House Design: The Cutting Edge

Every year, I’m one of four lucky experienced self-builders and renovators who get the pleasure of spending a week visiting the homes shortlisted in The Daily Telegraph Homebuilding & Renovating Awards. Now the main pleasure, of course, is in being able to wander around 20 or so of the most amazing houses I’m ever likely to set foot in. But after the initial ‘wow’ – and there was plenty of ‘wow’ this year – I begin to make mental notes of the latest trends and what I could learn for my next build project.

Seeing innovation and great design in person really is inspiring, and having seen over a dozen of Britain’s best homes, I feel that I’ve discovered some new trends — and feel they’re well worth passing on to both self-builders and renovators. Some are about design, while some are about why certain projects succeed and others don’t; others are general trends I feel are worth reporting on. They’re relevant to any project — big or small, expensive or ‘value’, contemporary or traditional in style, work - ing with an existing building or starting from scratch.

Green is Now Mainstream

Self-builders and renovators are always ahead of the times. H&R magazine has been running case studies on one-off homes that incorporate many of the features that would constitute a ‘green home’ – solar panels, heat pumps, etc. – for well over a decade. Yet it’s always, until now, been a distinct design choice — i.e. ‘I want my home to be green’ rather than ‘I want a traditional-style design’. That’s all changed, and we noticed it for the first time this year. Green was no longer the key focus. It was all about houses which were beautiful but also just happened to be green. A home on the seawall in Dartmouth that used a riverbased pump to provide its water — the architect talked about it as a sideline to the main show, which was of course the wonderful house; a house in Sheffield that incorporated a green roof but the selfbuilding owners saw it as a design feature just as much as an eco thing. Time and time again, we saw evidence of all the green features we’ve been banging on about for years being incorporated into people’s build choices in just the same way as they’d discuss where to put the lights, or choose a floor covering. And all of this some seven years ahead of Building Regulations design - ed to make everyone build this way.

If You Want Success, Get Involved

It sounds like a cliché, but it’s true. The really successful projects – the ones where design really did work and the houses of all varieties oozed character – were the ones where their owners had invested something of themselves. The most obvious example being our Overall Winner in Devon — a contemporary home of this sort all too often gets built by the architect and the owners’ involvement is secondary. In this example, however, the self-builders literally got stuck in and shaped the design, with their daughter as architect, to create something truly special.

Individuality really is the key to success in projects like these. There is a distinct difference between a really great house that could easily be a developer job and the same style of house that is truly worked out with its owners in mind. Ultimately it’s people, and their differences, that form great projects, not just great architecture.

NEW TRENDS, OLD RULES (ABOVE): Right: This year’s winners thought long and hard about the specification of their windows — it really is fundamental to a good exterior look. These are from Solaglas (solaglas.com); Top Left: All but two of this year’s self-build shortlist were replacement dwellings — which rather says that if you want to find a plot, don’t forget to look out for opportunities offered by existing houses; Bottom Left: Travertine is a stylish and cheap alternative to limestone — a lot of our shortlist shopped very carefully. This is from Fired Earth (firedearth.com)

Less Plots, More Replacements

Of the eight self-builds we saw this year, six were replacement dwellings (the other two were built in gardens). That tells us that the supply of virgin plots is drying up — but the good news is that self-builders appear to be relentlessly innovative when it comes to finding alternatives. That will certainly increase in coming years — as house prices fall, run-down bungalows and houses will increasingly become appealing to wannabe self-builders.

There’s a New Name in Kitchens

One of the more amusing elements about seeing a dozen or so of Britain’s best new homes is to pick up on the fashion element of interior design trends that seem to inexplicably crop up each year. This is usually most evident in the choice of kitchen supplier — and this year marks a shift from Germany to Italy, with a remarkably high number of our shortlist specifying a Boffi kitchen. It seems highgloss white minimalism really is the must-have look.

Windows are Critical to Design

It’s not just window manufacturers that will tell you that windows play a critical role in ensuring a house looks great — just ask any house designer worth their salt. All too often self-builders and renovators will specify windows based on their price first, material second and look third. The exact reverse of this order was true in the best homes we saw. Windows make up such a large proportion of a home’s exterior now –more an issue of the subtlety of the design itself: the glazing bars, the frames, beading and so on. We saw excellent examples of aluminium windows on contemporary homes and oak windows on traditional houses — all of which had been a key fundamentality of the overall design, not a simple afterthought.

INTERIOR TRENDS: Above Left: As ever, an insight into Britain’s best cutting-edge homes threw up some interesting glimpses of interior design trends. One thing we particularly liked was the softer, coastal feel exemplified by the tongue-and-groove infills in this pitched roof; Above Right: It’s funny how kitchen design trends move on, and this year’s must-have name was the Italian manufacturer Boffi (boffi.com)

Work on Your Entrance

First impressions really do count, and with many of the great houses this year we were wowed immediately. Some of the owners really made use of the site to produce a runway path that created a sense of theatre — others went for a more simple doubleheight hallway. Either way, it made you feel special as a visitor — to enjoy it every day must be heavenly. It set the tone and said, ‘This house has been well designed’ — meaning that you were likely to think much more of the interior. We also noticed how few of the homes we saw had a standard hallway — we entered into kitchens and dining halls, but far fewer formal hallways as we had in previous years.

Be Site Specific

Our trip proved one of the great truisms of house design — design first and foremost for your site. It’s ultimately the number one reason why some one-off homes work and others fail — the best ones take into account the nuances of the plot. We were lucky enough to see plenty of spectacular sites, and even luckier to see that almost every one was designed to take full advantage of them — not just in terms of making sure the house got the best of the views, but also that it felt protected and sheltered in a way that all the best houses do. The most obvious example of this was the house in Dartmouth (pictured below) — a completely site-specific approach. Built on any other site this house would have been interesting, sure, but not exceptional; the real achievement for us was that every design was an individual solution, and all the more impressive for it.

Evidence of a Touch of Austerity

It’s reassuring for those of us who are life’s reluctant spenders that a notably high number of our shortlisted homes opted for that attractive but certainly less expensive take on limestone, travertine. We were all impressed by how many self-builders and renovators had been clever with their shopping — travertine looks just as good as natural limestone but it’s around half the price (£20-30/m2 as opposed to limestone, which can cost £50/m2+).

Upside-Down Living isn’t Always the Best Answer

So you’ve got a sloping site with great views and you’re looking at floorplans, and the obvious solution appears to be to swap the traditional arrangements around and incorporate ‘upside-down’ living — namely putting the living accommodation on the top floor and the bedrooms downstairs. Except, as this year’s Overall Winner proved, it’s not always the best solution. Not everyone likes their bedrooms downstairs — it can feel a little weird and can result in bedrooms that feel a little bit poky, boxy and dark. Why not let the bedrooms enjoy the views – all the better for those lazy Sunday mornings – and make the most of the outside areas to get the best of the views from the ground floor. It worked for our winner in Devon and it can work for your project too.

OLD CLASSICS: Above Left: It looks great when oak is left to age, and one of our winners in Norfolk enjoyed window frames that were turning black before going silver Above Right: Our Overall Winner spectacularly claimed the best views for the bedrooms, proving upside-down living isn’t always the answer

All the winners of the 2008 Daily Telegraph Homebuilding & Renovating Awards appear in the January 2009 issue, available from 27th November. Visit the Award Winners page to view last years winners.