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00:00Hello. Gosh, how I've missed you. But now the Royal Institute of British Architects House of
00:10the Year Award is back. And we have more beautiful homes to show you than ever before. We are also
00:17fully upgraded. So the drone, for example, is now quieter and more respectful of context.
00:25No way. Oh, and the houses. Well, they are, of course, truly exceptional. They are completely
00:33out of this world. Where are you, you little bastard?
00:42The show that celebrates the UK's favourite pastime, snooping around other people's homes,
00:48is back. What is that? And the fixtures have never been more artisanal. It's like one of those kind
00:55of things at the dentist where you have, you know, they do an extra. They will leave the room.
00:59The judges have handpicked a long list of Britain's most awe-inspiring new buildings.
01:04Don't just come off this very British street into something that is from the other side of the
01:07planet. These are all houses that will take your breath away. I mean, what the heck? The judges
01:14will have the hard task of whittling them down to a shortlist of just seven.
01:19It's just so complicated. There are so many things at play.
01:22And in the final programme, we'll find out which of these will be crowned House of the Year 2025.
01:30The stakes are high. The ceilings are even higher. Welcome to House of the Year 2025.
01:36I've taken all the long-listed houses we're looking at and divided them into four categories.
02:04In later episodes, we'll discover homes that make you feel like you're on holiday,
02:10houses that are remarkable transformations, and homes that demonstrate exceptional craftsmanship.
02:18Exploring these with me is the architect Damien Burrows.
02:22Oh, this is breathtaking.
02:25And the conservation architect, Natasha Huck.
02:28Oh, I get this place. It's just so welcoming.
02:32This time, we'll be looking at houses that are built against all the odds.
02:37And if grand designers have taught me anything over the past 25 years, it's that the odds are
02:41hugely stacked against the self-builder.
02:44In fact, I don't understand why anybody tries to build anything ever anywhere.
02:48But for those plucky, fearless, sometimes hapless individuals who do embark on the architectural
02:55journey, the results can be life-changing.
03:02Our first long-listed home, built against the odds, sits in the remote Outer Hebrides on Harris,
03:10a rugged island off the west coast of Scotland.
03:12This is Kirkland-a-Kraig, a jewel-like home built beside the water and through nine savage storms.
03:29The house is compact and efficient, centred on a bright, open, planned kitchen and living space.
03:37Off this is a quiet bedroom, a single bathroom, a utility room.
03:42All neatly arranged with no need for corridors.
03:46It was the work of a brave couple.
03:50It's architects, Ailey, and her partner, Jack, who built it by hand.
03:57First day, we were just trying to suss each other out and Jack had asked some background
04:01questions. And at the time, I had just been given the keys to a flat, my first flat that
04:05I'd bought. And I needed a kitchen made. And so I had asked Jack to make a kitchen.
04:09I was interested in architecture, but I don't think I'd ever met an architect.
04:12It was quite mysterious, actually.
04:13Ailey had been to Japan and to Norway and, you know, done all these amazing things.
04:19They moved to the island after falling in love with it when visiting.
04:22While they planned the project, they rented and got their first taste of the challenges
04:27of building here.
04:28Ailey had a strong vision of how to make something that would belong in this place.
04:58We knew that we wanted to be working with the stone, with the materials from the landscape.
05:03Easier said than done, of course. But their friend Dan, a stonemason, took on that hard
05:09task with relish.
05:10We were working with something called Louisiana Nice. And that is incredibly dense and incredibly
05:17heavy. So the first few days, trying to get my body conditioned to be able to just lump that
05:25stuff around, it was really, really difficult. It was really, really tough going.
05:28It was so hard to cut that Dan decided to go to the quarry to find the size of stone he needed,
05:36meaning less to chisel away at. All this lumping stone around had a strong effect on him.
05:43I started the job slightly rotund. We'd just had our wee boy. So I'd have what you call a bit of a dad bod.
05:51But by the time I'd finished, I had lost a fair bit of weight. I was a different man coming out than I was going in.
05:58I would recommend it if you're looking to lose weight, come and spend three months on the island
06:01building Louisiana Nice. And that will sort you right out for sure.
06:07This ancient rock, Louisiana Nice, is what the whole island is made from. And there was also a great big lump of it
06:16right in the middle of where Ailey and Jack were building. So Ailey made a big design decision.
06:23We decided to actually work with it. Using the area that we had around this rock created this 135 degree angle.
06:29Inside, this unusual shape makes the small house feel bigger. It opens it up with angled views through to other rooms.
06:42The RIBA judges admired this compact yet generous home, where each space has a different character.
06:51You can see through from the living space into the kitchen space whilst they are still separate. So that's really successful.
06:58Each one of the rooms spans directly off of a centralised living room, and it's making the most of the space within a very, very small house. So there's no circulation.
07:08They managed to build this extraordinarily beautiful place for just £167,000 by designing and building it themselves, living on site as they were building.
07:23It was a really intense period, and we were working flat out six days a week, 12 hours a day just to get it finished.
07:30We had a big beard, my hair was long, I was sharing my caravan with my dog. We didn't have a shower on site, so we had to drive in and have a shower every couple of days.
07:41So it was extreme living, I would say. Went slightly feral towards the end of things, opening the door of your caravan and pissing out into the wind in the night.
07:49Not only that, they were also under attack from the local wildlife.
07:53The midges got so bad on one occasion, I do remember we were under siege in a caravan for most of the afternoon, and you've never seen anything like this.
08:03It was just outrageous. I mean, there was a dense cloud of midges just hanging outside the window, climbing through the window.
08:11It was just too difficult, and you'd never think that you'd have to take an afternoon off just for little insects.
08:17It was just crazy.
08:20But for Jack, Dan, Ailey, and her brother who helped, every bite, every sore muscle, every night going to bed soaked to the bone was worth it.
08:32What I'm most proud of is the fact that we've done it.
08:35Yeah.
08:37We kind of set out to do this without knowing what we wanted to achieve.
08:40We wanted to do a really nice design.
08:42We wanted to have a place that we could live ourselves, that reflected our values, our ethos, how we practice.
08:48We ask clients to take the risk every day in our work, and so if we can't do it, then it's tricky to ask other people.
08:55So I'm so proud that we've taken the leap to live somewhere that we want, to build something that we want.
09:00Yeah.
09:01And we're now living here, and it couldn't be better for me.
09:04We've seen one house so far that's defied the odds.
09:12We've got five more still to see before we find out which has been nominated for the House of the Year Prize 2025.
09:28Gravity is a bit like ageing.
09:30It's inevitable, and it only goes one way.
09:33So if you try to ignore it, that's pointless.
09:37When you build and attempt to defy it with cantilevers or by building on a slope, for example, you need to come armed with more than optimism.
09:49You need engineering, intelligence.
09:52You need accuracy, precision.
09:54Oh, that was stupid.
09:57I'm visiting our next long-listed home in Hastings, a town spread out on a steep hill.
10:08In places the gradient is so steep it rivals a ski run.
10:13Here, building anything isn't just construction.
10:16It's a battle with gravity.
10:17It's a form of engineering, gymnastics.
10:21One wrong move, and whatever you're building, could end up in next door's garden.
10:26But Simon embraced the challenges of building here.
10:29His previous job was making split-second decisions in the volatile world of oil trading.
10:36His career was built on risk and timing.
10:41I thought, right, it's a good time to change up what I was doing and being in a different place.
10:45My grandparents lived here when I was young, so I spent a lot of school and summer holidays coming down to the coast,
10:52and it felt quite natural to come here again when I was wanting to maybe think about relocating outside of London.
11:01He bought this twin-gabled Victorian house, refurbished it, and extended it onto the slope in the back garden.
11:10And so Hastings House was born.
11:15Inside, there is a semi-open-plan space, long and light-filled, like a gallery, with kitchen and dining room off it.
11:23A few steps above is a cosy private living space called the garden room.
11:28And then there's a lower courtyard, an outdoor space next to the garden room.
11:33Further up the slope, accessed by an external staircase, is Simon's office.
11:38And at the top is a pergola, which crowns the top terrace, standing as a sort of outdoor room.
11:45Hi, Simon.
11:46Hi, Simon.
11:47How are you?
11:49Come here.
11:52You walk into a refurbished living room.
11:57Basically, the whole house was stripped back to brickwork and started again.
12:01But it's at the back where the real magic happens.
12:05The whole structure has been completely remade.
12:08This is amazing.
12:10It's so unexpected.
12:13It's just so much light.
12:14What was the old dining room has been modernised and now connects to a glass corridor with the kitchen area.
12:24Yeah, you don't expect from the front of the house an old Victorian house, and then you get the kind of contrast to the back.
12:29Because it's such a steep hill, it's trying to make sure you don't feel that you're enclosed and trapped in the back of the house.
12:37The house didn't flow at all.
12:38You kept going to a load of dead ends.
12:40So we're trying to work out ways that you can move around the house a little bit more easily.
12:44They haven't just added rooms.
12:47They've reimagined how the whole house works.
12:50Each new space, like this garden room, follows the natural slope of the hill, stepping up in carefully judged levels, one leading seamlessly to the next.
13:00This is your first step up the hill that takes you up and works with, like, this steep slope that we've got.
13:05It's just really interesting because it leads you on this journey.
13:08It's quite a steep slope.
13:10And so rather than everything sitting at the bottom and then you're, like, looking up at it, it's trying to get this feeling of moving through the space.
13:16Gradual movement.
13:17Yeah, exactly.
13:18But also just taking advantage and using it as a benefit.
13:21We've got this steep site that has loads of different layers, so it gives you some really interesting views and angles.
13:26And as you look back across the house, you see different elements and aspects.
13:29The RIBA judges praised the beautiful refurbishment of the old house and the incredible spaces Simon and his architect created.
13:42All the more amazing when it used to look like this.
13:45The house was like a 70s fever dream.
13:49It was like someone had moved in 50 years ago, done a really beautiful, amazing top-to-bottom renovation and nothing since.
13:59And aside from doing nothing since, there'd just been bits added, so everything was built on top of.
14:04Nothing had ever been, like, stripped back and done again.
14:07It was just layer upon layer upon layer.
14:08And it's the same in the back garden.
14:10There's, like, layer upon sheet of concrete and then rubble and then more concrete on top of it.
14:15There's a huge vine that grew over everything.
14:20In some ways, it would have been simpler to demolish what was here and start from scratch.
14:25But Simon's architect, Hugh Strange, didn't want to do that.
14:29Knocking it all down and rebuilding it was a really problematic approach.
14:35problematic in terms of the money involved, that it was, like, more expensive, but also in terms of the carbon and the kind of environmental considerations.
14:43And there is a lot of courage in that because it's not obviously beautiful, these kind of leftover pieces, and they were viewed as an eyesore before.
14:51I think we all, quite early on, were committed to this idea of repairing it.
14:55I sometimes call it darning, the idea, you know, rather than throwing a pair of socks out because it's got a hole in it.
15:01We actually just carefully kind of stitched the site together, and through that, we kind of repaired the site in a way that could accept the new buildings.
15:08You know, it was just too poor a condition beforehand to, you know, to take the support of a building.
15:14What he's created is a set of beautiful pavilions that step up the hill, containing Simon's office and a space at the top to just enjoy the view.
15:27The actual task of doing it was challenging beyond belief and fell to structural engineer Charlotte Garvin.
15:34You can see that there is three terraces, which all have retaining walls, which in some places are no longer verticals, that they're leaning and bowing, and they're moving around a little bit.
15:46They sort of equate to about two stories of retained height, which for any engineer is quite a big challenge.
15:52So obviously the retaining walls needed a lot of care to make them stable enough to build upon.
15:57They did need to be repaired, and then we added these ground anchors, which basically try and restrain the wall.
16:04You normally see them on the sides of roads and in big embankments.
16:08You wouldn't often find them in a domestic setting.
16:11But the benefit of them is that you didn't need a huge machinery to come in and install them, because we have this quite constrained site.
16:18This isn't just an extension.
16:25It's civil engineering, domestic scale, with all the risk and precision that implies.
16:30This house was laced into a hillside, one platform at a time.
16:35And the cleverest part is that it hides the struggle to do that completely.
16:39You've got to be brave when you set out to build any house.
16:44But this, this is a leap of faith.
16:46Simon entrusted Hugh with an almost impossible architectural challenge.
16:50And what Simon and Hugh have created is not an extension, but a series of light-filled connections that unlock the whole site,
16:56celebrating its difficult landscape and turning an unloved and dilapidated space into something truly unique.
17:09The relationship between a homeowner and their architect should be like any strong partnership,
17:28built on trust, clear communication and the occasional awkward silence when the budget gets mentioned.
17:33But what if it wasn't a partnership?
17:35What if, instead, it became more of a group activity, with more voices, more opinions,
17:42twice the emails, three times the mood boards, and decision-making by committee,
17:47which is how they came up with the camel.
17:50Anyway, it sounds like a recipe for design by stalemate.
17:54But our next house, they did precisely that.
17:57And yet what emerged wasn't chaos.
17:59In fact, it was quite the opposite.
18:01And it can be found in Cornwall, above the beautiful beaches, built into a cliff.
18:11What started as a simple brief for a family retreat quickly evolved into something far more ambitious and infinitely more complicated.
18:20The client was a family that I'd worked with before.
18:25They'd asked me to find a place that would be a retreat for their family somewhere by the sea.
18:31And, of course, I'm Cornish, so I said, best place is Cornwall.
18:36We looked at the site.
18:38It was fantastic.
18:38And we then found, slightly strangely, that we could push our building a little bit further back into the hillside and make it much bigger.
18:50But because it came so big, it became really an expensive project.
18:56So my client took the decision, which I loved, that rather than compromise on the design of the house, they would compromise on its ownership.
19:04So they decided to join forces with another family, their best friends or friends.
19:10And suddenly it became a house we designed for four people.
19:14This is two-family house, a second home for two families to live in, either separately or jointly.
19:26Downstairs, shared spaces bring everyone together, a pool, playroom, kitchen and dining area, TV snug, spacious living room and a carport.
19:36Upstairs, the layout, which has six bedrooms, separates into two wings, each with an adult en suite, plus a small shared kitchen, providing privacy and independence within a single unified home.
19:50It's something of a design feat to realise a house on this scale that's so beautifully resolved.
19:56It's a feat of human endurance to do it for four people with different ideas of what they wanted.
20:00Every decision was something of a debate. Everyone had their own priorities.
20:08One house, two husbands, two wives, four disparate points of view.
20:16Five, actually. Don't forget Mike's. He had a particular vision for the walls.
20:22One of the things that's incredibly important to me is the way the overall wall looks.
20:29So this wall was what I wanted. Nice square edges, everything beautiful.
20:35And one day my client came down to look at the wall very proudly.
20:40There's the wall.
20:41And there was a sort of silence and Richard said, no, no, no, no, no, no.
20:49That's much too square. They're too sharp. I mean, there's nothing organic in it.
20:53So for the remaining walls, the stonemasons changed their approach.
20:58So this is a much more organic version.
21:00So the edges of the stones are much rougher.
21:03In my wall, they'd have been cut straight, but here they left the edges rounded.
21:11These small details pale into insignificance, though, against the challenges of building the place.
21:17The structure took roughly five weeks to assemble, comprising over 400 huge timber panels, which were tricky to lift in.
21:28You've got an awful lot of uplift from the wind and so on. You're right on the cliff.
21:32So the structure itself had to be very robust.
21:35That's why the timber panels they used were the strongest possible.
21:39Built from CLT, or cross-laminated timber, they're slabs of wood made by gluing together timber planks in layers at 90 degrees to each other.
21:50They're a lot of work to make, and they are heavy to lift.
21:54Some of them are still two-tonned, and they're big panels, so you are almost flying a kite out there if you're not careful.
22:00This place can be measured in every drop of blood, sweat, and tears invested in it.
22:11What makes it remarkable isn't just the design, but also the people who built it.
22:16Its designer, the builder, many of the craftspeople are from here.
22:21They know this landscape intimately, and they're part of a long, proud tradition of Cornish craftsmanship.
22:27I build all over England, all over London, all over the world.
22:34But as my builder grandfather would always say, there's no one can build houses like the Cornish.
22:43We've seen three houses so far, built against the odds.
22:48After the break, we reveal more of the extraordinary homes vying for the title RIBA House of the Year 2025.
22:54Our next long-lister is one I know very well from Grand Designs, and it really was epic.
23:08And I mean that not just in terms of scale or ambition, but because of its spirit.
23:13The couple building it wanted to make something not just of extraordinary architectural value,
23:19but as importantly, something that could also adapt to a devastating medical diagnosis.
23:27And against all the odds, they created something extraordinary.
23:30Something calm, considered deeply personal, and quietly heroic.
23:36The clients were John and Helen.
23:41They were living in a 17th century farmhouse in Bedfordshire,
23:44until, in 2018, Helen experienced a life-changing event.
23:49Come on, Peggy, come on now.
23:51We went down to feed the horses.
23:54As Helen was undoing the gate, she suddenly felt faint.
23:59It was an extremely serious stroke.
24:01She was in a coma for three weeks, and when she started to come out, was really very severely disabled.
24:11She needed full-time care after the stroke.
24:15Their old house had steep stairs and narrow doorways.
24:20They had to live in separate buildings.
24:23It's forced us to live for separate lives, that I remain living in the house now,
24:29whilst Helen lives in your barn.
24:32And, you know, whilst it's very comfy in the barn,
24:35it's not something we want to do for life, is it, love?
24:38No.
24:42This was the home they made to live in together.
24:46Clayworth.
24:47The RIBA judges praise how it delivered accessible living in a very stylish building.
24:54This glorious T-shaped home is a masterclass in rational design thinking.
25:00To one end sits a spacious, open-plan kitchen, dining and living area.
25:06At the opposite end of the house is a sleeping wing containing two bedrooms.
25:12In the bar of the T-shape, there's car parking space and a small guest apartment.
25:16On the top floor, there's a study.
25:26Hello, Helen.
25:27Hello.
25:28Hi, John.
25:29Hi, Kevin.
25:30How are you?
25:31How are you?
25:31I'm well.
25:32How are you both?
25:33We're pretty good, aren't we?
25:35So, how is your health, Helen?
25:37Very good.
25:38Oh, great.
25:40Yeah.
25:41It is so sharp and crisp, this building.
25:43It looks good when you first glimpse it, it teases you, and as you approach, it delivers
25:49more, and then the details surprise you at how fine and crisp they are.
25:53So, it carries on delivering.
25:55Yes.
25:55But that only works if it's one step better when you get indoors.
26:00Is it as good as the outside?
26:01Better.
26:02Can we have a look?
26:03Of course, please.
26:04Come in.
26:06Step inside, and you're immediately invited to enjoy the elegant calm of the hallway, and
26:12to stroke the board-marked concrete walls.
26:15This is amazing.
26:16Then, you're through to the main living space, the center of shared daily life for the pair
26:23of them.
26:23Well, this is just about as perfect as it could be, isn't it, really?
26:27I mean, we are just delighted with the way this room has turned out.
26:32A space where John and Helen can be together again, open, light-filled, and connected to
26:37the natural world.
26:38All I see is natural landscape, trees, forests, the sun glinting through the leaves.
26:47It reminds me just how fantastic a sight this is.
26:50I think one of the things that really pleases me is the width of this room.
26:55Helen, she has loads of space to move around.
26:59And a Helen workshop?
27:01Yes.
27:02We've got this lower area, specifically so that Helen can approach it in a wheelchair.
27:09What it provides is something that you particularly need.
27:13Mm.
27:14This building is to be transformational for our lives.
27:20But getting to this point was, frankly, excruciating, because the design was very ambitious.
27:26A floating pavilion, with a heavy weight above, but seemingly weightless below.
27:32To pull it off, they had to crane in huge concrete roof beams.
27:37It is a really tall arse to get her in by October.
27:40But we shall see.
27:42The roof was made up of 19 of these beams, each weighing 1.7 tonnes, bolted to the steel
27:49frame.
27:50But it all proved too heavy.
27:52The frame couldn't cope.
27:54Fortunately, the person running things was an experienced project manager, Ollie, John's
28:00son.
28:01The welding has snapped.
28:03The chippies were up there.
28:04They were finishing off the roof.
28:06And all of a sudden, there was just a loud bang.
28:08And the welds had basically just sheared, which caused the whole roof to suddenly sag.
28:13Obviously, I mean, the first thought was, this is bad.
28:19Working with the steel contractor to resolve things, it took 10 weeks and some carefully
28:24placed steel work to hold the structure up.
28:30And what rose from that mangled mess was a house that's not just stronger, but unapologetically
28:37stranger.
28:38The bathroom is a celebration of joy, colour and creative anarchy.
28:44That's your taste, isn't it, John?
28:47Well, yes, it is.
28:49Yes.
28:49Bonkers.
28:51And welcome to the bedroom.
28:55Gorgeous.
28:56The interior decor is quite quirky.
28:59I wanted to have a bit of fun and a bit of character.
29:02And I didn't want the rooms to feel sterile.
29:06You're part of an avant-garde.
29:08You're part of a new movement.
29:10A new drive towards comfort and joy and playfulness.
29:14Next door is just as joyful.
29:17There's a guest bedroom and bathroom.
29:20And upstairs, John's tranquil office.
29:22The architect responsible for this extraordinary building was James Arkell.
29:31Now, why do you think the building has been nominated?
29:34Why do you think it's been cited?
29:36I think it responds to the place and the site.
29:40And I think hopefully it makes the occupants' lives immeasurably better in terms of living
29:47there.
29:47And I think they're good aims to have in architecture.
29:51I don't kind of want it to be known as a house purely for accessibility.
29:56It's always struck me that good disability design, generally speaking, is good design.
30:03I don't know if architecture can properly heal, but I have seen what it can do.
30:08Ease a day, improve a mood, lift the soul, and remove barriers.
30:12And in a house like this, for the people who live here, that is everything.
30:17You have to think of the new British cheese board if you're representative now of context
30:28and of planning.
30:30Now, this, of course, you'll find this in many people's fridges still.
30:34It's not your typical resident and, frankly, dropped onto the cheese board.
30:37It looks brash, synthetic.
30:41It's not what that organic cheddar signed up for.
30:44But handled carefully, adjusted thoughtfully, even this thing can take its place on the board.
30:53Not by pretending to be like the others, but by knowing how to live alongside them.
30:58I'm in the South Downs, a place where homes usually come wrapped in stone, flint, and a whiff of heritage.
31:09If you wanted to build a house that was unashamedly modern, the last place you'd want to try and go about
31:17getting planning permission for that would be in a national park.
31:21Look, no, I mean, that has got to be asking for trouble.
31:29But that's exactly what happened here.
31:33Against all odds, this extraordinary building appeared.
31:37South Downs Farm.
31:38The RIBA judges described the detailing and execution as near faultless.
31:46The brave architect who took on this project was Sandy Rendell, a previous House of the Year nominee.
31:53Sandy, looking at this house, all I can say is utter sublime elegance.
32:00It's so beautiful.
32:01Oh, thanks. That's extremely kind.
32:03Not sure it's everyone's taste, but we're pretty proud of it.
32:05We're pretty proud of it.
32:35The home the clients originally intended to build.
32:39The clients had consent for a much more traditional style house.
32:43They'd actually knocked down the old house.
32:45They'd laid the piling mat down.
32:46They'd pegged it all out.
32:47They were just about to start, and they got slight cold feet.
32:50I think they thought, actually, interestingly, the previous design was too big.
32:54Did they come to you and say, Sandy, we want something really modern.
32:57Just reinvent everything for us.
32:59What they gave us a huge amount of freedom on was the appearance and the form of the building.
33:03How do you even go about getting planning permission for a contemporary house like this, of this size, in this location?
33:12It's not a straightforward process.
33:16The first challenge was getting an independent group of experts, the South Downs National Park Design Review Panel, on side, and evolving an idea with them.
33:27I think looking at the wider landscape, this particular bit of Sussex, people have used it for country houses.
33:33And that was the sort of starting point for thinking about what this could be.
33:37The reimagination of a country house.
33:40Yeah, a parkland villa rather than a country house, so a smaller-scale version.
33:45This is a country house for the 21st century.
33:52There's a real sense of calm in here.
33:55I love the light that's coming through.
33:57Oh, God.
33:58The double height.
34:00There are plenty of things here to draw your eye, whether it's the upper-level balcony inside or this giant stove.
34:09And then there's a stove as well.
34:10This is double-sided.
34:13What does it lead to?
34:17Oh, that's nice.
34:19This is nice.
34:20The connection between the two rooms through the focal point is a really beautiful feature.
34:25This wood burner actually has a back boiler as well, so you can run all the heating and hot water from the house of this.
34:30If there's a disaster, like an electrical failure or something, the whole house can be heated and hot water from here.
34:39It's deliberately oversized, straddling the large open-plan living room and the smaller snug beyond, and linking them through warmth and flame.
34:51It's a clever trick.
34:52The grander the room in one space, the cozier the one next to it feels.
34:57You see the same contrast upstairs, where a broad, classically-scaled hallway makes the more modest bedrooms feel even more intimate.
35:05And that contrast continues outside, with quiet, low-slung wings on one side and a bold, formal row of columns on the other.
35:16Stood up here on this balcony with this incredible view, you really get a sense of the grandeur of this scale.
35:24Yeah, I mean, it's largely generated by these massively oversized columns.
35:29They've got this wonderful kind of pitted surface that you just want to try to sort of get your fingers in.
35:35Yeah, we wanted everything to be self-finished, really express its materiality.
35:40These are actually made in very low lifts with a sort of low water, low cement, unreinforced, and hand-rammed to give you that sort of character of stone.
35:49Using a very local stone just from a couple of miles up the road from a quarry as an aggregate to the mix.
35:55It's a house shaped by its setting, and by a client willing to be brave.
36:02A bold addition now? Perhaps.
36:05But one that will mellow and in time belong as naturally to this landscape as any ancestral pile.
36:12This really is a wonderful addition to the long and noble tradition of English country houses.
36:19Yes, it may have contemporary concrete columns, but just remember the next time that you're visiting that beloved National Park Manor House, everything was once modern.
36:38There is one more house to see before we discover which will make the shortlist for the RIBA House of the Year 2025.
36:49We've seen five houses on the long list so far, and our last home that was built against the odds took on the sort of challenge that usually ends in tears.
37:06Trying to build a home where there isn't any space for one.
37:09In the tight, jostling streets of North London.
37:12I am looking for a portal.
37:17It's a way in to a magical world of architecture and generous spaces.
37:24Yeah?
37:24A place of calm and relaxation.
37:29Oh, I don't know.
37:30Ah.
37:31Mmm.
37:31This is not it.
37:44Surely.
37:45No, actually, it is.
37:47Because at the end of this grim concrete passageway lies this.
37:51This is Haringey Brick Bungalow, a hidden jewel tucked away from the busy street beyond, as calm and serene inside as it is beautiful outside.
38:09In this extraordinary home, there's a courtyard area at the front and a small patio garden at the back.
38:29Then inside, there's a glorious main living, kitchen and dining space, with two bedrooms and a bathroom off it.
38:37It was designed by the architect Satish Jassel.
38:43Oh, what a joy.
38:46What a thing to find.
38:48I mean, unlikely, isn't it?
38:51Just a little bit of a backlands plot.
38:52What was it before?
38:53It was just an empty plot, a bit overgrown, left over, like many plots around London.
38:59Yeah.
38:59So we like to think of it as a bit of a diamond in the rough.
39:03Yeah.
39:04Something unexpected.
39:05That is a very unlikely entrance.
39:08It is.
39:09It's only one metre wide.
39:11So we had to build the whole house through this little passageway.
39:15You had to get everything past that drainpipe?
39:18It was like building a ship in a bottle.
39:21Wow.
39:23So, I mean, what about the bigger items?
39:25Is there a bath?
39:26We had to make sure whatever we put into the house could fit through that alleyway.
39:31White goods and everything.
39:32Exactly.
39:34Can we have a look inside?
39:36Of course.
39:37Oh, it's nice.
39:44Inside, there's no sense of the pain and difficulty that went into creating it.
39:49There's a sort of continuity of materials, which is so lovely.
39:57There's nothing jars.
39:58It's just a sort of, there's a flow.
40:00But above us are these things.
40:05I mean, what the heck?
40:07Something of Satish's own imagination is this coffered ceiling of vertical planks, but made
40:19into a pyramid.
40:19I have not seen anything quite like it.
40:24It's like looking up into a honeycomb.
40:28The building itself, the footprint is actually quite small.
40:31So by using the volume, it makes something small feel quite grand.
40:36Yeah.
40:36And expansive.
40:38So it doesn't feel that small.
40:41The roof here doesn't just lend the room height.
40:45It gives it character, like that of origami.
40:49It's quite subtle and ingenious.
40:54And I imagine you could just sit on the sofa all evening with a bottle of something and
40:59just, you know.
40:59Look at the ceiling.
41:00Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
41:05I could look at it all day.
41:08I love this place, not just because of the ingenuity that Satish has applied on this improbably
41:14small site, but also because of the feeling you get just standing here.
41:19We all love looking at buildings in magazines and on the internet and on the television.
41:27And that's not what buildings are about.
41:29Buildings are about spending time in the place.
41:31And this building gives gently and slowly.
41:36This building doesn't communicate itself easily in photographs because to enjoy it, to drink
41:42its energy, yeah, you need to quietly sit and spend time in it.
41:49Best thing about architecture?
41:52The experience.
42:00We've explored six remarkable homes so far.
42:03But which will earn a place on the coveted shortlist?
42:06Will it be the handcrafted poetic Kirk of the Creek, the engineering success that is Hastings House, the diplomatically accomplished two-family house, the sculpturally serene Clayworth, the 21st century
42:21English country house at South Downs Farm, or the miniature marvel that is Haringey Brick Bungalow?
42:29Joining me is the chair of the judges, David Kahn.
42:35David, how many houses have you chosen from this category to be on the shortlist?
42:40So in this category, there are two.
42:41First being?
42:42Coak and the Creek.
42:47It's very, very carefully put together.
42:51It's a level of craftsmanship that exceeds just the material in its assembly.
42:57It's so inspiring.
42:58It really isn't a building that's about itself.
43:01It's a building about a way of making homes, about the island, about craft traditions.
43:08That's amazing.
43:12Yeah, wonderful.
43:13Oh, well, if we can, I don't know, again, if our story can inspire others, then that would be the nicest thing that maybe comes of it.
43:20But that is, that is an incredible piece of news.
43:24There's one more house in this category.
43:27So what's the second house you shortlisted?
43:29The second house is Hastings House.
43:31What strikes me as interesting, that's such an unusual approach.
43:39He thought, I want to somehow evolve the sequence of little pavilions out of the building and stitch it back in.
43:47I would say it is the treatment of the landscape that is the really exciting bit of the project that drives everything else.
43:54And it looks like it was a lot of work, a lot of costs, technically very challenging.
44:01From the interior, it feels like you move from something familiar and Victorian into something quite other, heading up to the road above.
44:12It definitely feels unexpected and a complete surprise.
44:17And you have the feeling like it'd just be such a great place to have guests, that they would come and just realize that you knew that this existed.
44:27That's great.
44:31Congratulations.
44:32Isn't that terrific?
44:33That's amazing, actually.
44:34How exciting, yeah.
44:35There's, you know, hours and hours and years and years of care and kind of resourcefulness there in the project.
44:42So it's really great that that's rewarded.
44:44Kirk and the Craig and Hastings House are first on the shortlist.
44:51There are five more places up for grabs before we find out which of them will be crowned the 2025 RIBA House of the Year.
44:59The homes we've been looking at are, of course, all prototypes, but prototypes for a more intelligent, more grounded, more sustainable way of building.
45:11And they show us that architecture isn't just about designing buildings.
45:15It's about designing better ways to live.
45:18And if that is the direction of travel we're heading in, then let's pick up the pace.
45:25I'm in.
45:27Next time, we'll explore houses that whisk you on holiday.
45:33This just makes you happy, doesn't it?
45:35The client really loved this idea of it feeling like a really sunny, optimistic interior.
45:40Six more homes to inspire relaxation.
45:43My ambition was to create a place that made you feel really, really at ease, really, really connected to nature.
45:49And just escapism.
45:51I was on holiday in Thailand.
45:53And I just thought, how can I transport this magical feeling to East London?
46:00And that next batch is here at next Wednesday from 8.
46:04Now, more fours back on the food plate in just a minute.
46:07Incredible achievements of engineering in God's own country with steam train diaries.
46:11And from steaming to streaming, dark secrets in the Scottish wilderness with our new drama, Summer Water.
46:18You can catch every episode right now.
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