RIBA House of the Year 2024 shortlist: Eavesdrop

When I walk in and shut the door, I leave the troubles of the world behind. It is a very reassuring and peaceful environment. This is Eavestrop. We are in a rural setting in West Sussex. The house has former parents and Eavestrop has been built in the grounds of their previous home, a Grade II listed lodge where they had lived for 45 years. The design really needed to be very respectful of the setting of this listed building. I spent a great deal of time researching vernacular buildings of the high world to see which was most suitable within a wild meadow setting. The one typology which stood out was the simple barn, which I felt had an almost sculptural and heroic roof. We previously lived in a house with quite extensive grounds and we were beginning to find it quite a difficult thing to maintain. So that became also quite a key point for the brief to create a house for them which was with far less maintenance, was environmentally and sustainably highly performing and also and most importantly I think was to have the possibility of an access to a garden which was more manageable and more maintained. Once these fundamental parts of the brief were established it became quite quick the idea to have a garden at the centre of the of the home which was to be a courtyard. It is very much a room as a house although it's outside it is very very much a room as a house which we all use all the time. I'm out there first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee. If friends come and call around we're nearly always in the courtyard. It's just a lovely feel. Now that it is built it's been the greatest surprise by actually how it's been used and how it feels. And I also never imagined children seeing the passageway or arcade which surrounds the courtyard to be like a running track and it's been a wonderful surprise that the courtyard is actually developed into a place of play and of colour and of fun and that quality permeates through the whole house. My brother Richard Dowdle was a structural engineer. My parents always had a slight pipe dream on trying to bring our skill sets and disciplines together on a particular family venture and he designed and specified all the structure that we used. One of the key concepts behind the scheme was to use a minimal amount of materials to create a complex geometry and a large space. The complexity of the geometry is really driven by the sculptural shape of the roof. The ridgeline starts at its lowest level which faces the listed lodge building and then from that point the ridgeline rises to the southwest corner there is a twist in the roof and to achieve a build in this way became quite a collaborative effort and also gives certain prominence to the living room and allows for that space for the main living area of the house. Having thought that my parents were bought into the idea of a very open plan living space my mum's approach was still quite keen to have certain areas almost within particular zones and that meant that we created some quite bespoke partitions. The stone is taken partly from offcuts that were left from the outside of the house you can flow through from one to the other and they all have their own separate atmosphere. There is also an unusual eaves detail that we have for the house where the rainwater runs straight from the eaves and falls like a curtain directly into a perimeter ground drain which runs around the property. The water is collected and is used to water the garden but the action of the water falling from the eaves is called an eaves drop and it's where the house has borrowed its name. The idea to use such traditional materials came in very early discussions. We have a coxhill clay tile for the roof we had to spend a lot of time and care to make sure that the tile dimensions and proportions and how they are laid could adapt to the twist that was required for the roof. The external walls of the house are made from clipsham limestone. The interplay of the clipsham stone the rough cut with the smooth ashlar finish around the house is very very eye-catching. We also have a very rough walling stone which is used solely for the long spine wall which runs from one side of the property to the other side. I feel hugely privileged to have been able to design and build a home for my parents. I was so strongly aware of the risk from the beginning of creating an environment for them which was so completely foreign in relation to how they've been living for such a long time. We can flow from room to room effortlessly and I couldn't think of an easier way of living. I think the house is magical and we love it.