Grand Designs House of the Year: tractor shed conversion built for £335,000 in Northern Ireland scoops top prize

An ingeniously simple home built on a tight budget was crowned House of the Year 2019 on Grand Designs. 
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Kristy Gray31 December 2019

The carefully orchestrated conversion of a humble barn and a shed into a modernist family home which cost £335,000 to build has been named House of the Year 2019 by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

House Lessans, an ingeniously simple home built on a tight budget and set in the rolling hills of Northern Ireland's County Down, was announced by presenter Kevin McCloud as the winner of the prestigious annual award during the final episode of Channel 4's special four-part Grand Designs series.

The award-winning home, designed by McGonigle McGrath, an architectural practice based in Belfast formed by Kieran McGonigle and Aidan McGrath, saw off stiff competition from six other shortlisted new-builds designed by architects around the UK.

For the sum of £335,000 - about £1,400 per square metre - the home was built at half the cost of an average top-end self-build project, said Kevin McCloud.

"Executed with incredible clarity and restraint, McGonigle McGrath have used simple and cheap materials to create a truly bespoke home that resonates with its owners and its context. Even with the tightest of budgets, House Lessans shows that a dream home, designed by a talented architect, can be a reality,” said RIBA President Alan Jones.

See the longlist: RIBA House of the Year 2019 contenders

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McCloud fully supported the judges’ decision. "It demonstrates that good architecture works hard and doesn't have to cost the earth."

He added: "House Lessans makes the everyday magical, grounded in its rural setting and with an ambitious attention to detail."

A simple yet ingenious conversion

The remnants of a small farmstead with a double yard were converted and then a new forecourt, bedrooms and living spaces were added, forming an L-shaped structure of cool concrete blockwork with perfectly pitched zinc roofs.

The couple who commissioned the house, Sylvia and Michael, wanted to create a home where their grown-up children could come and stay.

“Like most non-architects about to build a home, we had a clear idea about what we’d like in terms of rooms but no idea about how these rooms might be arranged, or what the house might look like," they said.

"It is a joy to live in - from seeing the soaring bedroom ceiling on waking, being surrounded by the gentle landscape in the kitchen during the day, to enjoying the sunset in the top room."

In the living zone is a kitchen and sitting room and a separate snug, plus a mezzanine office cleverly accommodated with a pantry below. The other zone, a double-height sleeping block, includes three bedrooms.

The interiors are a lesson in grey minimalism, all geared around the views. The ceiling height is broken up by means of a horizontal line that runs around the entire house, painted white above and grey below.

Previous RIBA House of the Year winners include Lochside House in 2018, an off-grid cottage in the snowy Scottish Highlands designed by designed by HaysomWardMiller Architects. In 2017, Caring Wood, "a collection of oast houses on steroids" in Kent, won the top prize, while in 2016, Murphy House in Edinburgh, which was described at the time as 'somewhere between a James Bond lair and Wallace and Gromit gadget haven', scooped the award.