By Jonathan Bell
Picture your dream ‘Grand Design’ house, perched on the edge of a spectacular landscape, designed by one of the world’s leading architects, with every last detail finished to your exact specifications. As you approach the house for a weekend away, its dramatic silhouette forms an unforgettable image, a bold sculptural form you will forever associate with this moment.
In an ideal world, this experience would be commonplace. All buildings should be designed with love, care, craft and skill. Sadly, real life isn’t like that. Most buildings are functional at best, and mostly forgettable. Anything exciting and innovative is seen as ‘architecture’, an aloof art form, something to aspire to but ultimately out of reach.
The Shingle House by Scottish architectural practice NORD sits on the stony beaches of Dungeness
This is where Living Architecture comes in. Describing itself as a ‘social enterprise’ it was the brainchild of writer and philosopher Alain de Botton, author of the book The Architecture of Happiness, among others. De Botton and his team believe architecture should be experienced first hand, not through the pages of a magazine or the TV screen. The premise of his venture is simple: it gives people an architectural experience in the form of a holiday home.
New perspectives
De Botton’s first project was the Balancing Barn, a silvery wedge that cantilevers out over a sloping site in Suffolk. Designed by maverick Dutch architecture firm MVRDV, it is unashamedly modern but also playfully unconventional, and a little fun. Up to eight guests can book the slender four-bedroom house, which has a shiny metal facade and large sliding openings.
The Balancing Barn was followed by the Long House in Norfolk, a refined brick retreat designed by Sir Michael and Patty Hopkins, with rich timber joinery, a grand central hall and plenty of terraces, nooks and crannies.
Living Architecture has also developed two beachside retreats, each tailored specifically to its site. In Suffolk you can rent the Dune House, a concoction of lopsided roofs and windows created by the Norwegian firm Jarmund/Vigsnæs.
In Kent, the Shingle House by Scottish architectural practice NORD sits on the stony beaches of Dungeness, a bleakly poetic stretch of coast that is classified as a nature reserve and filled with flora and birdlife.
In Essex a fun gingerbread cottage has been created by the London firm FAT in collaboration with artist and celebrity Grayson Perry
Other projects are in the offing. Design buffs are eagerly awaiting the Secular Retreat, an austere, almost monastic building in Devon by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. In Essex, its polar opposite is taking shape: a fun gingerbread cottage created by the London firm FAT in collaboration with artist and celebrity Grayson Perry.
Architecture is a broad church, and Living Architecture’s portfolio reflects that. The organisation believes in challenging the everyday – it is motivated by the desire to spread the word about good architecture, believing that if we taste the good life, a love for design will start to percolate through to the mainstream.
