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