David Chipperfield has won an important architectural award with Fayland House.

An award from the heavyweight architecture journal, the Architectural Review, is a recognition that is gaining increasing respect in the industry. This year’s categories include Home, School and Culture. The winners in the last two categories have not yet been named, but the winner in the category for homes has been announced. This is awarded to outstanding residential houses built in the last five years.

House of the Year:

The winner is the British architect David Chipperfield’s Fayland house, which is located in the Chiltern Hills, a chalky escarpment in the south east of England that was designated as an area of exceptional natural beauty and conservation status in 1965.

David Chipperfield. Photograph © Ingrid Von Kruse

His design for the dwelling overturns the stereotypical ideas of houses in the British countryside. He nevertheless dealt cleverly with what people associate with such an estate.

The three-bedroom home, which to the back fits into the hill and has grass on the roof, can be described as a war-time bunker from one angle. Yet the simplicity and lightness of the design – heavy columns despite – presents anything but a bunker. Manor houses in the countryside have traditionally been synonymous with extensive, landscaped gardens, lots of hedges, fountains and walkways. Chipperfield has placed all these areas in courtyards, so that the residents have a view of an almost pristine landscape.

 

Click here for the full article – and photographs – as published in the Architectural Review under the title “Pastoral Symphony”:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click here for the full article – and photographs – as published in the Architectural Review under the title “Pastoral Symphony”

 

Highly Recommended:

The Rebirth House by Ryo Matsui is located in a part of Japan that was devastated by the 2011 tsunami. What especially impressed the adjudicators was the use of old material to build a new house. Despite the traditional roof and walls, it is actually all newly built. The traditional storeroom that was broken down and the material of which was reused for Rebirth House, was 120 years old.

 

 

Click here for more information.

Recommended:

Southwestern Slovenia can be fairly inhospitable: high wind in winter and extreme heat in summer. The natural building material is stone, of which there is an excess in the area. The Dekleva Gregorič practice made fresh use of traditional building methods for the Compact Karst House. The house, a definite shelter, becomes accessible through  three large openings in the thick stone walls.

 

 

 

 

Read more here: http://www.architectural-review.com/8684580.article