The Little Big House
by Knox Bhavan
Client Private
Award RIBA East Award 2024 and Project Architect of the Year
The Little Big House is a unique home and the result of a genuine engagement between the architect and the client. The fluid connection of interior and exterior and the changing qualities of daylight within the interior spaces deliver a place of calm and beauty that would be admirable in any design.
What is remarkable here is the way the project achieves this while effortlessly incorporating the specific needs of a client who, following an accident, has been paralysed from the shoulders down. Full accessibility, the housing of medical equipment, and the need for live-in care have been accommodated with no impact on the character of the home as a place to live. Externally, the house expresses itself as both sheltering and extrovert, with its overhanging roof forms making a successful and characterful statement within the leafy context of a Hertfordshire village.
Read the full citation from the RIBA Awards Jury on RIBA Journal
Contractors Philiam Construction
Structural Engineers Structure Workshop
Quantity Surveyor / Cost Consultant Ian Thomson and Company
Environmental / M&E Engineer Paul Bastick Associates
Timber Frame Engineer Price and Myers
Gross internal area in m² 198