In a series celebrating BD’s Architect of the Year finalists, we look at the one-off house shortlist
Last month BD announced all the architects who made it on to the shortlists for our prestigious annual Architect of the Year Awards.
Now we are shining the spotlight on each category in turn and publishing a selection of the images that impressed the judges.
Today’s shortlist is Individual House Architect of the Year Award
Chance de Silva
Chance de Silva collaborated with musician/composer Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) on the highly experimental VEX, an in-situ concrete new house and accompanying composition. Both music and architecture were inspired by Erik Satie’s Vexations, a looping, 18-hour piano work. The practice’s entry also comprises two house extensions and re-modellings. Flo-Ro includes a freestanding studio for chamber music while One Lancs was designed for the artist client to partly self-build.
Walker Bushe
With Blackheath House, Walker Bushe made the most of a rare opportunity for a new-build on Blackheath’s secluded Cator Estate. The design draws inspiration from Hans Scharoun’s Baensch House and includes long cantilevered canopies and maximised views of the verdant landscape. Its entry also includes a contemporary extension to a Victorian coach house and a refurbishment of a grade II-listed Islington terraced house.
LTS Architects
LTS Architects’ house projects range from urban repurposing to countryside new-builds. In Knightsbridge, Hidden House is a £1.9m home created using two former workshops and a retail space that is concealed from passers-by. In Dorset, the practice is on site with a 330sq m house designed to Passivhaus standards, while in Suffolk it is integrating a new four-bedroom house into a cluster of retained farm buildings.
Eldridge London
Eldridge London won the 2017 Manser Medal for its spectacular, distinctively curved house in Coombe Park, Kingston. Its submission also includes two projects that use off-site fabrication – a proposed modular house in Devon and The House in Putney, a narrow infill with a Cor-ten steel structure. In Notting Hill, the practice is creating a two-storey rear extension to a conservation area semi.
AR Design Studio
Clad in vertical black timber, AR Design Studio’s Black House in Kent draws inspiration from both Sissinghurst Castle Gardens and David Chipperfield’s Turner Contemporary Gallery. In Lyme Regis, the Crow’s Nest house is designed to adjust to movement on its cliff-side site. Two projects in Hampshire complete the entry including Farmers House, a £1.65m extension and makeover of a 1970s building.
Mole Architects
Mole Architects has a long track record in distinctive one-off houses, most recently winning the 2017 Stephen Lawrence Award for The Houseboat designed for Roger Zogolovitch/Solid Space in Poole. Its entry also includes Marsh Hill, a weekend retreat overlooking the River Alde in Suffolk, and the ongoing Mingle Lane in Great Shelford, Cambridge, described by the practice as both austere and playful.
Carmody Groarke
The practice describes its four submitted houses as sharing an ambition “to make spaces and details which elevate everyday moments of life to be extraordinary”. Projects range in scale from a detached new family house in Highgate, north London, to the 7m x 7m oak-lined Lake Pavilion in East Sussex, entered from a main house via a 28m-long, galvanised-steel tunnel.
Guy Hollaway Architects
The practice’s entry includes Guy Hollaway’s own family home, The Cottage, recently completed in Kent after a five-year gestation. This transformation of an 18th-century cottage is supplemented by two ongoing projects in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Deer House is a “Paragraph 55” new country house while the Angley Stud redevelopment combines an equestrian facility with a new house.
The awards will be held at Park Plaza Hotel, Westminster Bridge in central London on April 18. Book your place here
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