The Incredible Welsh property with ‘personality’ shortlisted for RIBA’s UK House of the Year 2024

Every year competition is fierce between remarkable homes across the UK to be included on the shortlist to be crowned the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) House of the Year. The shortlist has just been announced for consideration for the 2024 top prize and within the six amazing homes featured one is located in Wales.

The RIBA House of the Year award celebrates excellence and innovation in home design, with the shortlist hunting for the best examples of a one-off new house, retrofit renovation, or house extension designed by an architect in the UK. The overall winner of the 2024 award will be announced on Tuesday, December 3.

Commenting on the shortlisted projects, RIBA President Muyiwa Oki, said: “These six homes show how we can deliver high-quality residential architecture with impact. Exemplars in sensitive restoration, climate-conscious design and ingenious urban placemaking – they each present a bold, creative solution to meet housing needs.” For more property, renovation and interior design stories sent to your inbox twice a week sign up to the property newsletter here.

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Muyiwa Oki continued: “Individually, they are truly remarkable, breathtaking pieces of architecture; together they offer scalable solutions to issues faced by our built environment – from reinventing existing buildings to working with complex and constrained sites. However, their true success lies in the health and wellbeing of those that live inside them: there can be no greater mark of achievement for an architect.”

The only Welsh entry in the 2024 shortlist is Plas Hendy Stable Block, located in Monmouthshire and designed by Studio Brassica Architects.

Built between 1903 and 1905 as part of the support buildings to the main Plas Hendy country house, the property originally comprised a tack room, hay loft, and coach house. The building was awarded a Grade II listing by Cadw in 2000 for being ‘a well-designed early 20th century coach house and stable range as well as its group value with the main Plas Hendy house’.

But the distinctive Arts & Crafts stable block had become rundown and in need of being rescued and restored. The current owners were keen to create a beautiful home that is perfect for multi-generational living centred around accessibility, as well as offering flexibility of spaces including the requirement of the bedrooms to accommodate both children and older members of the family.

Throughout the building’s restoration, and in the spirit of the Arts & Crafts movement, simple materials, detailing, and variation were applied in spirited and thoughtful ways with the aim of achieving balance between the visual aesthetic, the building’s heritage, ecological obligations, and sustainability for the future which included extensive thermal upgrades.

Also at the core of the design were references to the building’s Arts & Crafts heritage, creating moments of playfulness while demonstrating the many benefits of repurposing existing buildings. Arguably one of these Arts & Crafts standout visual moments are the sawtooth brickwork and quarry tiles stacked vertically and horizontally, creating a weave effect that varies and is said to reflect the changeable Welsh weather.

To minimise disruption and preserve the existing fabric of the building, an extension was designed to ‘plug in’ to the back of the block to link the key spaces as well as provide a home for some of the services, including air source heat pump and underfloor heating equipment.

An innovative solution was also needed to create a light, comfortable living room in the former garage space, previously characterised by large solid sliding doors. Working with local metalworkers, Studio Brassica developed a series of pivoting louvres which can be opened and closed by hand via a salvaged cart wheel connected to a simple geared mechanism, adding to the home’s unique features as well as providing a fun and practical solution to direct sunlight control.

The judges commented that they were glad to see heightened care towards sustainability across all the entries, including the deep retrofits at Plas Hendy Stable Block, which they saw as ‘a great example of reuse with personality, with its details informed by research as well as experiment’.

This unique stable block building has already won awards including the Royal Society of Architects in Wales (RSAW) 2024 Sustainability Award and the RSAW Small Project of the Year 2024. In addition, Claire Priest, the project architect, has been awarded RSAW Project Architect of the Year for demonstrating ambition, sensitivity and confidence in working with a listed structure and providing the client with an exemplar home.

Now this incredible Welsh home is battling against five other properties in England to become the RIBA House of the Year 2024, with the winner announced on December 3. Below are the other shortlisted properties and further details on each.

Cornwall

The Farmworker’s House, located in Cornwall and designed by Hugh Strange Architects, is a deceptively simple home with an L-shaped plan sheltering a south-facing garden. Thick masonry walls of monolithic clay blocks form the protective wings, simply finished with textured lime render, and outside the surrounding agricultural land is left untouched, allowing livestock to graze right up to the boundary walls.

London

In London, Peckham House by Surman Weston is a small but generously-spaced family home with a façade defined by a distinctive pattern of hit-and-miss brickwork that playfully interprets the local houses. It sits on the end of an unassuming urban terrace, which makes the most of a small site, including a roof terrace to provide some needed outside space.

London

Also located in London, Six Columns by 31/44 Architects has been designed to meet a family’s changing needs to create a future-facing home intended to evolve with its occupants. It makes efficient and sophisticated use of space and materials, including introducing sustainable and cost-reducing features. Brutalist references and creative flourishes, such as a stepping brickwork wall, rustications and pilasters, make for a distinct and refreshing aesthetic.

Sussex

Designed for retirement, Eavesdrop is located in Sussex and designed by Tom Dowdall Architects. It’s a home that focuses on wellbeing, calm and flexibility, with level thresholds for full accessibility, as well as offering light, tranquil spaces that open up to host friends and family. A generous central courtyard provides sunlight, fresh air, and year-round enjoyment of plants and wildlife. With its sweeping, rising roof, simple construction, and stone finishes, the house fits seamlessly into the landscape, while close up, the beauty of its stone detailing is revealed.

Kent

Situated in the Kent Downs, The Hall by TaylorHare Architects, is a Grade II listed 16th century residence that has been extensively and sympathetically refurbished into a sustainable home. Interiors have been both restored and modernised with finely crafted detailing combined with new interventions that work in harmony so that the historical compliments the contemporary.

The house is an exemplar of green living, while simultaneously restoring the surrounding listed outbuildings, and adding a pool, pool house, tennis court, stable block, and a new lake. The end result is a demonstration of how to extend the life of a historic building while creating elegant living spaces for the future.

‘A house can be many things’

The RIBA House of the Year Award 2024 Chair, Je Ahn, said: “A house can be many things – this year’s shortlist shows the breadth of possibilities. From rural contexts to tight urban sites, including fine craftsmanship and intergenerational living amongst other driving forces – all these houses are essentially about the people who live inside.

“Together, the shortlisted exemplars offer scalable solutions to the urgent issues of today – displaying care towards sustainability and social changes, including the revival of historic buildings which don’t negatively impact the natural environment. We were impressed by the ambition of both the architects and clients to meet the challenge of the contemporary home.”

RIBA states that for more than 50 years, its suite of prestigious awards have celebrated the best architecture in the UK and around the world, no matter the form, size, or budget.

Highly valued by both the public and the profession, the awards are said to have an unrivalled approach to the judging and promotion of good architecture, highlighting the exceptional work of members who set the standard for creating better buildings and places. The organisation states that the winning projects showcase innovation, create more sustainable futures, and demonstrate a commitment to improving people’s lives through thoughtful design.

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