The Little Big House

by Knox Bhavan

Client Private

Award RIBA East Award 2024 and Project Architect of the Year, and shortlisted for the Stephen Lawrence Prize 2024.

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