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00:00Hello, and here's the weather.
00:02For today's forecast, expect scattered flashes of design brilliance
00:06with prolonged periods of architectural showmanship.
00:09There's a strong chance of concrete at ground level,
00:12timber cladding moving eastwards
00:14and intermittent glimpses of polished terrazzo.
00:17Light will play a key role, occasionally dappled,
00:21frequently dramatic and sometimes rather boldly
00:23emerging from beneath the stairs.
00:26Temperatures are set to rise in kitchens with underfloor heating,
00:29particularly where there's a hidden wine fridge.
00:31Wind resistance may be tested in houses built on stilts,
00:36and viewers are advised to take shelter immediately
00:38if anyone talks about flow.
00:42Welcome to House of the Year.
00:45The competition is hotting up
00:48for the Royal Institute of British Architects' House of the Year
00:51as we welcome the last batch of long-listed homes.
00:56That's clever. Oh, heavens.
00:58The pressure's building, and the competition is fiercer than ever
01:01for a place on the shortlist.
01:03Oh, this is really, really good.
01:06From houses that were built whilst under attack from midges...
01:10We had to hide in a caravan for an afternoon.
01:12Three grown men hiding in a caravan.
01:16To homes that were built to the strictest of tolerances.
01:20Tim is known as Millimetre Tim in the business round.
01:23The houses we explore will be whittled down to a shortlist of just seven.
01:28I mean, what the heck?
01:31At the end, we'll discover which will be House of the Year 2025.
01:37So get ready.
01:38Grease all nipples and lubricate all joints.
01:41So far, five homes have claimed their place on the shortlist.
02:07Kirk and the Craig on the Isle of Harris.
02:11Hastings House, a triumph of engineering and elegance.
02:15And Triangle House, a house that takes you to the Caribbean.
02:19Then there's a Mento, a carefully crafted cruciform family home.
02:23And Jank's Barn, a barn conversion that keeps its character.
02:30There are two places left on the shortlist and five more buildings to explore.
02:37Snooping around these homes with me is the architect Damien Burrows.
02:42To have a courtyard garden here is quite something.
02:47And the conservation architect, Natasha Huck.
02:50Oh, wow, look at this.
02:52Some houses are born beautiful.
02:57Some acquire beauty.
02:58Others have beauty thrust upon them,
03:01usually by an architect with a bold vision and a host of power tools.
03:05This category is all about transformation
03:08and not the kind that involves a new doormat and a pharaoh and bull tester bot.
03:13These are epic, drafty bungalows, weary barns,
03:17structures long past their prime,
03:20reimagined, reconfigured and re-emerged as architectural swans.
03:25They've been wrapped in zinc, filled with light,
03:28given poetry, purpose and soul.
03:30Oh, it's so stirring.
03:33I'm beginning to feel it'll transform myself.
03:35I might start wearing linen.
03:40Bath is experiencing a transformation of its own.
03:44You come here for Georgian grandeur,
03:46creamy stone and the odd bit of Regency cosplay.
03:49You don't come here for bungalows.
03:55But maybe you should.
03:58This is a house of wood shingle.
04:01A bungalow utterly transformed with a new skin of timber.
04:07Thousands of pieces of it.
04:08Hi.
04:13Hi.
04:13Good to meet you.
04:14Hi.
04:14The owners are Celia and Keith.
04:17Excellent place to be living.
04:20It's sort of becolic and befits a wooden house, I suppose.
04:24You've got a little shingle wooden house in the woods.
04:26Yes.
04:27Yeah.
04:27It used to be a 1960s kind of low-energy bungalow.
04:34I was going to say low-energy as in really poor...
04:36Poor energy.
04:37Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:38Yeah.
04:39And then we wanted to kind of upgrade it,
04:42retrofit it so that we could put in some sustainable heating elements.
04:46Yeah.
04:47And then the shingle came along as a kind of cladding
04:50to cover all the insulation.
04:52But it looks beautiful.
04:53It is beautiful.
04:53It looks beautiful.
04:54Because they're coursed.
04:55Yeah.
04:56They're not, you know, dropping and rising.
04:58So they're coursed.
04:59Yeah.
05:00And, of course, they're overlapped so that the joints are always staggered.
05:04Yeah.
05:04If we did it again on a bungalow, I think it's not the place...
05:07No.
05:08...to do the cedar shingle because it's such a vast kind of amount of square meterage.
05:13Yeah.
05:14But it is beautiful.
05:15And from a drone shot, it looks great.
05:18When you're working with an architect, you're quite often taking a sort of godlike view of it.
05:24So you're seeing 3D models and you're looking and you're kind of seeing a building in a way
05:29that you never really truly see.
05:32Yeah.
05:32You go round to someone's house and knock on the door and they say,
05:34come in, would you like the tour?
05:35And you...
05:36And you say, no, not really.
05:37Actually, now I've just come to see you.
05:39Yeah.
05:40But when people come here, you should just say, would you like to see the roof?
05:43Yeah.
05:43Yeah.
05:43We've got a ladder here.
05:45We've got a ladder, yeah.
05:45Get up there.
05:46It's a hidden asset, isn't it?
05:48A hidden beauty, a hidden gem.
05:49Hidden money pit.
05:51Yeah, OK.
05:55More like an investment, I'd say.
06:00Along the back of the house are the three children's rooms and parents' bedroom suite,
06:05all connected by a vaulted corridor with skylights that leads to the new entrance hall.
06:11At the near end of the front half is the glass-walled kitchen diner.
06:16Next to that is a TV room.
06:19And at the far end is the living room with views across the valley.
06:29Inside, this place does not feel like a conventional bungalow, compartmentalized and closed off.
06:35No, instead, you can see down the length of the building.
06:39It feels connected and open.
06:43It's really neat.
06:45Really neat.
06:46Celia and Keith's architect has pulled off a clever trick, too, in the way he's divided up the house.
06:53So this entire depth, this is social space.
06:59Yeah.
06:59Yes.
06:59And then all the rooms behind this are all the cellular bedrooms.
07:03Yeah.
07:06The living and sleeping spaces are separated by a corridor that divides the building into two.
07:12We can kind of close it off so that this space is completely separate from the rooms at the back.
07:18Yeah.
07:19It's almost like the back part of the house is what would traditionally be like the upstairs of the building, and then this front part is like the downstairs.
07:27So we continue that separation, so we continue that separation, even though it's all on one level.
07:31Walking through the kitchen and down to the sunken living room, your perspective suddenly shifts.
07:39Oh, yes.
07:40Oh, yes, it's down some steps.
07:42Oh, so the whole thing kind of expands.
07:47It lifts as you walk into it.
07:49Oh, it's like two or three and a half meters or something, that sheet of glass.
07:53So you step down into a sort of sky observatory, really.
07:58Yeah, which is actually kind of almost exactly split across the middle, so the horizon cuts halfway across those windows.
08:07These clouds suddenly appear to be more powerful because you're framing this kind of great skyscape.
08:17What I love about this place is the variety of experiences that it offers.
08:22No two rooms in here are the same.
08:25From 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.
08:37And then into this.
08:38Oh, my Lord.
08:40This is the first bungalow I've ever seen that has a sort of ecclesiastical corridor with little cellular rooms off.
08:47It's like being in a monastery with these fantastic clear story lights that just grab sunshine, run it into the building.
09:03I don't know why I'm whispering.
09:04Forgive me, bungalow, for I have stared.
09:10But beauty like this doesn't come easy.
09:13The process of making it can floor you.
09:16It was a long process.
09:20Yeah.
09:21And getting materials to site.
09:22I mean, just the logistics of being here.
09:24That was tough.
09:25And I think we had, you know, quite a few phone calls.
09:27Because a private drive sounds like a nice idea.
09:30Yeah.
09:30Until 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.
09:39Yeah.
09:40Or just refuse to deliver stuff.
09:42So 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.
09:50They've gone to a lot of trouble reinterpreting this bungalow.
09:59This underrated building form, now reimagined, is once again taking its place in the spotlight.
10:07I suppose we think of bungalows as being background buildings, don't we?
10:12You know, part of the supporting cast of the theatre of architecture that makes our cities and our towns.
10:21But what this place demonstrates is you can take an individual from that supporting cast.
10:28You can believe in them, remodel them, reclose them.
10:31You can give them a script that works for them and you can transform them into a glamorous, eloquent, witty centre stage star.
10:52We've seen one shape-shifting home so far.
10:55Four more to see before we find out which will be shortlisted for the House of the Year 2025.
11:01The next longlister we're visiting in our Incredible Transformations category is in Suffolk.
11:19I'm off to see it.
11:22It's an exciting new set of buildings that transforms not something that was already there,
11:28but the very way we could build our homes.
11:31Most homes squeeze all of their functions underneath one single roof.
11:39But I'm off to see a home that transforms that very idea.
11:43Four different buildings, four separate functions, and one family.
11:49Welcome to Housestead.
11:51Housestead is four buildings arranged around a cross-shape in a central courtyard.
12:07To the south is a glazed thatch living pavilion with a kitchen dining area, a lounge and bathroom.
12:14To the west is a solid brick working block containing a main bedroom with en suite and office above.
12:21To the east is the sleeping block with five children's bedrooms and a guest bedroom.
12:27There is also a greenhouse structure to the front, which acts as a winter garden.
12:32The corrugated metal north building is the utility block with a boiler room, garage, general store, and upper level hangout.
12:40The owners are architect, husband, and wife, Amir and Abigail.
12:46All of the elements of the building are so far apart.
12:49What was the idea behind that?
12:51One's a living function, one's a sleeping function, one's utility, and one's work and study studio.
12:58It's really to sort of create four distinct zones where you have to go outside, experience the outdoors between the different functions.
13:06It 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.
13:17I think for us it's working brilliantly.
13:22As the children grow older, they can have their own space and come together with the adults here.
13:28This is the living block where the family can eat, chat, and socialize.
13:33It's part sitting room, part kitchen, part dining space, with a mezzanine floating above, all gloriously open plan.
13:44Oh, hello.
13:46This is, oh my word, stunning.
13:51The thatched roof seems to float on improbably thin seal columns.
13:55We wanted everything to be as light as possible so it's not detracting from the view.
13:59Nothing is bigger than it needs to be, so, you know, it's been finely engineered.
14:04Steel could have felt like a cold industrial material to use here, but it doesn't, thanks to the clever colour choice, Suffolk Pink, a colour used on buildings in the area.
14:16The Suffolk Pink came from the fact that they used pig's blood to become the sort of binding material.
14:24In a lime wash, so, you know, you mix protein and lime and it reacts and it creates the Suffolk Pink.
14:30So this is dragging Suffolk Pink into the 21st century.
14:33This is giving it a bit of oomph.
14:35Exactly.
14:35And it's the last thing people expect when they walk in here.
14:39Yes.
14:40This is a gorgeous pig.
14:40This is a gorgeous pig.
14:45Then, outside to another extraordinary building in this 21st century house stead.
14:52So we've come from a traditional thatched roof to lunar space module.
14:58You called it a lunar module landing and the way it was constructed really was very lunar-like.
15:03It was built in the area where we put the cars, assembled and then raised by a crane and very lightly popped onto the roof, bolted down.
15:13In one section?
15:14The whole thing was built, bar the staircase, in the whole thing was built, raised up and popped down.
15:19It's great fun watching it go up.
15:21You have people reporting it, like there's a spacecraft landing next door.
15:25It's what's happening.
15:25It was a giant step for Suffolk.
15:27It's very much a lookout.
15:30It's very much a place for us to get away from everything else, but also our studio.
15:34And it's quite high up.
15:36Not quite 33 steps, but it's 31 steps.
15:39It's a very nice journey and you actually feel that you're just getting away from everything.
15:42You can go up there and just escape.
15:44Pick up a book, finish off a project.
15:47Curiouser and curiouser.
15:49From a space oddity to a greenhouse built into a bedroom wing.
15:54Nothing conventional about that either.
15:57This is a thermal camera and it's a great way of showing exactly where the heat is in a house.
16:04Now in a normal home, you'd expect to see hot spots around the radiators and chimney flues.
16:09But if we take a look down here, it's off the charts hot.
16:16By design, incredibly, this glazed corridor helps heat the hot water for the whole house.
16:23So 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.
16:32So you've got all this hot air here.
16:35It's rising up through there, passing over the copper pipes and just heating up your hot water.
16:40Heating up the hot water.
16:41Meanwhile, the bedrooms behind remain really beautifully cool.
16:45Yeah, the temperature difference.
16:46You can really feel it, can't you?
16:47Yeah.
16:48You're in a greenhouse.
16:49I am.
16:49Oh, as soon as you come through here, it's just really cool.
16:56Just calm.
16:57It's really cool and calm.
16:58The transition between the cool, the hot and outside into the fresh in such a short distance of time, it's quite something.
17:08That's thanks to the thick timber walls between the greenhouse and the bedrooms which contain the heat.
17:14Ingenious engineering, thoughtful design and a love of innovation are all things to be admired about this house.
17:21Like all good things, though, Amir and Abigail had to wait for it.
17:26We didn't finish.
17:28We didn't arrive when it had finished because we first moved in when the building had power but no lighting.
17:35So we camped.
17:36We camped for quite a long time and we rigged up lights.
17:39And because we wanted to be here, we moved in at the very first opportunity.
17:45So it's been very much an adventure, really.
17:48The children have been very patient.
17:52But now, now it feels like it's properly finished.
17:55There's this thing called Suffolk time that we didn't know about, but we kind of managed to work with it.
18:01And it's, um, I'm sorry, it's very different to London time.
18:05Well, Suffolk time is, you know, you know, things happen when they happen often.
18:10Not necessarily that we'd be aware that they're going to happen when they happen.
18:14But they do happen.
18:15They happen to a very good standard.
18:16I'll say this is a family home for the 21st century, where children and adults each have their own space.
18:28Whether it's the utility block with its games room above or the private bedroom wings, where everyone can retreat when they need to.
18:36And then, when they're ready, they gather to cook, to eat, to live together.
18:42The watchtower, the thatched glazed pavilion, the Nissen hut.
18:51Individually, these are striking, odd, even a little eccentric.
18:56But together, they form something that is unique and compelling.
19:02They form architecture that is bold, inventive, and entirely personal.
19:10We've seen two remarkable transformations so far.
19:15Three more to go before we find out which will be shortlisted for the House of the Year 2025.
19:26Some things just seem understated.
19:32A navy blue Vauxhall, a pair of traditional brogues.
19:37Jeff, from the parish council.
19:39And then, then you look closer and you discover that Jeff is actually a belly dancer.
19:44And that the brogues are handmade in Florence.
19:47And that the Vauxhall does 0-60 in Lesson 5.
19:51Think of our next longlister as Jeff.
19:58It's in the quiet, rolling hills of Somerset.
20:01It used to look like this.
20:04Before it was knocked down and was reborn as this.
20:12Definitely an upgrade.
20:15This is the orchards.
20:16The house is mostly single-story, stepping down gently with the landscape.
20:24You enter into a wide hallway, the heart of the home, which leads one way to the public spaces and the other to the private wing.
20:31In the public area, there's an open-plan kitchen, dining, and living space, which opens onto a veranda.
20:37A flexible room nearby serves as a playroom, gym, or guest space.
20:43In the private wing, there are two children's bedrooms, a family bathroom, and a main bedroom suite at the far end.
20:50There's also a small, upper-level guest room.
20:54It's home to Jonathan and Kirsty.
20:56Hi.
20:57Hi.
20:57Kirsty, right?
20:58Yes.
20:59Hi.
20:59Hi, nice to meet you.
21:00And you too, Jonathan.
21:01Jonathan.
21:01This building catches you off guard, and that's entirely the point.
21:08Sometimes buildings are really loud, and, you know, they assert themselves, and this one does the opposite.
21:14Right up until the moment, you sort of get to there.
21:17It's a low-key entrance, and I think that fits us.
21:20We're sort of flashy on the inside people.
21:22You walk in to a beautiful open-plan kitchen.
21:30The RIBA judges admired the restrained material palette, and touches a luxury inside a home that was respectful to its rural setting.
21:40It's really nice, isn't it?
21:42And they've taken special measures to keep it that way, to defend it from the ravages of children.
21:49What is that kitchen tabletop made from?
21:51Is that stainless steel?
21:53Yep.
21:53Yes, stainless steel.
21:54Giant piece.
21:55Four, five millimetres thick.
21:57How did that materialise?
21:59This was your one.
22:00I think one of our themes throughout the whole house was it's got to be robust.
22:05Yeah.
22:05If it looks perfect on day one, but gets beaten up by family life, it just won't work for us.
22:10And you've got another one over there, which is just as reflective and beautiful, and that's hugely long.
22:14Is that one piece of steel?
22:16It is one giant piece.
22:17One single piece of steel.
22:18I don't think we knew it when we set out to make it, but there's only one place in the country who could cope with a piece of steel there.
22:25But this room isn't just built to be durable.
22:30It hides a few playful secrets.
22:33Is that a door, that thing, that great big piece of wall?
22:36One of our few kid-free spaces.
22:41So the little one didn't realise this was an actual room for, what, four or five months of being here, because we kept that door closed.
22:48And then it blew her little mind one day when her brother had left it open, and she discovered this whole extra space.
22:52She was going to grow up with such a complex, about deprivation, about being the junior, excluded member of the family.
22:58Or the joy of what's behind the door.
23:02Or that, yeah. Or she'll just love surprises, yeah.
23:06In this house, no room is quite what you think it is.
23:10One stayed hidden for months behind a barely noticed door.
23:13And the corridor, turns out it's doing far more than getting you from A to B.
23:20So this is the corridor stroke street.
23:23Yes.
23:24Sort of public highway.
23:26It's almost become an extra room.
23:28It's where kids come out of the bathroom, we get them dry, dry hair, brush teeth.
23:33Spend, yeah, a lot of time in this as a space.
23:36You've got a place where they can easily come out and put on plays and have a chat and create a den.
23:42And I read somewhere that every house should have at least one space big enough to get a toddler up to full speed.
23:50Those bits in between, the not quite a room, liminal spaces, are what I find most interesting about this house.
23:58These are the bits that quietly steal the show.
24:01We love to have labels for rooms.
24:04And the moment it hasn't got a label, the moment it's ambiguous, we worry that it's wasteful.
24:09It's been a surprise, but yeah, we really live in those in-between spaces.
24:13The rooms themselves aren't too shabby either.
24:19Full of personality and fun.
24:21That was important to the architect, Graham Bisley.
24:24Each room has a different character by what you see outside.
24:29That bathroom's almost like a little chapel.
24:31You kind of go in and the timber screen as you go in is a cross shape and you go through and there's this little side chapel, which is the shower.
24:37Everyday experience should be pleasurable.
24:40It's not just a functional thing, walking out of your room and going for breakfast or whatever.
24:44You can have an experience on that journey.
24:47This is a house that is thoughtful and full of surprise.
24:55It's calm but never dull.
24:58Every corner has been considered.
25:01Every detail earns its place.
25:03And the result is silently special.
25:09A home that works and one that keeps getting better the longer you spend time here.
25:15This is a quiet house.
25:19You know, it has its cholera and its eyes to the ground as it slowly slips its way through the grasses in the orchard.
25:28But, you know, it may be quiet, but it is also resilient and it's playful and it is strong and in places also ambiguous.
25:42I mean, it works a magic.
25:43And I'm sure that if I spent time here in its company, my blood pressure would lower and I would perhaps be more at peace with myself and even perhaps a little happier.
25:55Which makes it a really transformative building.
26:08Oh!
26:09You know you turn up at a party and somebody's just looking fantastic and you think, what is it?
26:15Is it their hair?
26:16They've got new glasses?
26:17They've been to the dentist?
26:18What is it?
26:19And then you realise they sort of just know what they're doing.
26:23It's just a gentle, all-over, even lift.
26:27Yeah.
26:29Like this next place.
26:34I'm in London looking at our next Long Lister.
26:38This is a house that's been transformed.
26:41But rather than being turned into something completely new, it's been redefined as a sophisticated version of itself.
26:51This was an unremarkable 1960s terraced house.
26:55Now crafted into a piece of iconic-looking 1960s modernist architecture.
27:00The judges were awestruck by the fact it retained the character of the original building, yet was completely remade.
27:10In this masterfully reworked home, the ground floor is a spacious, double-height kitchen dining room, with a utility room and toilet next to it.
27:18On the first floor is a living room with outside balcony and a cosy snug.
27:25On the second floor are the two children's bedrooms and a bathroom.
27:30And on the third floor is the adult bedroom with en suite.
27:38The architect who realised this extraordinary vision was Dingle Price.
27:42Hi, Dingle.
27:43Hi, welcome.
27:44Thanks. How are you?
27:45Well, and you?
27:45You arrive into a small corridor.
27:49Above are stairs up to a living room and balcony, bedroom and bathroom.
27:54But the real magic is at ground floor level.
27:57It's so lush.
27:59The view teasingly opens out over the kitchen and dining room to an incredible garden beyond.
28:06What was here before?
28:08There was a kitchen on the left side and on the right there was a dining area.
28:12And of course it was all at the same level.
28:15It began as a bog-standard 1960s house.
28:20Now Dingle has remade it in the language of brutalism, the cutting edge of high-end design in the 60s, when exposed concrete and bold form were the height of architectural fashion.
28:31A lot of the concrete in the building is exposing beams that were already there but were uncovered.
28:37But then we've also introduced a certain amount of new concrete.
28:42It's only when you get to ground level you can fully appreciate this extraordinary room.
28:46There's so much drama to this space.
28:50I mean, the height of the ceilings and then this view out to this lush garden.
28:54I mean, it's really unexpected.
28:57What did you have to do to create it?
28:58Well, the key to it is the excavation.
29:00There was a Victorian building that stood on this site.
29:03Oh, the building before the 1960s building?
29:06It just turned out that the original building had very, very deep foundations.
29:10And that meant relatively easily we could dig away the earth to create this high space.
29:15So we've excavated a metre and a half down from the original ground floor level.
29:19But from then on, Dingle had set himself an incredibly hard task by choosing to keep everything exposed.
29:28It's a project with no paint.
29:30Everything is the exposed materials, which goes back to this sort of original idea of brutalism.
29:36But because of that, you know, it's very unforgiving.
29:39If you put a light switch in the wrong place, you can't just move it and repaint.
29:45You end up basically having to replaster the whole wall.
29:47There was nowhere to hide mistakes.
29:51No layer that could cover them up.
29:53Not the usual way of doing things.
29:55The contractor wasn't convinced to begin with.
29:59If I'm honest, we actually thought Dingle was going mad.
30:03Everything was experimental.
30:05It was definitely a challenge.
30:06And it's not the way we usually do our projects.
30:09Because, you know, it costs a lot more money to experiment.
30:12I guess the most difficult for us was when we stripped the structure back to its original block work and brick work.
30:21We couldn't see the vision.
30:22But who could argue with the elegance of the end result?
30:29Though what looks effortless now took days of trial and error that tested the limits of everyone involved.
30:36It's the level of craft, care and control here that makes this retrofit so quietly radical.
30:41Everything about this house challenges what we would normally expect.
30:48From a 1960s infill, from brutalist materials and from a retrofit.
30:53Instead of clearing everything away, the architect has made subtle adjustments to what was here.
30:58Completely transforming the space and really making the most of the character of the existing house.
31:03We've seen four houses so far, transformed beautifully in different ways.
31:10There's one more to go before we find out which will make the shortlist.
31:14And then, from all those shortlisted homes, we'll discover which one will win the title for the House of the Year 2025.
31:21A key part of the architectural imagination is seeing how something can be transformed.
31:37To look at a building that's unloved and unused and imagine it as a place entirely new.
31:43Now, this building, which was built by the architects Tonkin knew, began life as a rusty old water tower.
31:51They had the vision to transform it.
31:54To turn the concrete stem into a staircase and the steel tank at the top into this beautiful living room with the best seats in the house.
32:04I mean, literally, it is a bold bit of re-thinking.
32:08But our next longlister, they've pulled off something arguably even more extreme.
32:17Once upon a time, on the Isle of Wight, in the early 1900s, a humble cowshed was built.
32:27With slurry underfoot, hay overhead and the occasional swallow nesting in the rafters.
32:34A hundred years later, it was deserted, derelict and forgotten.
32:41Until Joseph, an artist and academic, learned about it.
32:46I saw some photographs and I was immediately attracted.
32:50So much so that I told the kids, I'll be back in an hour.
32:54I identified where the barn was, got in the car, came here.
32:59Let myself in, it was open, sort of.
33:01And stood in the courtyard and thought, like, this is where I want to live.
33:09And so, the old buyer was born.
33:13An extraordinary transformation.
33:15One that keeps much of what was there before, but gently adds newer elements.
33:20The space we're in at the moment is where I socialize and where I cook and where I spend the day and spend time with friends.
33:26This is a really open space, whereas the other barn, the 19th century barn, has smaller, more intimate spaces.
33:37My library, corridors, spaces for sleeping, bathroom, and spaces that can be used as studios.
33:50So, in their nature, they're very, very different.
33:55The old buyer is, in fact, not one, but two barns.
34:00One built in the early 1900s, the other in the 1960s.
34:03The newer barn houses the main living space.
34:06A bright open kitchen, a generous dining area, and a calm, stripped-back lounge.
34:11The older, L-shaped barn holds the bedrooms and a couple of quiet studio spaces.
34:18The RIBA judges admired the contrasts this project offered, where new and old materials and structures sit comfortably alongside each other.
34:28Nowhere more so than in the main living and working space.
34:31The roof is pretty much as it was.
34:35We reinforced it, visibly mended it, where we had to.
34:40There are still remnants of what is probably cow poo on the wall.
34:45There is a swallow's nest.
34:46There is hair.
34:47There are old nails.
34:49So, all of this is still in the walls.
34:52The construction approach was deliberately as rough and ready as the original building itself.
34:57The doors came from Spain, I think, which took a long time.
35:03One of the doors didn't quite fit, so I rang the builder and a few hours later it was sorted.
35:08I think they shaved a little bit off the door frame, or the door, or either.
35:13I'm not going to ask.
35:16One of the greatest interventions here is what they've done to the front of the building.
35:21By day, it brings in soft light.
35:24By night, it glows.
35:30The facade that faces the courtyard is made from polycarbonate, so it looks like paper.
35:36It lets light in and brings light into the space.
35:40This insulated facade cost an eye-watering 17 grand,
35:44a unique expense in what was otherwise a cost-conscious home built for 360,000.
35:49Extraordinary for a project of this ambition.
35:51The budget was tight, but that led to most of the decisions we made about everything.
36:00I don't think there's anything where we thought we're going to spend more on this element.
36:04So, we tested thoroughly the costs of different approaches, and that's how we made decisions.
36:10So, no, I wouldn't say it was to do with spending more on certain elements.
36:15The old buyer is masterful.
36:24Not a glossy reinterpretation of raw rusticity.
36:28New materials and ideas have here been finely tuned to an appropriate level of humility.
36:34With that comes a gentle, brutal honesty.
36:36It's a cowshed made livable, not just through redesign, but in the refusal to lie about what it ever was.
36:45Why did I keep the swallow's nest?
36:47What would be the advantage of removing it?
36:50Like, I would take away a story of the building.
36:52We've explored five remarkable homes so far, but which will earn their place on the coveted shortlist?
37:08The house of wood shingle, a 60s bungalow wrapped head-to-toe in timber, part house, part hedgehog.
37:15Housestead, four buildings, one family home.
37:19A place that rewrites the idea of what a house is.
37:22The orchards, barn on the outside, bond lair on the inside.
37:28London brute, a concrete wedge in a polite London postcoat.
37:32Brutalism with a posh accent.
37:35The old buyer, a luminous barn conversion where the history's intact.
37:41Swallow's nest and all.
37:46Joining me is the chair of the judges, David Kohn.
37:50David, how many projects from this category have you selected for the shortlist?
37:54So there are two projects in this category.
37:56First being?
37:57London Brutes.
37:57Of all the ones we saw, probably it's the project that is most concerned with elegance.
38:08It's a very refined, calm experience to be there.
38:13And I think the abiding memory one would have of the visit is the relationship of these exquisitely proportioned rooms and gardens.
38:23That's fantastic.
38:27It feels, yeah, it feels all of that work has been worthwhile.
38:32Thank you.
38:35So what's the second house that you've chosen?
38:38The second house is Housestead.
38:39Which is more than a house.
38:45It's a stead.
38:46It's an arrangement of buildings.
38:48Living, sleeping, service, quarter.
38:53Take away any one of the parts and it doesn't work.
38:55Yeah.
38:55It needs them all.
38:56And the house is all of them together.
38:58A lot of people won't like it.
39:00A lot of people will look at that and say, I'm not going to live like that.
39:03Why should I walk in the rain just to go and put a log in the wood burner?
39:07It is an experimental project.
39:08I think it's a project which takes a lot of license with a lot of things and makes something utterly unique.
39:17Being shortlisted is fabulous.
39:20Really, really pleased.
39:22Yeah, couldn't be more pleased.
39:24Fabulous.
39:24It's a great reward.
39:25Yeah.
39:26Thank you.
39:26Thank you very much.
39:27So, Housestead and London Brute take their place on the shortlist.
39:34That's it.
39:35The shortlist is complete.
39:37And we now have our seven finalists for the 2025 Royal Institute of British Architects House of the Year.
39:44In the running, we have Kirk and the Craig on the Isle of Harris.
39:49And Hastings House on the South Coast.
39:52There's the glorious Triangle House.
39:54The Agricultural Jank's Barn.
39:58A Mento.
39:59And then Housestead.
40:02And London Brute.
40:04The judges have a very difficult decision to make.
40:11So I'm walking up a hill to visit this year's winner of House of the Year.
40:15Now, I'm hoping the background is out of focus, because it's important that you shouldn't be able to tell where I am.
40:22No, no, no.
40:23Come back here.
40:24Sorry.
40:25Not just yet.
40:26What I'll say is, the building's right in front of me.
40:31And it looks extraordinary.
40:32It is this incredible home that takes the prize.
40:42Kirk and the Craig on the Isle of Harris in Scotland.
40:46Built through sleep and struggle and storm by its owners, Ailey and Jack.
40:51Hi.
40:52Yeah.
40:53Nice to meet you.
40:54Ailey, how are you?
40:55Hi.
40:55Good to see you both.
40:57Who, by the way, think I've just come to visit their shortlisted building.
41:01Nice to show you in person and actually be here.
41:03Well, no, it's so important, isn't it, to actually make the effort to go and visit something and be there and experience it.
41:08I mean, it's made from that.
41:10It's made from everything around it.
41:11So good.
41:12It's so good.
41:13And by the way, congratulations on making the shortlist.
41:16So deserving.
41:17Oh, sorry, and I forgot to say, also, congratulations on winning.
41:20Thank you.
41:20No way.
41:21Yeah.
41:22Incredible.
41:22This is House of the Year 2025.
41:24Wow.
41:29Oh, my God.
41:30How about that?
41:30That's fantastic.
41:31Sorry, I couldn't not tell you.
41:32I couldn't not tell you.
41:35Congratulations.
41:36Oh, my God.
41:37Thanks so much.
41:38So good.
41:38So good.
41:39And so well-deserved.
41:41Oh, my gosh.
41:42I can't believe it.
41:44Have you actually?
41:45Oh, my God.
41:45Yes, you have.
41:46That's why I've come to see you.
41:49Thank you.
41:49Because it's so clever.
41:51Well, it's built from the landscape, and they point out this rock, and everything is moving around it.
41:56Yeah.
41:57Yeah.
42:00This house is crafted from the very rock that the island is made from.
42:05This is the local stone.
42:07Local stone.
42:08And it's called?
42:09Louisian Nice.
42:11From the Isle of Louis.
42:12Yeah.
42:13Louisian Nice.
42:14But that's one of the most ancient stones on the planet, isn't it?
42:17Yeah, it's incredibly old.
42:18And it's the reason why Harris is still here, because it's made of the hard rock.
42:23So it makes your house a billion years old.
42:27Yeah, exactly.
42:29Louisian Nice.
42:30Tough as anything.
42:32And exactly what you want between you and a howling Atlantic storm.
42:36That protects the house.
42:38They've got this to protect the occupants.
42:41I love this.
42:41This is your fantastic threshold.
42:44A glorious entry.
42:48A beautiful porch.
42:48Very deep.
42:49Covered.
42:50Yeah.
42:50Yeah.
42:51The shelter's really important.
42:52Why is that?
42:55Is it a bit wind?
42:57Nothing quite prepares you for the experience of walking in.
43:07This is unexpected, because you approach the building from the front, and it's like a pillbox.
43:11Yeah.
43:11It's like a very small.
43:13It's like a TARDIS in stone.
43:15Yes.
43:15Then reaches back.
43:16You think it's just long and thin.
43:17It's not long and thin at all.
43:19I look down there, see the reflection.
43:21Yeah.
43:21There's the dining table, which is a lovely thing, because it's circular and welcoming.
43:25And then there's this view of just the rock on the hill.
43:28And what's clever here is the, it's like this floor on the outside.
43:33It's simply a continuation.
43:35Yeah.
43:35I think that's one of the hardest things that we find in architecture, is trying to allow,
43:40talk to people and say, that is a really good view, maybe the best view of the site,
43:44but don't just reveal it all straight away.
43:47You know, layer through it, like you were saying, almost like a story.
43:49Architecture should be this revealing, this kind of staged act, if you like.
43:55I think it makes it quite creative.
43:57Yeah.
43:57And I'm very taken with it.
44:00So what was it particularly that won over the judges?
44:05Why did you choose this to be the winner?
44:07It was, I would say, really hard, but unanimous decision.
44:11To do a project like this, in such a remote location, on that budget, required a partnership
44:18that is really admirable.
44:21And I don't think every couple would survive doing that kind of self-built project.
44:29What an amazing achievement against lots of odds.
44:31I mean, this project has been ambitious on so many levels, not only with the detailing,
44:36the way it's actually made and crafted, but also the couple and their plan to build the
44:40house themselves.
44:42Such a good point, isn't it?
44:43Yeah.
44:44Definitely, often the bigger and the baggier something is, the less energy it has.
44:48And you can find extraordinary energy in this more perfectly made thing.
44:53It's this quiet, determined, palpable energy, born of hands that shape stone, of minds that
45:05listen to the land, that makes this building the house of the year 2025.
45:13That building speaks eloquently of this entire place.
45:18It speaks of people.
45:19It speaks of the story of a handful of them carrying stone, drying wood, and crafting
45:26with their knuckles and their fingers every tiny square inch of this building.
45:32This is the future, isn't it?
45:35This points somewhere else.
45:37This doesn't say, look at me.
45:39I've got a huge cantilever.
45:40This says, I have a role, and an important role here, in responding to people and to place.
45:47It's almost as though this is the building that this island and this part of the world was
45:55is waiting for
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