Ahome designed for three generations of the same family, complete with four tilting towers, has been named as the Royal Institution of British Architects' house of the year.
Caring Wood, in Kent, is a re-imagining of the traditional English country house. It was inspired by traditional oast houses, with their cone-shaped roofs that are often painted white at the tips, which are agricultural buildings for kilning hops.
The house's four strange pointing roofs are an echo of those buildings found throughout the county, with an interlinking roof. The judges of the award said: "This family of towers are sentry points in the landscape with distinct personalities. A conversation is set up both between the towers of the house itself and with those of the oast houses in the distant landscape, providing a tension to the overall composition."
Its quirky design is one of the reasons it was allowed to be built: it was granted planning permission under paragraph 55 of the National Planning Policy Framework, also known as Gummer's Law, which allows such homes to be built if they are of "outstanding architectural quality”. The house has also been featured on Grand Designs' 'House of the Year' series.
The house has designed by James Macdonald Wright and Niall Maxwell, who constructed it using locally sourced materials, such as clay tiles, ragstone from a nearby quarry, and has been clad in coppiced chestnut.
It has also been made very eco-friendly, with 27,000 trees and wildflower meadows planted on the 84-acre estate, with solar panels, an electric car-charging point and ground source heat pumps.
Inside the huge house - which covers more than 15,000 sq ft - the owner’s daughters, their husbands and their children live together. There are huge, soaring spaces, such as the main living area, but there are also rooms partially embedded into the hillside and four separate pavilions for the family to live apart.
RIBA President Ben Derbyshire said: "This ambitious house explores new architectural methods, materials and crafts and allows us to question the future of housing and the concept of multi-generational living. I’ve no doubt many of the ideas displayed at Caring Wood will influence UK housing for many years to come.”
CREDIT: ISABELLE FRASER - THE TELEGRAPH