensive, and by themselves they couldn't afford it, so they devised a cunning plan.
23:30It came up at just the right moment when it was possible for us to buy the site together with two other families.
23:36It's a really fun thing to do with friends.
23:39One of the families building next to them were Tim and Katie.
23:45We were invited to kind of come in on the project. We didn't really hesitate. We were like, yep, we'll sell our house.
23:52You were at the pub, weren't you? And you phoned me and said, how about this?
23:55Yep. I literally sent him a link and said, shall we sell our house and do this? And Tim said, yes.
24:00And the kids were small, so that idea of having this community and this space where they can kind of play and be together and safe,
24:08because I don't think kids play out the same way anymore.
24:18To make the most of the view, David and Sophie flipped the layout of their house.
24:23This is an upside-down home, so the sleeping area is at the bottom, and the living area on the top.
24:32On the ground floor, there are four bedrooms and a family bathroom.
24:37Then, on the first floor, there's an open-plan living, dining and kitchen area,
24:43and a roof terrace, looking out to majestic views over the sea.
24:47Organising the floors this way meant there were some important things to consider.
24:56Building the house upside-down means that you have to have a slightly different kind of hallway,
25:00because the living rooms are upstairs.
25:02You want to have some way of receiving people on the ground floor and having a little bit of space to say hello
25:06and have a chat before you actually head upstairs.
25:08And you head upstairs expecting a sensible, well-behaved kitchen.
25:15What you get is far more interesting.
25:18There's a light used in Marrakesh Airport hanging over the table.
25:23An open hearth fireplace perched on a lumber of church wall.
25:28And doors that belonged to a public building in the 1930s.
25:31The RIBA judges called it surprisingly eclectic and entertaining,
25:40which is code for someone who enjoyed themselves doing this.
25:45We reclaimed a load of science lab tables, and we tried to use every square inch of them.
25:51So sills, thresholds, baths around, steps are all made from them.
25:58And I love the fact that they've got old pen drawings from the 60s or something.
26:03Some of them are slightly inappropriate.
26:06What's really extraordinary is that they didn't get the objects to fit the house they designed.
26:12In some places, they designed the house around the object.
26:16With the doors, for example, we bought them months before we finished designing the house.
26:21So we actually designed all of the corridors and the bedrooms and the scale of the spaces downstairs
26:25to suit the doors rather than the other way around, which is completely different to how we'd normally do that.
26:28Yeah, so everyone's always like, it's so high on the ground floor.
26:32It's like, well, it's designed around the doors.
26:37So yes, the ceilings are tall, but only because the doors said so.
26:42But amid all the whimsy and architectural mischief, Sophie and David have carved out something surprisingly grown up.
26:51A fully soundproofed workspace.
26:54It was important for us to have a space where we could do video calls.
26:58And obviously it's amazing during lunchtime.
27:01You can just walk down to the beach within two minutes, which is a nice way to break up the day.
27:07It's the lunchtime reset I like.
27:11No doom scrolling, no sad sandwich.
27:14Just a walk to the beach and sand in your socks before the 2pm Zoom.
27:21Evenings here aren't scheduled.
27:23They just unfold.
27:25A view, a sunset, someone mixing drinks, and suddenly the day's taken a turn for the blissful.
27:32It's like a nice sea, with a view, with a sunset, everything.
27:39With my dad making cocktails.
27:41Yes.
27:43And nice suppers and stuff like that.
27:46It's definitely like a holiday.
27:47Houses which are built in impossibly sunny climates, like California for example, obviously they give you the sensation of being on holiday every single day of the year.
28:12What with their sun-soaked walls of glass and their flat roofs serving as sun decks and their inside-outside swimming pools and their ridiculous cantilevers.
28:23The question really is, of course, can you reproduce that kind of architecture and the sensations it produces under the grey skies of London?
28:33Well, our next house tried to do just that, failed, and then succeeded.
28:44This is South London.
28:46I used to live, very briefly, not far from here, and I am so pleased to see nothing much has changed.
28:51Oh, except for this.
28:57This is not a garage.
29:02No, this is Courtyard House.
29:05A California-inspired home with glass walls, lush outdoor planting, and space to imagine yourself in sunnier climes.
29:18Hello.
29:19Hello, nice to meet you.
29:20I knew that came to the right place.
29:22The owner is a brand consultant, Ruth, who lives here with her two daughters.
29:28She originally came from this part of London and decided to move back.
29:33I kind of knew this house already because I knew the area, and I'd always spotted this black fence with the orange door, and I always wondered what was behind it.
29:42So, when it popped up for sale, it was quite interesting to see what actually was behind it.
29:48This was here from the 70s, this house?
29:50It was.
29:51So, an architect bought the plot of land where a garage was and some of the garden at the back, and built a single-storey house for him to live in back in 1979.
30:04The house was built on a sort of Californian aesthetic, so it was very light, it had lots of glass, but the glass was all single-glaze, it was floor to ceiling.
30:15It was a Californian-style house, built as a homage to the American case study houses built between the 1940s and 60s.
30:23There was a housing boom after World War II, as US soldiers returned, and world-famous architects in California designed a series of prototypes for affordable homes that could be replicated and rolled out.
30:36Great, can we?
30:37Come on in.
30:38Yeah, I'd love to.
30:40It's just kind of hinting at an invitation there.
30:41Off the courtyard garden at the front of the house is Ruth's office, which connects to a long L-shaped kitchen, living and dining space that opens onto the rear garden, with a bathroom in the middle and one of the girls' bedrooms facing the front yard.
31:05Ruth's added a first floor to the home that was here.
31:10Up there is a mezzanine second living room, with Ruth's room at the back, a second bathroom in the middle, and her other daughter's room at the front.
31:19As you walk in, the effect is extraordinary.
31:23Wow!
31:24It's very light in here.
31:28That's partly because of that thing.
31:31That's bringing so much of the sun into the building.
31:35How do you clean it?
31:36I have a very agile window cleaner.
31:38Ha!
31:39The Spider-Man!
31:40He is.
31:41So if we assume that this building is paying homage to its case study roots, the idea of somehow amplifying light in the hope that you could persuade yourself you're living in California, was that part of your brief?
31:55It was, but obviously, you know, a case study house in California is great for warmth, California warmth and California sun.
32:03You know, we had to make that ethos work for a rainy, cold London.
32:06You know, it rains, it's cold, it snows sometimes.
32:10Case study houses relied on the warm LA climate to heat them, so they were built with light materials and were single glazed.
32:22So Ruth's upgraded her home.
32:27You've more than double glazed, so you've kind of upped the performance.
32:29Yeah.
32:30The windows were the most expensive thing.
32:32You know, you can have a Californian aesthetic, but it's got to function for London.
32:37Hence the thermal insulation, the triple glazing glass.
32:41You know, you can have the aesthetic, but the function of it has to be right.
32:46Yeah.
32:47Do you need to go on holiday as much as you used to?
32:50Does this provide...
32:51I can't afford to go on holiday anymore.
32:56Who needs a holiday when you've built the escape already?
33:00A house that gives back more than any around the world trip could.
33:04And her children are the lucky ones here.
33:08Oh.
33:09Nice staircase, Trixie.
33:11It's really nice. You don't feel any kind of bounce to it whatsoever.
33:15Her daughter Trixie's room sits right at the top of the house.
33:19You have this amazing, wonderful green view, kind of contrasted by this bright white.
33:24And then this kind of cosy space in between.
33:28It's offering a great deal of experience, the building, for a very small amount of building.
33:33Yeah.
33:34I mean, this is a small space, but it's actually just so lovely to come and sit here,
33:38because you have all of that going on, and all of that going on as well.
33:41Trixie was so inspired by this project that it prompted her to take up a career in design.
33:49I never actually considered going into architecture until this project came around.
33:54Really?
33:55Yes.
33:56I actually got to do some work experience with the architects, and just seeing how they operated and being in that office,
34:05I was like, actually, you know what, I can do this.
34:09So I think, well, of course I feel at home here, but mainly I just feel really inspired.
34:16A house that can inspire a choice in career is one extraordinary building.
34:26But I think the secret to its success isn't just the building itself, but the way it makes the best of what's around it.
34:33It brings in greenery from everywhere.
34:39You had the extreme luxury here, the fabulous condition that these gardens preexisted.
34:45That's right.
34:46The views, that tree in that neighbour's garden preexisted.
34:48Everything's established and mature, so you could place this building and orientate it, organise it.
34:53It's very much a project where we were organising the rooms around the gardens.
34:58The idea of being able to see nature from virtually any part of this house is a great luxury to have.
35:04Massively so, in dense urban environments, yeah.
35:07Oh, this is so lush.
35:14I could be in Brazil or looking at some case study house in California.
35:20And, of course, the building that was on this site originally reached for those ideas.
35:30It wanted to be an exciting, glamorous home that was sunshine-filled, and yet it never quite got there, thanks to its engineering and the climate of the UK.
35:39It got stranded halfway across the Atlantic.
35:44It took Ruth and Lawrence to finally land it here.
35:50We've seen five homes so far that take you somewhere completely magical.
36:03There's one more to go before we find out which will earn a place on the shortlist.
36:08At some point in life, most of us reach a moment when a colleague takes us aside and says,
36:24Kevin, I think you should think about retiring, maybe stepping back a little, you know, letting somebody else in, slowing the pace.
36:33What happens then?
36:34I mean, what are you going to do with all that time, you know?
36:37Where am I going to live?
36:38How am I going to live, yeah?
36:41Because retirement, it should not feel like the end of something.
36:45Yeah, you get this?
36:47It ought to feel like the beginning of a new career.
36:52And Damien is going to visit our last home on the long list built for one such retired couple.
36:59And just to be clear, I have no intention of retiring any time soon, all right?
37:05Oh, hello.
37:07What a strikingly beautiful building.
37:13It's called Ferry House.
37:16The RIBA judges praise the creativity, invention and skill involved in creating this extraordinary shape for a dramatic and unique home.
37:25The architect was Andy Ramis.
37:29How are you doing?
37:30Hi, nice to see you.
37:32It certainly takes the breath away when you see all of this.
37:36Now, who are you designing this for?
37:38It was designed for a couple and it was basically their retirement home.
37:42And, you know, who doesn't dream of building a home for their retirement?
37:46If you think about the way that we normally live, we're at work all the time.
37:50And this is a home where they're going to be spending a lot of time, all their time.
37:54Ferry House is arranged across two floors with three distinct wings.
38:02One of the main wings hosts an impressive main bedroom complete with walk-in wardrobe and bathroom.
38:08Opposite is an expansive open plan living kitchen area.
38:12At the rear of the property is the smallest wing, which contains the utility room and garage.
38:19Downstairs, on the lower ground floor, there are additional guest rooms and bathrooms.
38:27You walk into the kitchen and immediately consider retirement.
38:32It's calm, it's crisp, it's beautiful.
38:35The kind of space that says, you've done enough.
38:38You've done enough. Sit down. Have something lemony.
38:43Oh, Andy, this is absolutely breathtaking.
38:50My overriding ambition was to create a place that made you feel incredibly calm.
38:55That you could feel really, really at ease, really, really connected to nature.
39:00The clients used to live in a house next door on the site,
39:03so had a very strong idea about what they wanted.
39:07It was all about views, views, views. You know, that was what we were told.
39:12We are literally walking around with them and grading the views, almost like one to ten.
39:17Say, which is your favourite view? Which is your ten out of ten view?
39:21Then we're thinking, OK, well, that's where we want to put the lounge.
39:25Where's your next favourite view? That's where we want to put the kitchen.
39:27And so on and so on and so on and so on. And that's how the plan really starts to come together.
39:33It's not just the views that captivate. The craftsmanship is extraordinary.
39:40The timber roof runs right through the house, right through all of the rooms in the bedroom wing.
39:46How do you make that happen?
39:49Not a single one is out of place.
39:53So number one is meticulous planning.
39:55So it all has to be drawn so that everything is worked out beforehand.
39:59And then you need a very, very skilled trade to put it together.
40:02And someone who's very tolerant as well, because this is the kind of thing that could really drive you crazy if you weren't careful.
40:08Yeah. And I'm not sure they were my best friends actually at the end of it.
40:15Andy sketched the big ideas. Project architect Laura Locke had to make them work.
40:22Three wings, tilting roofs and angles everywhere.
40:27She had to make it all align.
40:28Think architectural origami with steel and timber and no second chances.
40:40The three wings all angle and fall to the centre of this building, which brings with it a number of complexities.
40:49The lining up of all of the finishes, both internally and externally, which is not necessarily a parallel situation when you've got so many angles coming through.
40:59How do you go about making something like this happen?
41:02Everyone kind of thinks, oh, you know, it's a hundred percent design.
41:05But in reality, it's not, is it?
41:07It's a certain amount of design and a certain amount of just making it work.
41:11It's quite difficult. And I think communication with contractors is really vital in projects like this.
41:17The work here was so complicated that something got lost in translation.
41:24We initially set it up with a line of timber that ran on the underside of the ridge and the hit boards and then ran all the rafter cladding into that ridge board alignment.
41:38The architects weren't happy with that, so we had to take it down.
41:43Rather than connect the cladding to a central ridge board, every piece of wood had to be cut and angled so that it met its twin from the other side in a razor sharp, seamless joint.
41:55This place is beautiful. It's the sort of house that makes you not care where you left your passport.
42:05Being here really does feel like being on holiday with incredible access to the outdoors, amazing views and vistas in every direction, even a place to sun yourself.
42:20And all of this is contained within a house that has been beautifully designed and detailed by the architect.
42:35We've explored six remarkable homes so far, but which will earn their place on the coveted shortlist.
42:51In the running are the bold and beautiful triangle house with a whisper of the Caribbean.
42:58The restrained and elegant Niwa House, a home shaped by Japanese design principles and tranquility.
43:06The Californian Courtyard House, bright, breezy and designed for soaking up the sun.
43:13Sea Sky House, a coastal retreat where every day feels like a holiday.
43:19Catching Sun House, a house that basks in light from morning till night.
43:24And Ferry House, proving that retirement can be anything but retiring.
43:32Joining me is one of the judges, Livia Wang.
43:36How many houses have you shortlisted from this category?
43:39One. Just the one?
43:40Just the one.
43:41Which is?
43:42Triangle House.
43:43Triangle.
43:47So what is it about that house that caught your imagination?
43:50It's colourful, it's inventive, so all the blue block work, the two cuts on it, they all came on an angle so they had this really nice blue stone columns.
44:00It's pointing to adventure isn't it? It's saying come with me and I'm going to take you by the hand and lead you on an exciting journey through this place.
44:09Yeah, absolutely.
44:10Oh, that's amazing.
44:11Wow, that's really good news.
44:13I mean, it's great. It's because it's also one of our first projects.
44:17We only started our practice about four years ago and building takes a long time.
44:23So Triangle House joins the shortest alongside Kirk and the Crake and Hastings House.
44:28There are four more places up for grabs before we find out which is crowned the 2025 RIBA House of the Year.
44:39Adversity isn't an essential quality in great buildings, but when it happens it actually often deepens the rewards.
44:48I mean, homes which have difficult births, shaped by struggle and perseverance, where every decision has been hard won.
44:58When that long journey ends in a place of escape or in a building that lifts you from the everyday and takes you on holiday, for example, then the result is all the sweeter.
45:11It's that Teddy Roosevelt quote, you know, I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life, but I have envied many people who led difficult lives, but led them well.
45:27Next time, we'll explore houses that celebrate their use of craftsmanship.
45:33They're on spring-loaded pivots.
45:35Oh, wow, that's so elegant.
45:37Six more homes that draw you inside.
45:39This door, this is brass, isn't it?
45:41Yes. It makes a very impressive entrance.
45:43And inspire wonder.
45:45Oh, wow, look at this.
45:47The timber frame is the star of the show.
46:09But to constroom.
46:10To be able to find the store.
46:11The tree that
46:25そして、
46:27cin folder,
46:29Yeah.
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