RIBA House of the Year 2022 Longlist, Best British homes, Good UK residential properties

RIBA House of the Year 2022 Winner Designs

post updated 12 February 2024

Joyous and eccentric Dorset home named UK’s best new house

A contemporary new family house in rural Dorset has been named RIBA House of the Year 2022.

The Red House by David Kohn Architects has won the prestigious annual award given by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to the UK’s best new architect-designed house.

The winner was revealed in the final episode of the four-part Grand Designs House of the Year series, on Wednesday 7 December at 9pm on Channel 4.

8 December 2022

RIBA House of the Year 2022 Winner News

The Red House design by David Kohn Architects:

photo © Channel 4 and Will Pryce

The Red House is situated in the rolling hills of rural Dorset. The owners fell in love with the idyllic location and stunning panoramic views when they first visited the site in 2011 and, 10 years later, moved into their dream family home.

The house takes inspiration from the Arts and Crafts movement, reinterpreting the style in an intentionally provocative way. The house’s playful eccentricity, including oversized eaves, patterned red brickwork, and contrasting bold green details, jumps out – but this is consistently underpinned by outstanding craftsmanship and attention to detail.

photograph © Channel 4 and Will Pryce

The open plan ground floor creates a light, airy atmosphere. Different ‘rooms’ are formed by walls moving in and out of alignment – offering only glimpses into the different areas, rather than a full view down the length of the house. This provides the practical and accessible ease of open plan living, alongside the cosiness of more enclosed spaces. The staircase is a central feature of the house – a sumptuous, sculptural design sweeping up to the first floor and dropping down through a projecting bay window.

photo © Channel 4 and Will Pryce

The owners wanted a home that could adapt for future accessibility needs. The staircase has two handrails, there are rounded corners on built-in furniture, grab-rails on the fronts of cupboards, no door handles to turn – and even a lift. This thoughtful design future proofs, without comprising on the needs of the present or the style of the house.

Consideration has also been given to designing for climate change. The house has thick walls and deep eaves, serving to protect the façade from the elements and minimise overheating during summer months – crucial considerations as the climate progressively changes. The concrete has been left exposed to maximise the thermal stability of the interiors and the deep concrete foundations have been replaced by steel piles, reducing the embodied carbon in the groundworks. Biodiversity has been woven in, with the slate roof discretely providing a home for the local bat population. Further nesting sites have also been incorporated into the brickwork and eaves to encourage wildlife.

photo © Channel 4 and Will Pryce

Architect, David Kohn, said:

“The Red House winning the RIBA House of the Year Award is a validation of the ambition and unerring support of our clients and the dedication of the whole project team. Furthermore, the jury have chosen to support architecture that is intimate, playful, colourful, and engages both with its context and history. I could not be more delighted.”

Owner of The Red House said:

“We never expected to win the award, so are beyond thrilled that the quality of design was recognised. It is hard as novices to design a new house in a sensitive rural location, but if we’d built an invisible house or a pastiche design it would have been a cop-out. We love the house and its happy eccentricity.”

photo © Channel 4 and Will Pryce

Chair of the RIBA House of the Year 2022 jury, architect Taro Tsuruta, said:

“Ordinary yet quirky, extravagant although utilitarian, The Red House confronts our expectations of a house in a beautiful setting that never wants to settle into being one way or another. An aesthetic and sustainable building with future-proof functionality, it draws on architectural references from Morris to Stirling – with many surprises throughout which were applauded by all the jury members. Internally, the enfilade is formed without doors from the entrance to the living, kitchen and dining area, allowing the space to magically flow. This house was certainly the most debated, which in itself deserves praise.”

The Red House was revealed as the winner in the final episode of the Channel 4 series Grand Designs House of the Year, broadcast on 7 December 2022.

Also announced this evening was the seventh and final home shortlisted for the RIBA House of the Year 2022: The Library House by Macdonald Wright Architects.

The full shortlist for the RIBA House of the Year 2022 is:

• Seabreeze by RX Architects
• The Red House by David Kohn Architects
• The Dutch Barn by Sandy Rendel Architects Ltd
• Mews House Deep Retrofit by Prewett Bizley Architects
• Surbiton Springs by Surman Weston
• Suffolk Cottage by Haysom Ward Miller
• The Library House by Macdonald Wright Architects

The jury for the House of the Year 2022 was: Taro Tsuruta (Chair), founder Tsuruta Architects; Alison Brooks, founder and creative director of Alison Brooks Architects; Yinka Ilori, founder of Yinka Ilori Studio; Ben Ridley, founder and director at Architecture for London; Nicola Tikari, co-founder and director of Tikari Works.

David Kohn Architects

Previously on e-architect:

2 December 2022

Contemporary house with a mock-Tudor influence and converted labourer’s cottage shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2022:

RIBA House of the Year 2022 Homes News

Surbiton Springs – a contemporary house with an industrial aesthetic in Southwest London – and Suffolk Cottage – a characterful redevelopment of a former four-room labourer’s cottage – are the next two homes to be shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2022. The annual award is presented to the best new architect-designed house or extension in the UK, with the shortlisted houses revealed on Grand Designs House ofprio the Year, Wednesdays at 9pm on Channel 4.

The shortlist for the RIBA House of the Year 2022 is:

Surbiton Springs by Surman Weston (London)
A contemporary A-Framed detached suburban house that takes inspiration from design ideas spanning the past 500 years.

photo © Johan Dehlin
Surbiton Springs

Surbiton Springs

Surbiton Springs is a new-build, two-storey detached house on a suburban street in Surbiton. The client’s brief was for a contemporary two-bedroomed home with an industrial aesthetic, but not simply a minimalist open plan box. Their priority was to create a home with a sense of openness, with generous, flowing living spaces that were able to be subdivided or left open as desired.

The house successfully blends vernacular mock-Tudor and industrial aesthetics into a unique and appropriate hybrid. With its traditional A-frame elevation the house borrows the language of the suburban mock-Tudor, ubiquitous to its locality, and turns it on its head by expressing it in a steel frame – the materiality of modernity. Unusually, the structure is designed to be exoskeletal, expressing the pitched form diagrammatically, as if it were drawn by a child.

The frame is combined with slurried brick infill panels, another nod to mock-Tudor building techniques. The garden elevation, Crittall-style glazing, meanwhile, offers a contemporary twist on the leaded windows synonymous with the mock-Tudor style, combined with the freshness of a Palm Springs summer house. The whiteness of the exterior continues a long tradition of modern white villas and civic buildings in the area dating back to the 1930s.

The deep, angled threshold to the front door leads directly through to the triple-height entrance hall. This voluminous entrance hall acts as a further threshold – a sort of internal courtyard – with deliberately raw materials. Passing from the hallway into the living room, there is a dramatic change in spatial quality, from compression to expansiveness, as the ceiling height increases and panoramic rear windows provide an uninterrupted view of the garden. Internally, the plan responds to the client’s brief by offering a variety of scales and spatial experiences.

As you move through the house, the material palette becomes increasingly warmer, with timber floors and plaster walls acting as counterpoints to the utilitarian, matter of fact, steel roof and floor decks, which Surman Weston saw as a modern interpretation of exposed Tudor timber beams. Upstairs, bedrooms and bathrooms are housed within the ‘loft space’, which, at five metres in height and primarily lit from above and has a peaceful, almost ecclesiastical quality. The master bedroom opens onto a south-facing covered balcony – a space to enjoy the best and worst of the British weather. The rear elevation acts as a counter-point to the front and responds to its south orientation: clear glazing at the ground and a hit-and-miss brick pattern within the gable providing a more filigree and visually-permeable relationship between inside and out.

The judges were particularly impressed with the clarity of the conceptual approach. The industrial materials have been handled with restraint to provide a calm and sophisticated set of domestic spaces, all of this achieved within a modest budget.

Internal area: 264.00 m²Contractor: Wadey Builders
Structural Engineers: Structure Workshop
Environmental / M&E Engineers: Synergy
Ecology Consultants: Astute Ecology
Approved Inspector: MLM group

Stone Cottage, Bury St Edmunds
Design: Haysom Ward Miller Architects

photo : Richard Fraser
Stone Cottage Bury St Edmunds

Suffolk Cottage

The jury were delighted with this architect’s family house, crafted with modest resources and a degree of self-build, but creating a characterful, poetic new lease of life for a former four-room labourer’s cottage.

A crumbly flint-walled cottage has been stabilised and retained, and new elements have been sewn onto the original rooms, opening up the house to incredible views of the surrounding landscape that it formerly turned its back upon. A complex relationship results from this mix of new and old volumes, with a shared family room now running across the back of the house at a half level up from the original cottage’s ground floor, enabling it to look over the neighbouring field. Working onto that are two ‘cabins’ and a bathroom for the family’s adult children.

On a separate staircase, the parents’ room has been tucked into the first floor and opened roof space of the original cottage, winding around an original chimney breast and culminating in a bed platform, accessed via a ladder stair and looking back over the fields. This sets up a dynamic through the house on half levels, turning a relatively modest sequence of rooms into a playful and surprising journey through the life of the family.

From the domestic projects submitted, this was one of the top three submissions for energy performance. It addressed the RIBA 2025 benchmark both with predicted and actual energy use, while the substantial contribution from onsite photovoltaics bettered this performance. The project is also commendable for the attention given to the selection of low embodied carbon materials (from structure to finishes), including the reclamation and reuse of materials wherever possible.

The new external masonry is thus made from reclaimed surplus bricks and flint blocks, while the new additions include an insulated timber frame with triple-glazed windows and roof lights. Even the internal finishes demonstrate low embodied energy consideration, with the use of bamboo panels and vegetable oil-based plywood, reclaimed floor bricks, natural linoleum, reclaimed undyed wool carpet, self-coloured plaster, and zero-VOC paints. Overall, the project has demonstrated meaningful engagement with the agenda to deliver a low carbon habitation.

Contractor: H G Frost Building Contractors
Structural Engineer: CAR
Internal area: 172 m2

Previously on e-architect:

25 November 2022

The second two houses to be shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2022 are announced!

Converted historic Dutch barn and retrofitted mews house shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2022

RIBA House of the Year 2022 Homes

The Dutch Barn – a corrugated zinc clad house with an eight acre public garden in Sussex – and Mews House Deep Retrofit – a retrofitted end-terrace mews house in London – are the next two homes to be shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2022. The annual award is presented to the best new architect-designed house or extension in the UK, with the shortlisted houses revealed on Grand Designs House of the Year, Wednesdays at 9pm on Channel 4.

The Dutch Barn by Sandy Rendel Architects Ltd, in Henfield, West Sussex, south east England:

photograph © Richard Chivers

Mews House Deep Retrofit by Prewett Bizley Architects, in London, south east England:

photograph © Tom Graham

The shortlist for the RIBA House of the Year 2022 is:

• Seabreeze by RX Architects
• The Red House by David Kohn Architects
• The Dutch Barn by Sandy Rendel Architects Ltd
• Mews House Deep Retrofit by Prewett Bizley Architects
• ? – to be announced on 30 November 2022
• ? – to be announced on 30 November 2022
• ? – to be announced on 7 December 2022

The winning British property designs in more detail, information and photos:

Morlands Farm Dutch Barn, Henfield, West Sussex

Mews House Deep Retrofit

Previously on e-architect:

17 November 2022

The first two houses to be shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2022 are announced!

RIBA House of the Year 2022 Winning Homes

All the houses featured on Episode 1 of Channel 4’s Grand Designs House of the Year 2022 (Hard to Build Houses).

Reimagined beach house and refined family home shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2022

Seabreeze – a playful, pink, concrete clad house on the East Sussex Coast – and The Red House – an imaginative new brick building in rural Dorset – are the first two homes to be shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year 2022. The annual award is presented to the best new architect-designed house or extension in the UK, with the shortlisted houses revealed on Grand Designs House of the Year, Wednesdays at 9pm on Channel 4.

Sea Breeze, Camber Sands beach, East Sussex, design by RX Architects:

photograph : Richard Chivers

The Red House in Dorset design by David Kohn Architects:

photograph : Will Pryce

The shortlist for the RIBA House of the Year 2022 is:

• Seabreeze by RX Architects
• The Red House by David Kohn Architects
• ? – to be announced on 23 November 2022
• ? – to be announced on 23 November 2022
• ? – to be announced on 30 November 2022
• ? – to be announced on 30 November 2022
• ? – to be announced on 7 December 2022

Previously on e-architect:

15 + 12 July 2022

UK’s best new homes – RIBA announces House of the Year 2022 Longlist

Shortlist and winner to be revealed on Channel 4’s Grand Designs: House of the Year

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the longlist for the 2022 RIBA House of the Year.

Among the 20 projects in the running to win the UK’s most prestigious award for a new house or extension are:

A striking black timber-clad eco-home, inspired by the designs of revered Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh in rural Stirlingshire (Ostro Passivhaus)
A remodelled house that rises from the ruins of a 17th Century parchment factory and old cattle shed in Northampton (The Parchment Works)
A four-storey town house added to the end of a 1960’s terrace, in Waltham Forest, Northeast London (Leyton House)

A playful red-brick family home nestled in Derbyshire’s suburbs (Derwent Valley Villa)

The 20 longlisted homes are:

Derwent Valley Villa (Derbyshire) by Blee Halligan

House at Lough Beg (Northern Ireland) by McGonigle McGrath
Leyton House (London) by McMahon Architecture Ltd
Mere House (Cambridgeshire) by Mole Architects

Mews House Deep Retrofit (London) by Prewett Bizley Architects
Mountain View (London) by CAN
Norfolk Barn (Norfolk) by 31/44 Architects and Taylor Made Space

Ostro Passivhaus (Scotland) by Paper Igloo
Peeking house (London) by Fletcher Crane Architects
Ravine House (Derbyshire) by Chiles Evans + Care Architects Ltd

Seabreeze (East Sussex) by RX Architects
Suffolk Cottage (Suffolk) by Haysom Ward Miller Architects
Surbiton Springs (London) by Surman Weston

The Cowshed (Dorset) by Crawshaw Architects LLP
The Den (Scotland) by Technique Architecture and Design in collaboration with Stallan-Brand
The Dutch Barn (West Sussex) by Sandy Rendel Architects Ltd

The Garden Studio (Norfolk) by Brisco Loran and James Alder Architect
The Library House (London) by Macdonald Wright Architects
The Parchment Works (Suffolk) by Will Gamble Architects

The Red House (Dorset) by David Kohn Architects

The shortlist and winner of the RIBA House of the Year 2022 will be revealed in the seventh series of Channel 4’s Grand Designs: House of the Year, produced by Naked West (a Fremantle label), airing later this year.

Derwent Valley Villa, Duffield, Derbyshire, design by Blee Halligan:

photo © Henry Woide

House at Lough Beg, Northern Ireland, design by McGonigle McGrath Architects:

photo : Aidan McGrath

Leyton House, London, design by McMahon Architecture:

photograph © Fernando Manoso

Mere House (1704_Wuduhus), Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, design by Mole Architects:

photo : Matt Smith

Mountain View, London, design by CAN:

photograph © Jim Stephenson

Norfolk Barn (BlueSky Barn), Church Farm, north west Norwich, design by 31/44 Architects with Taylor Made Space:

photo : Nick Dearden

Ostro Passivhaus, Kippen, Scotland, design by Paper Igloo:

photo © David Barbour

Peeking House (Tree House), Ealing, West London, by Fletcher Crane Architects:

photo © Lorenzo Zandri

Surbiton Springs (House in Ditton Hill), Surbiton, Southwest London, design by Surman Weston Architects:

photo : Johan Dehlin

Ravine House, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, design by Chiles Evans + Care Architects:

photo © Dug Wilder

Sea Breeze, Camber Sands beach, East Sussex, design by RX Architects:

photo : Richard Chivers

Suffolk Cottage (Stone Cottage), Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, design by Haysom Ward Miller Architects:

photo : Richard Fraser

The Den, Tighnabruaich, Scotland, by Technique Architecture and Design in collaboration with Stallan-Brand:

photograph : Dapple Photography

The Dutch Barn (Morlands Farm Dutch Barn), West Sussex, design by Sandy Rendel Architects:

photo : Richard Chivers

The Garden Studio (Studio Nencini), Norwich, Norfolk, design by Alder Brisco, Architects:

photo : Nick Dearden

Background:

The RIBA House of the Year award was established in 2013 and is awarded to the best new house or house extension designed by an architect in the UK. Previous winners include Alison Brooks Architects for House on the Hill (2021), McGonigle McGrath for House Lessans (2019), HaysomWardMiller for Lochside House (2018), Richard Murphy Architects for Murphy House (2016), Skene Catling de la Peña for Flint House (2015), Loyn & Co for Stormy Castle (2014) and Carl Turner Architects for Slip House (2013).

RIBA House of the Year 2022 Longlist images / information from Royal Institute of British Architects

Previously on e-architect:

9 + 8 December 2021

RIBA House of the Year 2021 winner : House on the Hill by Alison Brooks Architects

Extraordinary Gloucestershire farmhouse extension by Alison Brooks Architects named UK’s best new house