Amento is a single-storey house created for a couple\u2019s retirement after their children had moved out of their previous home. The mostly wooden country cottage was built around two main brick walls. The jury said there was a \u2018confident well-made-ness about the place\u2019 which would endure into the future.<\/p>\n
Jankes Barn, meanwhile, saved an existing farmyard building, transforming the timber structure into a home that, the jury said, \u2018remains fundamentally a barn\u2019 but introduces architectural elements which were \u2018both domestic and awe-inspiring\u2019.<\/p>\n
The competition is being aired on TV for the first time since 2022<\/a>. Channel 4 cut ties with the RIBA two years ago and ended the series, which had run since 2015.<\/p>\n Speaking in July about the show\u2019s return, then RIBA president Muyiwa Oki commented: \u2018We are excited to once again be partnering with Grand Designs to present House of the Year. It will be a privilege to see these exceptional homes, designed by our members and rigorously judged by RIBA awards juries, return to our screens.\u2019<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s\u00a0House of the Year award\u00a0<\/a>went to\u00a0Six Columns in Crystal Palace<\/a>, designed by practice director Will Burges as his own family home.<\/p>\n Amento by James Gorst Architects<\/p>\n Amento by James Gorst Architects<\/p>\n Jury citation<\/p>\n The clients, whose children had moved out, purchased the field behind their previous period house in this small Suffolk village to build a futureproof single-story dwelling that would work comfortably when it came to retirement. Yet they also wanted it not to look or feel at all like a typical bungalow.<\/p>\n The architects were recommended by the practice principal\u2019s brother, who lives in the village. Their scheme builds upon a back catalogue of sensitive one-off country cottages, many dotted across East Anglia.<\/p>\n The design revolves around two dominating brick walls that run through the plan like spines, perpendicular to each other, appearing initially to form a standard cross shape. However, when viewed from above, a more complex arrangement emerges: the longer wall is in fact staggered, suggesting a pinwheel layout. These enormous spines are made of soft white clay bricks in lime mortar, a full 700mm wide and almost 5m tall. In the quadrants between the spine walls are timber lean-tos, each with its own domestic purpose.<\/p>\n To the north-west and north-east are the quadrants for the family bedrooms and garage respectively, while the guestrooms are to the south-east, and the main dining and living spaces to the south-west. Here the interior aesthetic is at its most successful, giving off the calm and airy atmosphere of post-war Scandinavian architecture through its fair-faced brickwork, Douglas fir rafters, open-plan arrangement, and continuous full-height sliding doors opening on to a small patio.<\/p>\n There is a confident, well-made-ness about the place, from its cool concrete floors to the patterned-ply kitchen area enhanced with bursts of colour. Constructed mainly in wood and with an air-source heat pump, the project carries a low carbon footprint. At the corner of each quadrant\u2019s roof are metal rain chains, instead of downpipes, which feed rainwater into rectangular Cor-Ten weathered steel tanks to help water a series of lawns around the house.<\/p>\n Interspersed within the lawns are a maturing group of existing beech trees or else well-spaced new trees, which have been planted by the two work-at-home clients, who are keen gardeners. The sharpness of the brickwork will mellow in time, yet the house\u2019s organising principles will endure.<\/p>\n Jankes\u00a0Barn by Lynch Architects\u00a0 Jankes Barn by Lynch Architects<\/p>\n A former barn in rural Essex has not only been saved but also carefully nurtured, such that it is an exemplar of conservation and renewal. The owner was bubbling over with pride when taking the jury around the project \u2013 remembering the first day she glimpsed through the old barn doors and was excited to see the timber structure inside. She enjoyed the building then, and the team of architects have worked with her to create a place that continues to bring her great joy.<\/p>\n This is a huge credit to all involved in what was a complex construction sequence. The main barn sits inside the gated enclosure of the old farmyard. Inside, the yard has become a landscaped courtyard garden where none of the overall scale has changed, but the details of windows, doors, guttering, downpipes and paving are all explicitly modern while sympathetic to the building. The main entrance is via the old barn doors, symbolically retained but flung open to reveal the new glazed screen, door and the barn structure. Inside, the painstakingly restored original timber structure is fully revealed, with replacement components, also in oak, left square in contrast to the older, more worn elements.<\/p>\n The building remains fundamentally a barn: while there are the architectural elements of the kitchen, the study cube, and the fireplace inserted, rooms only exist in subsidiary spaces or outbuildings. The scale is both domestic and awe-inspiring. The clarity of thinking alongside the restrained use of materials brings meticulous detailing into focus. Flooring is of bricks beautifully laid in a grid structure that continues without mortar externally.<\/p>\n With the client in charge, and having stripped everything back to the timber frame, local timber expert and master carpenter Dr Joseph Bispham restored and made it structurally sound above the retained brick \u2018ground\u2019. Only then was a contract placed for the main building works supervised by the architects.<\/p>\n This two-stage process in some ways appears to have liberated the design thinking so that the new cladding \u2013 with structural strengthening, birch-faced ply internally and traditional black boarding externally \u2013 butts up or embraces the old timbers to create the outer skin. The side volumes contain bedrooms, also birch ply-lined. Dynamic bathroom pods sit within the space of each, offering privacy doors that fold out and translucent ceiling \u2018lids\u2019 to let daylight in or create opportunities for backlighting. Beyond the main central axis, there is an open view of the fields punctuated by a clear square pool of water surrounded by a perennial meadow.<\/p>\n So, both in the landscaping response, executed by the client as the garden designer, and the \u2018light touch\u2019 of the original form and structure by the architects, the building has been renewed for future generations with respect. The jury was impressed by the care in conservation taken by all involved, but also enjoyed the contemporary interventions made without fear of undermining the quality of the original building. The final product is graceful, resolutely modern and a robust piece of enduring rural architecture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fourth and fifth homes to be announced on the shortlist are: Amento, a new build house in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-298625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Amento_James-Retief_ORIGINAL_5-1600x1200.webp.webp\")
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