Green House, the only London home shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2023, has been crowned the best new home in the UK.Designed by Spitalfields-based architecture studio Hayhurst & Co, the five-bedroom home occupies part of a back-land alley in Tottenham.
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00:00 Part of the responsibility of designing somebody's home as architects is to really take the time
00:05 to understand how they live and what their needs are and how they want to live every
00:09 day. They wanted something that was kind of innovative and experimental and they wanted
00:14 to try out things that hadn't been done before.
00:19 So the client's brief was really about a big house but with a little budget and about creating
00:23 a large amount of living spaces that were connected to the gardens but at the same time
00:27 creating five bedrooms.
00:30 We just kept our necessities quite minimal which is the number of rooms, open space and
00:36 light. It was really a fascinating process.
00:40 We both actively tried to give as open a brief to the architects as possible because we felt
00:46 that that's kind of a compromise so we might not have the best money but we'll be as open
00:52 to your ideas and open to the architect's creativity as we could be.
00:57 When we first started working with Tom and Amandine when we visited their house it was
01:01 full of plants and greenery and it was very obvious that was something that was part of
01:05 how they live day to day so that became quite an important part of the brief and design
01:09 point for this house.
01:10 One of the favourite elements of the house is the constant connection to nature so be
01:15 it through the front sliding doors or these windows or the roof light we've always got
01:20 a connection with what's going on outside and essentially the gardens just feel like
01:25 extensions of our living space.
01:27 We sat down with them for probably about two or three hours just talking about the spaces,
01:32 how they lived, the difficulties of where they were living at that particular point
01:36 and what they'd hoped for and what they were going to live in.
01:39 Working with the budget was a really interesting constraint on this project. There was a lot
01:43 of consideration about the kind of the judiciousness of how we spend that budget and how we spend
01:48 it intelligently.
01:50 So the house is constructed using cross laminated timber or CLT which gives it structural rigidity.
01:56 CLT itself, carbon footprint, is actually carbon negative so that actually helps to
02:00 offset some of the other elements which are more unavoidably carbon heavy.
02:03 When I walked into the house for the first time I really remember that feeling of light
02:12 and how the light changes throughout the day and how the bamboo gives us privacy to shield
02:19 us from the neighbours so it feels light until you want to close the curtains to go to sleep
02:25 and I think that's a real privilege to have that in London because we are surrounded by
02:30 neighbours and I love that about living in this house.
02:34 My favourite space is definitely the front of the house. The idea that all of the screens
02:38 can be totally closed up and feel quite insular. On the other hand it can be totally opened
02:43 up and expose all the bamboo hanging out in quite a wild and raw kind of way.
02:49 Basically the plan of the house is just a block form which also made it very efficient
02:52 and relatively simple to construct so we're not spending money on dressing and plastering
02:58 and plaster boarding and things like that and actually that informed quite a lot of
03:01 the aesthetic of the house.
03:03 We've used materials in an unusual way so the cladding externally is an agricultural
03:08 roofing sheet. There's also things like the flooring upstairs which is a cork rubber normally
03:12 used in gaskets and we've done quite a few unusual details such as we've cut the doors
03:17 straight into the cross laminated timber walls themselves so we've done away with all door
03:21 frames and things like that. It made a challenge to make us kind of more creative with materials
03:26 and how we might use them.
03:29 What I thought I really didn't want and I'm glad now I have is the broken plan. I just
03:35 didn't understand it and the other thing is the curtains. We thought it would be an absolute
03:41 nightmare and I love the curtains now and I love that we can close the living room off
03:49 and in the winter particularly that it makes it such a cosy little space so those were
03:54 the two things that they knew we needed and we would ultimately want. That collaboration
04:01 was very very helpful.
04:04 I think these types of devices are really helpful to begin to kind of open the space
04:09 up and close the space down. I wanted a house that flows well and that is easy to live in
04:15 as a family and practically that means easy cleaning, easy tidying, all those things that
04:22 make a space lovely to be in without being hard work. My favourite space in the house
04:28 is the central atrium space which we affectionately call the Tottenham Riad. It not only brings
04:32 light in and makes this kind of quite awesome double height space in the centre of the house
04:37 but it also connects all of the living spaces together so for example if the kids are playing
04:42 upstairs Tom and Amandine can still see and hear them. It's encouraged everyday togetherness
04:46 of the families but without feeling on top of each other we don't feel crowded but we
04:50 still feel connected. The narrative from many sources was very much this is a very silly
04:57 decision it's ridiculous that you're going to try and build a house in London while you're
05:02 pregnant without huge pots of money and we very quickly were drawn to Claire and Nick
05:08 and the team at Hayhurst because of their ability to kind of speak the truth and say
05:13 that actually self-building is completely feasible and is completely doable with the
05:17 right team and the right kind of hand holding I guess. I think as architects it's always
05:22 really satisfying to see the end result, seeing it being lived in and used. In a nutshell
05:27 a fun filled, bright, joyous family home. Low budget, super eco and a bit pop.
05:33 [Music]