The winner for this year’s competition has been announced – five designed were selected from the 12 strong nominees on the 2016 Self Build on a Shoestring long list. The top five are: Design Research North, Harper Perry, Clear Architects, Lewis Williams of Davies Sutton and Barton Willmore with Ecomotive. See the shortlisted projects below and click here for more information.
The overall winner is Barton Willomore with Ecomotive, who were presented with their £5,000 prize by Charlie Luxton at the Grand Designs Live exhibition. Find out more about the winning entry here.
The judges include some of the UK’s best known self build celebrities – Kevin McCloud, Charlie Luxton, George Clarke and Gerardine and Wayne Hemingway. RIBA self build champion Luke Tozer is also one of the judges along with Lord Gary Porter, the former leader of the Local Government Association.
The competition is organised annually by NaCSBA and this year it challenged people to come up with innovative ways of building a modest ‘Starter Home’ that could be built for £50,000 or less. The Government defines a new Starter Home as any property costing less than £250,000 (or £450,000 in London).
NaCSBA believes it is possible to build a modest new home for much less than this, and the 12 finalists came up with a range of innovative ways of doing this. Find out more below:
Mark Waghorn Design from Carmarthenshire. This factory-made home that comes in two sections that are connected on site to create a bungalow. Mark estimates the two-bedroom property would cost £49.9k. |
London’s Levitt Bernstein with F1 Modular. Called ‘myPod’ this idea also had two factory-made sections, but these are stacked vertically to create a terraced house. The home provides 80 sq m of space for £49.7k. Click to see entry>>
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Design Research North in Preston. ‘Half a House’ involves a contractor constructing the front section of a home, so a self builder can easily add to the back. The company claims the front section can be built for £45.4k. |
London architects Alan Lau called his design the ‘Hometainer Modular House’. The design involves using two 40ft long reclaimed shipping containers as the core structure for the home. Costs are calculated at £46.7k. Click to see entry>>
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Newcastle based architects Harper Perry. This entry advocated bringing groups of people together to collectively save costs on materials, tools and land. Their simple kit-based Starter Home cost just £37.9k. |
Aoife Marnane from Limerick in Ireland. Her solution revolved around developing a new smart phone App that would help people design and build a home to meet their budget. She says her 67 sq m home would cost £47.6k. Click to see entry>>
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Essex based Clear Architects. This novel entry focused on developing a low cost panel system to construct the home, with the panels made largely from discarded coffee cups. The 71 sq m home can be built for just over £40k. |
Londoners Christopher Holmes, Anastasia Stan and Max Friedlander. This entry involved utilizing a shipping container as a temporary home, while a larger property is added alongside. Click to see entry>>
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Lewis Williams of Davies Sutton Architects from Cardiff. ‘M House’ is built using a new cost-effective timber framing system, developed in Wales. It’s estimate that the 70 sq m Starter Home would cost just under £50k. |
Reading-based Barton Willmore working with Bristol’s Ecomotive. A number of modules that can be connected in a variety of ways – as a standalone home, terrace or block of flats. The standard home cost £49.6k. Click to see entry>>
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Paul Testa Architecture from Sheffield. Utilizing a series of panels people can choose the design and layout of their home to match their needs, the house is super energy efficint. A basic ‘shell home’ cost £49.4k. |
Australian architect Jasper Brown. This entry was based around a clever courtyard house design that could be constructed in just 15 days. Jasper calculated that his 65 sq m home would cost £49.8k. Click to see entry>>
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| Back to Shoestring Home | See last year’s winner |
