31/44 Architects

🏆 The UK’s best new home – Six Columns by 31/44 Architects wins RIBA House of the Year 2024. Designed by Will Burges, Director of 31/44 Architects, as a family home for himself, his wife and two children, Six Columns cleverly occupies a tight plot in the leafy suburbs of Crystal Palace, South London. As the family occupy the building, they will continue to tinker with it, inside and out, allowing it to evolve to their changing needs over time. “Six Columns is a beautifully crafted family home that cleverly incorporates Brutalist references and creative flourishes while retaining a strong sense of suburban belonging. It shows what can be achieved when working with even the tightest of suburban sites, and its flexible, unfinished aesthetic offers a solution to futureproofed design: this is a home that can evolve with its occupants’ changing needs overtime. The generosity of space belies the limitations of this small garden plot. As we look for creative and practical solutions to the housing crisis, Six Columns offers a blueprint for bespoke urban infill development.” – Muyiwa Oki PRIBA, RIBA President ➡️ Watch the project film: https://ow.ly/seGA50Uj2Ru #HouseOfTheYear

We selected the bricks, thought about the brick bond – but then all the credit goes to the people that actually put them in position of course... the brickwork contractors at ATLANT Construction And thank you for the invitation wienerberger UK!

Six Columns is shortlisted for a Brick Award!

Our model, London Stone, is featured in the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. Made in collaboration with The Stonemasonry Company Limited it explores a language of simple load bearing stone in a Conservation Area. It's a recent project (for two houses, one shown here) that considers how we 'hold the language' of the architecture that we're interested in but significantly reduce the embodied carbon of the construction choices. You can read about that strategy, 'Mass & Air' here: https://lnkd.in/ehZtKwmE The result is an architecture that is more authentic than it's historic neighbours? Where they imitate stone with historic motifs built cheaply out of render, timber and masonry, now, with the economic extraction of stone we can deliver a similar language that is true to the material and its structure.

We both really enjoyed this conversation with Dave Sharp. Reflecting on the last few years of practice and considering how marketing can have an impact on your practice. Oh yes, it also felt like therapy, free therapy, thanks Dave.

We are very grateful for the generous assistance of The Stonemasonry Company Limited in making this model for the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. The potential language of stone as a load-bearing construction material is something we're deeply interested in; in our practice 31/44 Architects but also in our teaching studio at Kingston School of Art. Great lengths have been taken to use materials imitating stone throughout history, perhaps now with innovative cutting techniques we have more widespread access to a genuine use of the material – and really revel in all of its qualities...

One of our recent projects, Six Columns, has won a RIBA London Award as well as the 2024 RIBA Small Project of the Year! Thank you RIBA London. The team: ATLANT Construction Price & Myers Aarde Land Photography: Nick Dearden Building Narratives

Our model 'London Stone' made icw The Stonemasonry Company Limited has been accepted into the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition! It's a recent project (for two houses, one shown here) that considers how we 'hold the language' of the architecture that we're interested in but significantly reduces the embodied carbon of the construction choices. You can read about that strategy, 'Mass & Air' here: https://lnkd.in/ezyF4qT2.