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00:00Competition gets a bad rep these days, doesn't it?
00:04I mean, you can get a medal just for turning up.
00:07Darwin, however, he said that competition leads to evolution,
00:11the means whereby we advance, how we improve our lot and ourselves.
00:17And so it is with the Royal Institute of British Architects
00:20House of the Year Award 2025.
00:23Knuckle-draggers not welcome.
00:27In the great ecosystem of British housing, these are the apex predators,
00:32sharp, instinctive and fully evolved.
00:36That's clever.
00:37Oh, heavens.
00:39The judges have chosen a long list of Britain's most remarkable new buildings.
00:44Oh, this is really, really good.
00:47From houses that were a battle to build.
00:51It was extreme living, I would say.
00:52I was sharing my caravan with my dog.
00:55We didn't have a shower on sight.
00:57To those homes that positively glow.
01:00Oh, my Lord.
01:01It's good from down below, but it's better from up here because...
01:03I know, right?
01:05The houses we explore will be whittled down to a short list of just seven.
01:10The range on offer is really, really exciting.
01:13I think it'll be really exciting to see the house that wins and shines through.
01:17Before we find out in the final programme which one is crowned House of the Year 2025.
01:24So join us as we bring you this year's pinnacle of house-building evolution.
01:30So far, three homes have claimed their place on the short list.
01:44Kirk and the Craig on the Isle of Harris.
01:48Hastings House, a triumph of engineering and elegance.
01:53And Triangle House, a home that takes you away to the Caribbean.
01:59Now we have six more buildings to explore.
02:04Snooping around them with me is the architect, Damien Burrows.
02:09Oh, this is breathtaking.
02:25And the conservation architect, Natasha Huck.
02:29Oh, look at this place. It's just so welcoming.
02:32This time, we're looking at houses that celebrate their materials and their craftsmanship.
02:39And if you think that craft these days is all about hand-wittled cotton buds
02:44or crocheted modesty toilet roll holders, then think again.
02:48Because in the 21st century, craftsmanship is expressed in buildings.
02:53So expect concrete, steel, lasers, alongside the usual timber and stone.
02:59It's going to be risky. It's going to be exciting.
03:03It's going to be a little bit dangerous.
03:09And in Cambridge, our first long-lister comes with a health warning.
03:14Dangerously absorbing craftsmanship.
03:17The sort that stops you in your tracks and could see you missing lunch, tea and possibly winter.
03:25Well, this is lovely.
03:26This is Mill Hyde, outside weathered rust-red steel.
03:34Inside, cool white Italian limestone.
03:39A house of contrasts.
03:44Hello.
03:45Brought together by its architect owner, Tim, and his wife, Liz.
03:50What a lovely moment arriving here.
03:56Tucked into the Cambridge of Fenland, Mill Hyde is an extraordinary sculptural home.
04:02It's designed around a central courtyard or winter garden, with a giant roof light that actually opens.
04:09All the rooms are off this space.
04:11There's a kitchen, a living area, come dining space, then three bedrooms and three bathrooms.
04:18All encased in what looks like a continuous skin of rusty steel.
04:23I'd expect to find a cladding system of panels where the gaps are all millimetre equal.
04:33But here they're very tightly butted.
04:35Tim is known as Millimetre Tim in the business round.
04:39I like that though.
04:41I mean, we could do with a few more millimetre people.
04:43I wanted this to appear as though it was a piece of solid steel.
04:47But that skin is designed in such a way that there are no visible fixings.
04:52The corners or the window reveals are always folded, so you never see the thickness of the metal.
04:58So that it actually gives you that feeling of total solidity.
05:02That's really elegantly sorcery.
05:07The inspiration for this was the work of the world-famous sculptor Richard Serra,
05:12who specialised in working with steel.
05:15I mean, he's a great sculptor.
05:17And thinking about a piece of sculpture in the landscape, you know,
05:20you have to look at something like art and landscaping in New Zealand,
05:24which is 280 metres of quarter-end steel, 40 millimetres thick, 6 metres high.
05:31And that was what I wanted to achieve.
05:36Step inside and holy Illuminati!
05:40It's bright, white, calm, like walking into the centre of a cloud.
05:47You walk into the Winter Garden, an internal courtyard at the centre of the house,
05:51from which all the rooms radiate.
05:56The intention was you have open space on all four sides, but the ability to actually close that off
06:01in such a way that those openings became part of the internal surface of the central court.
06:08And, you know, so they're pivoted doors, which...
06:12Well, they do move.
06:13They do pivot, yeah.
06:15Right.
06:15So, by a very simple motion.
06:19Oh, very light.
06:21They're just on a little...
06:22They're on spring-loaded pivots.
06:24Yes, spring. Oh, wow, that's so elegant.
06:26So they land exactly where they should. Bye, Liz.
06:28Bye.
06:29So, with all the doors closed, this becomes a gallery and it has that enclosure quality.
06:38Very, very clever indeed.
06:40This is super satisfying because, and I would expect nothing else, Tim,
06:44that the illusion and the integrity of that wall
06:50only works because everything's absolutely in line and flush.
06:54Yeah. Millimetres a game.
06:56Yeah.
06:59That's not the only trick this space offers.
07:03Would you like to see the roof light open?
07:05Yeah, I dearly would.
07:08Yeah.
07:10I mean, here we are. We're inside the building.
07:12Mm.
07:13So clear.
07:14So clearly.
07:16Oh, the entire thing slides.
07:21Oh, heavens.
07:24The light changes and shifts.
07:37Doors open and close and spaces change.
07:41This house feels like a living, breathing thing.
07:46Do you know, when I first saw this place, I thought, goodness me, that looks so calm
07:51and still and unchanging and almost impregnable, you know?
07:56Then I realised, of course, inside it's the exact opposite.
07:59Its potential to change is vast.
08:02It's changing all the time.
08:03Things are moving.
08:05Spaces are opening up.
08:06It just reminds me that great architecture has got very little to do with what things look like
08:15and much more to do with what places feel like.
08:20We've seen one house so far.
08:27Five more to go until we find out which will be shortlisted for the House of the Year 2025.
08:31Oh, suburbia.
08:47That curious British in-between, neatly balanced between the buzz of the city and the calm of the countryside.
08:54A land built on brick bay windows, garden walls, decorative lintels, each a quiet celebration of everyday craft.
09:04Our next house doesn't just nod to that tradition, it reinvents it.
09:08It is a love letter to local materials and a masterclass in modern craftsmanship.
09:21Leber and Nicole set up their own architectural practice three years ago.
09:27The chance to do their first project together came about one Christmas at Nicole's parents' home.
09:34It was very cramped.
09:39One Christmas, we were trying to get everyone in the space we had.
09:42It was impossible.
09:43So Lemmer said, I can make it better.
09:48So we said, right, get some plans done and have a look.
09:55The house in Norfolk was a beautiful Victorian home,
09:59with a leaky extension built in the 1990s.
10:02The extension came down.
10:05And instead, Lemmer and Nicole built this beautiful brick box for 500,000 pounds.
10:17The new addition to the old house gives Nicole's parents all the space they need for entertaining.
10:24With a kitchen, dining room and living space all in one, all wrapped in beautiful brick detailing.
10:32We looked around the local area and there's really beautiful detailing on a lot of the houses.
10:40The particular ribbed brick work was inspired by the chimney on the house.
10:44And the cast corbels were inspired by the dog-toothed corbeling on the existing house.
10:51So it was kind of a contemporary take on the existing details.
10:56Corbeling is where bricks jut out above one another.
11:00Dog-toothed corbeling is where they stick out diagonally in a sharp point.
11:04You see brick corbeling done, but it doesn't have that point of difference that we wanted
11:10to kind of achieve when we were thinking about introducing a contemporary element to the house.
11:15That point of difference was using bricks in the middle and then concrete at the top
11:20to form continuous dog-tooth panels. It was cast in specially made molds cut from plastic foam.
11:28These were placed into formwork boxes and then the concrete poured, tinted brick red with dye.
11:34In the back of the garden, we had some fencing set up and a concrete mixer.
11:41I mean, it looked like a bloodbath because it was pigmented concrete.
11:46For a good, like, six months, you'd know where we'd been.
11:48Every day you'd come home, you'd rinse off your hands like Lady Macbeth.
11:51When the first section of concrete was poured and had set, the pressure was on.
11:55It kind of started a stopwatch, really, where we had to rush to get everything
12:01cast in time for the bricklayers to come back and install it.
12:05Lemma and Nicole had to race to cast the next piece of concrete
12:09before the bricklayer had finished the previous section of wall.
12:13We had quite a gruelling casting schedule.
12:16We had some days where we were casting and then the next day we'd be leaving them to set
12:23and then taking them out of the molds, repairing the molds, because we tried to reuse as many of
12:28them as possible. And then the cycle would start again because we ended up doing the casting over
12:33winter. So it obviously got cold, it was very wet and there were some days where it got kind of
12:39closer to freezing, so we had to be really looking at whether or not the concrete was set properly,
12:44keeping it warm.
12:46Nothing on this project came easily, just as outside the concrete was painstakingly cast by
12:52Lemma and Nicole.
12:55So the kitchen living space inside was also hard won.
12:59All the timber joinery was stained and oiled by them too.
13:05What's more, each piece of it had to be labelled and driven by them from their workshop in London
13:11to Norfolk.
13:12We put 15,000 miles on the clock. It was a big sacrifice and a big personal effort overall
13:18to kind of keep things moving.
13:20So what do Nicole's parents make of it?
13:22The kitchen has been transformed. I'd be in the kitchen by myself cooking while they were all
13:30doing things in other rooms. Now people sit round the island or sit at the table.
13:37And audience is important for this.
13:43Lots of people come and see it. It's one of the first things we show them because they just
13:52all say, I want the spice drawer.
13:56You did all the labelling yourself?
13:57Yes, of course.
13:58Colour-coded.
13:59I was colour-coded into like red for hot, European and American.
14:09A colour-coded spice drawer lets you know that people here care.
14:13Perhaps a little too much.
14:16This is a house built by passionate obsessives.
14:19A testament to what's possible when you embrace the hard way,
14:23chase the details and go all in on making something extraordinary.
14:28Many of us build our houses not just to please ourselves, but also the neighbours.
14:39To fit the postcode, to conform to the planning rules.
14:43But what if you didn't? I mean, what if you built something that quietly threw
14:47caution and convention and the street's colour palette to the wind, and instead used its materials
14:53to stand apart, at home with a distinct voice, measured, graceful, and just provocative enough
15:02to feature in the neighbourhood WhatsApp group? That would be something, wouldn't it?
15:13I'm in south-west London to see our next building that's not afraid to make an entrance.
15:18On a beautiful riverside street like this,
15:22Each one of these houses is playing a careful game of one-upmanship.
15:27But these houses politely jostle.
15:34Lower Ham doesn't. It throws bread rolls.
15:37It's bold, brilliant, and as carefully crafted as a punk's mohawk.
15:43It's a building that's loud, proud, full of poise and attitude.
15:52This extraordinary home has a single-storey extension and a tower.
16:02The single-storey section has a front office, comfortable guest bedroom, and downstairs bathroom.
16:07There's also a spacious open-plan kitchen connecting to a cosy snug.
16:13Beyond this, there are two additional bedrooms. Both open directly onto a serene central courtyard garden.
16:21In the tower, on the ground floor, there is a dining room. The first floor is home to the main living area,
16:27while the top floor is devoted to a luxurious master bedroom suite.
16:31At the rear of the house is a garden space complete with a versatile summer house that doubles as an office.
16:41The owner is retired marketing director, John.
16:47Walking up the street, this makes an impression. I mean, it stands out. It's really quite splendid.
16:53It is somewhat different. And if I had one pound for everybody that had commented on it, stopped and photographed it, I could have paid for the whole house.
17:05This is a fantastic approach.
17:08And what an entrance.
17:13Could we have a moment for this door? The scale of this, John.
17:18I mean, it's huge. Yes, it is.
17:21I mean, the material quality here. This is brass, isn't it?
17:24Yes.
17:24Yeah. That is not something you would normally use on a door.
17:28It's heavy. It's expensive.
17:30It's something that you would normally use for a door handle or a letterbox.
17:33Yes. It sets the scene for the whole house.
17:36I think this attention to detail you will find goes through the house as a whole.
17:41And that's a tribute to the architects.
17:43Step inside and the loud shapes and extravagant materials on the outside soften to something more serene.
17:57To have a courtyard garden here is quite something.
18:02The way that this corner just flies around, totally unsupported, you're performing structural gymnastics.
18:09Yes. And that's not all, because this door and this glass all around the courtyard opens up
18:16so the kitchen effectively becomes part of the courtyard.
18:20And it's an ideal place for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
18:23So often you go into a house and you've got a corridor and three rooms or whatever.
18:31And I thought it would be very nice to have where you walk in and you see different aspects of the house as you walk through it.
18:39If downstairs is about the calm, practical day to day, the tower is where the fun happens.
18:48Where guests get to enjoy the house in the first floor living room.
18:53This house is all about the entertaining.
18:55Yes, it is.
18:56And part of entertaining, of course, is theatre.
18:59Exactly.
19:00So you have the kitchen downstairs, you've got the movement through to the dining lounge and then
19:05drinks in the lounge upstairs.
19:07Or on a summer's evening, drinks on the terrace where the sun's shining.
19:11And you can have pre-dinner drinks out there or pre-dinner drinks out here.
19:15And post-dinner drinks out there or post-dinner drinks out there.
19:19There seem to be a lot of drinks, John.
19:22Well, there are a lot of corks downstairs.
19:24There are.
19:24Entertaining here isn't an afterthought.
19:29It's the whole point.
19:32Like any star venue, it needs a grand entrance.
19:36Oh, they are enormous.
19:41So the architect, Ian Crane, gave it one.
19:45It's not even just the height.
19:47I mean, look at the width of these.
19:51I mean, how tall is this?
19:52Well, they're just under six metres high.
19:55Where do you even begin to get a piece of glass that size?
19:58There are only a couple of companies in the UK that can manufacture glass of this size and scale.
20:02And eventually, we chose a company who are based in Turkey.
20:05So transporting these bits of glass across Europe was fraught with danger.
20:10Ultimately, the windows went in just before Christmas.
20:12And it was a bit like today, very windy.
20:15These large pieces of glass going in at a high level just the day before Christmas.
20:20One small thing on the side of the building and then you lose a piece of glass,
20:24you'll be back to square one again.
20:27Mercifully, there were no breakages.
20:30What's really impressive about this house is the effortless ease with which it guides you around it,
20:36from room to room.
20:37It's a place that encourages exploration and rewards you for doing it.
20:50Most houses are containers for the chaos in our lives, the stress and the pressure of work.
20:57But this house, well, this is very different.
21:01This steps in and it intervenes.
21:05From the moment you walk up the grand staircase to that beautiful brass door,
21:09this house takes over.
21:11The continuous lines of the brickwork guide you through.
21:15There you have options.
21:17Do you travel up to the tower and admire the views of the river?
21:20Or do you dwell in the serenity of this courtyard?
21:25At every single moment, this house steps in and slows your life down.
21:32And that's a very, very special thing.
21:36We've seen three houses so far that take you on holiday.
21:40And we have three more to see before we find out which will win a place on the shortlist.
21:44Water towers, lighthouses, old electricity substations.
21:56I mean, these are all building types which are ripe for conversion to residential use.
22:02Of course, the time-honoured conversion is that of the humble agricultural barn.
22:07But what if you did a barn conversion which was minimal,
22:13which stripped out the interior, took it back to its raw, powerful, earthy, barniness?
22:20I mean, that could be amazing, couldn't it?
22:24Only downside I can think of is that you'd end up living in a barn, like a cow.
22:34I'm in Essex to visit our next Long Lister.
22:38For a self-built project in a rural location,
22:41barn conversions make a lot of sense.
22:44First of all, you have a large open space that you can cut up as you see fit.
22:48Then the planning process is easier because there's already a structure there.
22:53And hopefully, the building itself will have lots of character that you can play with.
22:57The wall too often, that character is the first casualty of barn conversions,
23:07as the inside gets carved up to create as many rooms as possible.
23:11Not here though, not with this 18th century threshing barn.
23:16This is Jank's barn, a relic of rural life, carefully conserved and elegantly reimagined.
23:26Inside this remarkable old structure, under the cathedral-like ceiling,
23:31there is a living space, kitchen area and dining space.
23:35And on top of a pulpit-like structure built within is a study.
23:40Off the main space, there are two separate bedrooms.
23:43It was commissioned by landscape designer, Jo.
23:51Hi, Jo.
23:52Hi, Natasha.
23:53Very nice to meet you.
23:54And you too.
23:55How are you?
23:55Welcome.
23:56Very well, thank you.
23:57Oh, look at this place.
23:59It's just so welcoming.
24:01It had been used as a barn, we think, until the 60s and 70s.
24:08And then my neighbours, who sold the barn to me, they'd been here for 25 years,
24:14and they thought that they would one day do the barn themselves,
24:18but they didn't get round to it, and then they decided to sell.
24:21Pass the baton after you.
24:22Pass the baton to me, exactly.
24:25And so when I first saw it, it was full of family stuff.
24:29Oh, goodness.
24:30It was their storeroom, bicycles, there was a rowing boat, chests of drawers,
24:34you name it, it was in there.
24:39When Joanne enlisted her architect, the brief was simple.
24:42Retain the barn's character.
24:45Do only what was necessary.
24:47Don't change anything unless you have to.
24:50The brief for me was to allow the barn to retain its agricultural feel.
24:58Is it okay for you to look inside?
24:59Absolutely, come in.
25:03Oh wow, look at this.
25:08Step in and you're greeted by this breathtaking space.
25:11The original barn volume left intact.
25:14No mezzanines, no partitions, no white plasterboard.
25:18The judges were impressed by the care and conservation taken by all involved.
25:25I didn't want to put in a mezzanine floor.
25:28I didn't want to have anything that would interfere with the original structure.
25:33I wanted it to be left in its original huge volume because this is how it was built and how it has stayed for the last 250 years.
25:45So we've kept to the original division between what were lean-to's and what was the main threshing barn.
25:52There is a lot of respect for the historic structure here, so the new elements sit entirely apart from it.
26:01We introduced three black objects into the building, there's the study platform,
26:10there's the kitchen and the wood-burning stove, but none of them touches the wall, so they're all freestanding.
26:23So the barn almost acts as the gallery to host these three pieces of sculpture?
26:28Yes, in a way.
26:30I think that the timber frame is like a work of art.
26:33Absolutely.
26:34And the star of the show and is respected and loved and left in its original form.
26:41Well, most of it. You'd never know at first glance, but some of this ancient timber had to be replaced
26:46by the craft and expertise of one man, Dr. Joseph Bispham.
26:51I signed my indenture as a carpenter and joiner on the 23rd of June 1963.
26:56Oh, goodness.
26:57So I've been doing carpentry and joinery for quite a long time.
27:02We've lost so much of our history, and this is in a way fairly unique with Essex,
27:07because they're not common, these field barns.
27:10And there was a time when it was a scrap it mentality, so everything would be knocked down.
27:16To repair the barn, Joseph carefully removes the rotten parts
27:20and then scarves in new pieces.
27:24A scarf is an old piece of timber to a new piece, so if you look at that, then that's a scarf.
27:29And a good example is this piece of oak here.
27:33So if that was a post and we were scarfing in, then that would be the tenon to hold on the plate,
27:39and that would be the running scarf that will go onto the existing piece of timber.
27:44Oh, so this is the replacement.
27:45This is the repair, right, because you're looking at something that's rotted away at the bottom.
27:50So it's about minimal intervention, but it needs to stand the test of time.
27:55It's not just new timber that's scarfed in either.
27:59There you've used a salvaged piece.
28:01Yeah.
28:01So it's this mix of old, new, salvaged...
28:05Yes, I mean, where we could, we use every piece of timber.
28:09There's no bonfires here.
28:10Nothing, yes.
28:10Nothing, you know.
28:11So even small pieces of timber, they'll most probably have a job before the job is finished.
28:17The architects were Patrick Lynch and Rachel Elliott.
28:31There's something about the presence of old buildings that, like, you can just see the notches
28:35and the cuts and the workmanship. And so there's this friendly ghost. It's not alienating, but it's
28:40also a bit uncanny.
28:41The more you look at historic buildings and are able to read them, you know that there were
28:46phases in this building. We know that the mid-stray was cut in later. We know this wall had to be
28:52rebuilt in the 80s because there were cattle in here and they pushed the wall over. I mean,
28:57I find that really interesting and a great part of working on historic buildings.
29:04This is conservation, not by freezing time, but by working with what was there.
29:11Repairing it, honouring how it was made and allowing something new to emerge.
29:17This project is a careful restoration that finds beauty in the craft of what was once a purely
29:24functional building. By celebrating the work that went into making it and by adding a few sympathetic
29:31additions, this building has been given a new elegant life and become a beautiful home for Joanne.
29:37There is one British instinct which is deeply embedded. It's almost genetic. And that's the instinct to avoid
29:51making a fuss. And we queue quietly. We say sorry when we open the door for somebody else. Although we've never
29:58apologized for stealing the Elgin marbles. When it comes to design, of course, we also like our buildings to be a
30:05little modest, to be quieter, polite, something that knows its context and when to keep its voice down.
30:13But what if, what if that modesty was a mask? What if playing it down was how you got away with
30:19something much bigger, you know? Well, it takes is a little camouflage to smuggle in a bit of architectural daring.
30:27Well, our next longlist in Wales has pulled that trick off rather nicely.
30:34This is Kreuzbach. Outside, you see local black mountain stone and a familiar barn-like form.
30:45Inside, it's got all the elegance and architectural drama of a Danish design gallery.
30:51The RIBA judges praised how highly crafted and well-built it was, inside and out.
30:57We wanted to try to develop something which is of now, which is contemporary, but not in such a way
31:04which is unduly insensitive or likely to be alienating to people.
31:13It fits into the slope with a raised drive that curves round the back of the house.
31:19You enter into a double-height hallway with an office and granny annex in one direction.
31:24Then along the other corridor, there are five bedrooms and a family bathroom with access to the garden.
31:32Heading upstairs, there's a TV room at one end with a playroom,
31:37toilets and utility rooms hidden along the back, all connected by a large kitchen-living diner that
31:45opens onto the view. It was commissioned by Fernanda and Ben, who bought the plot with an existing house
31:51on it, hoping they might extend it slightly. Just making some changes in the rooms, making some room
31:57bigger, expanding some areas, modifying some other ones. At the same time, we were also multiplying
32:04the amount of children we had, so we were quickly realising we were running out of bedrooms.
32:09So, they decided to knock it down and build an upside-down house that took advantage of the view,
32:15living space at the top, bedrooms on the bottom floor. Perfect if you're small,
32:20quick and prefer to start your day without adult supervision.
32:25We sleep on the bottom. We can open the door from our room, so we can just go, like,
32:30to play outside whenever we want, kind of. In the morning, I like to feed the chickens,
32:36because that's when they start. That's when they wake up. So I feed the chickens at that time,
32:42so they start laying eggs. Then they can head upstairs, where the grown-up architectural magic
32:51happens. You're not completely entitled to see the view until you actually reach the top of the stairs.
33:00Yeah, a proper bit of theatre, once you get to the top. It doesn't reveal itself until the very end.
33:07I kind of like, wow!
33:11Yes, it is. A single open space, wrapped in glass, aimed straight at the Welsh mountains.
33:19Beautiful. But where's all the stuff?
33:23I can show you a secret, which is the favourite of the family,
33:27and it's this lava cupboard, which we design to be able to hide all the little mess that
33:35we can create as a family. And once it's done, you close your docks back again, which are very easy,
33:43and then it'll all get hidden away.
33:48They've gone a step further than that. They've built a 15-metre wall in walnut to hide entire rooms.
33:55All the messy stuff off the back of the main living area, so things like the playroom,
34:00the water closet, the utility area, all of that's hidden away behind this main wall.
34:09This is a house that makes the best of its setting, with materials that help make it feel
34:15part of this magical place.
34:17We always say how lucky we are. You can't get bored, so it's just nice.
34:28We've seen five beautifully crafted homes so far. One more to go before we find out which have been
34:35shortlisted.
34:49I'm off to Suffolk to visit our next house on the long list by a master architect and craftsman,
34:55and I've got a personal reason for visiting this one.
34:58Just down here there's a house, by an architect who I have long admired, James Gorst.
35:08So it's with a little trepidation that I approach, because I'm not expecting to be disappointed.
35:14I don't want to be disappointed.
35:21At the edge of a village here, where thatch and brick meet field and shed, sits something unexpected.
35:27OK, here we are. Not a cottage, not a barn, but something else.
35:38I'm not sure I've come to the right building. I mean, this is just a wall and a garage.
35:45Although the garage is beautifully detailed, with a double roof and a chain pipe and a, oh,
35:57Douglas fur cladding, and the wall, the wall is L-shaped, and it is monumental.
36:04This is a mento. Four timber pavilions stitched together by thick brick walls,
36:15as if they predate the buildings that lean against them.
36:20The Douglas fur interiors are crafted with the precision of a cabinet maker.
36:25Every joint, every line and surface calmly exact.
36:34The house is split into quadrants.
36:40One has the entrance hall with boot room and garage.
36:45The second quadrant has a snug and master bedroom.
36:50The third contains two bedrooms and a bathroom.
36:54And the fourth has the living and dining area with a kitchen.
37:01Hi. Hello. Sorry, I let myself in.
37:03It's owners are Liz and Peter.
37:06Very nice to meet you.
37:07And you, Liz. Yeah.
37:08Yes.
37:09Peter.
37:09Peter, how are you?
37:10I'm still trying to figure out the plan of it because it's got,
37:14it looks like a shed next to a great big wall. Is that right?
37:17Well, it's actually three walls. It's a broken cruciform.
37:20So there were a series of sheds here that were run down and neglected for probably decades.
37:27And James Gorst was quick to pick up on that.
37:30See, anybody else would just say, I'll just do a bunch of sheds.
37:32What James does is say, I'm going to do you a bunch of sheds on steroids with
37:35this great big monumental wall slicing through.
37:38So what was your brief?
37:39Low maintenance, easy to clean.
37:41Calm.
37:43Single level living.
37:45We didn't want to use the B word, which was bungalow.
37:47But you might have used the B plural word, which is bungalows.
37:50That's much more attractive.
37:52Are we bungalows?
37:56The RIBA judges praised the confidence and craft in the building,
38:00noting particularly the sharpness of the brickwork.
38:03Two brothers built the walls.
38:07They did it themselves, 40,000 bricks.
38:09They're beautifully done.
38:10And same with our joiner.
38:11But when you look at the work, you can see that there was enjoyment in putting this house up.
38:16You can see it expressed in the craftsmanship.
38:22Inside, you walk along one of the great spine brick walls into the kitchen quarter of the house.
38:28So kitchen is then incorporated into the rest of the building.
38:33This is one large volume.
38:35And a giant celebration of one material, Douglas fir wood.
38:41Everything in the kitchen in Douglas fir.
38:44You've got Douglas fir cutlery.
38:48How far does it extend?
38:50We wanted to use the same material throughout to create an overall very calm palette.
38:57And so as you look through, everything is just seamless.
39:02Those mullions, those big posts are magnificent.
39:05They take the rhythms of the ceiling and they carry them into the floor.
39:10And wherever it's used, it's sort of, it's giving you a hug.
39:14And it's a huggable material.
39:18Even the brick feels softer here somehow.
39:22Outside, it looks like it's slicing the house into four neat chunks.
39:28But inside, you realize the walls don't divide.
39:31They invite you through.
39:34And what's through here? Through the, oh, Douglas fir door.
39:38A burst of color.
39:39Oh, so there is.
39:42The wall sharply separates the pale colors of the wood and brick from an ocean of blue.
39:47I'm beginning to see the walls as quite kind of powerful presences.
39:52When the kids, they're young adults now.
39:54Uh, when they come home, this is their private space.
39:58Yeah.
39:58What's very nice is that it does feel very adult.
40:01So it's not like returning to their old bedrooms and a family home with the posters on the wall.
40:06And they feel like they're regressing every time they come home.
40:09Part of the idea for the house came from the sheds that were here before.
40:15The rest came from the mind of its designer, James Gorst.
40:19The little fantasy I had in my head was that these walls represented the work of some previous
40:26civilization.
40:27And at a later date, people came along and thought,
40:30we can have these four quadrants and make them useful. And so these much more human scale,
40:36mono pitches were fitted around.
40:41Although the business of actually building his vision was nerve wracking.
40:45When the house first went up, I had that terrible sinking feeling when you think you've just got
40:51something really wrong. When you came here and saw these expletive deleted walls, it just looked so
40:58massive and gaunt. And I did think, what the hell have I done here? But it's okay now. And that's the nature of
41:07architecture. You know, often you are being a bit brave with scale and initially it can be a bit
41:12concerning.
41:14Who dares wins. It's always a worry meeting your heroes, but Amento does not disappoint.
41:22You can use brick and timber to do a job, hold up a roof, clad a wall.
41:27But as the architect Louis Kahn said, even a brick wants to be something more.
41:35It takes a real master of their craft, somebody like James Gorst, to take these materials and make
41:45them sing. I mean, really sing. To write a song for them, which speaks of their hopes and their memories.
41:57We've explored six remarkable homes, but which will make the shortlist?
42:06Mill Hyde, brutal corten on the outside, butter-smooth limestone within.
42:12Cast Corbel House, a suburban semi with big ambitions, a brick-built piece of architectural chutzpah.
42:24Lower Ham, part riverside folly, part Tuscan daydream. There's a brass front door, a tower,
42:32and just enough restraint to stop it becoming a bombset.
42:37Jank's Barn, the glorious timber-framed relic brought back from the brink.
42:44Crois Wach, a Welsh farmhouse for the 21st century that hugs the hillside and embraces the view.
42:51And a mento. So minimal, it's practically monastic. Just air, lights, and the quiet confidence of a
43:01building that's reached enlightenment. On the jury is Livia Wang.
43:09So how many projects from this category have you shortlisted?
43:12Two. Two. What's your first?
43:15Amento. Amento.
43:16There was so much potential for these two different types of material languages in terms of how they meet,
43:22but also what the gardens were doing in each section of the site that had just been divided up.
43:27How successful do you think it was for its rigour and thoroughness?
43:31I mean, I think the thing that's really successful about this building
43:34is the use of materials and how finely it's all been detailed.
43:39That's wonderful news!
43:40That's really good. Very, very pleased to hear that.
43:46So you've got a second project you've shortlisted in this category. What is it?
43:49Jank's Barn.
43:51Right. That's surprising for me because it's a very, very historical building.
43:57So much of it is about conservation.
43:59Oh, but the way they did it.
44:01Every single beam, every single little purlin, even the little pieces of wood holding it all
44:07together were just cared for so well.
44:11It's an essay and loving the original barn.
44:14And that's not what every single conservation project is about.
44:17This is not a bog standard barn conversion.
44:19This is one that really makes you think everyone knows every single piece of wood.
44:27That's great. Absolutely thrilled.
44:29So Jank's Barn and Amento take their place on the shortlist alongside Hastings House,
44:38Kirk and the Creek and Triangle House.
44:43We have just two more places on the shortlist before we find out who will be crowned House of the Year 2025.
44:51Good homes, and I mean really good homes, they don't try to be anything they're not.
44:58They're quietly confident, singular, unmistakably themselves.
45:04Judy Garland said be a first-rate version of yourself and never a second-rate version of somebody else.
45:11That's what these homes do. They follow no template. They chase no trend. They're built with courage and
45:17conviction and they are pure expressions of the people who dared to imagine them and the people
45:24then who made them real. And that to me, that is an absolute mark of beauty.
45:30Next time, we'll explore houses which are extraordinary transformations.
45:38It's so lush.
45:39Six more homes that challenge the way we live.
45:43Oh my word, it's stunning.
45:46And we'll discover the RIBA House of the Year winner.
45:51This project's just been ambitious on so many levels.
46:04As you Park theme.
46:17You
46:23You
46:24You
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