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