Sea, Sky House

by Liddicoat & Goldhill

Client Sophie Goldhill & David Liddicoat

Award RIBA South East Award 2025

The award winner tells us: "Sea, Sky House is a low-embodied-carbon, low-energy self-build by the sea in Whitstable. It was built as a co-development of three families, sharing communal spaces and facilities, and building the homes together. Liddicoat & Goldhill’s house focused on combining environmental technologies with a philosophy of employing reused materials, all within a constrained construction budget, and while integrating the interior with the dramatic natural setting.

Having bought the site in 2018 with friends, Liddicoat & Goldhill won planning permission, raised finance, and built the house – by hand as the main contractor – over the following four years. They collected materials during the design process, adapting them to the house, and adjusting the design to suit material discoveries.

The architects set their own brief: to explore the ideal texture and atmosphere of domestic architecture. This experimental objective was achieved while building a community with friends and creating a home for their young family."

The jury says: "The simple form, with gabled pitched roof, satisfied an early decision to live at first-floor level within the vast volume reaching the rafters. Lowering the sea-facing rear terrace was a clever move to maintain the views above a solid balustrade, but it also meant the ground-floor bedrooms could follow the natural lie of the land, stepping down in section towards the rear. The pale duck-egg colour of the painted exterior boarding, corrugated cement board roof, and galvanised steel gutters and drainpipes gives a cloud-like softness to the house, despite being set with generous glazed openings and cut-outs."

Read the full citation from the RIBA Awards Jury on RIBA Journal.

Contractor Sophie Goldhill & David Liddicoat

Landscape architect Tom Massey

Structural engineer Constant

Environmental / M&E engineer Greengauge

Gross internal area 300m²