A REVAMP that revitalised a Borders holiday home has lost out in a contest to be named the 2015 House of the Year.
The award from the Royal Institute of British Architects and Grand Designs, featuring Kevin McCloud, has been handed to the Flint House in Buckinghamshire, instead of the Borders Mill House which finished in fifth place.
The winning entry was designed by architects Skene Catling De La Pena, and has now been announced as the winner during a special four-part television series for Channel 4, Grand Designs: House of the Year.
Described by judges as a marvel of geological evolution and construction, Flint House is a celebration of location, material and architectural design at its best.
Set in the flint-layered fields of the Rothschild’s estate at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, the building rises from the ground as dark, fashioned flint and slowly changes in construction and texture until its refined white chalk blocks disappear into the sky.
The Mill, a contemporary holiday home in the Scottish Borders, was commended by judges.
Riba said: "This is a family house providing an empathetic framework of beautiful spaces for its occupants, opportunistically using the site and appropriate technologies to achieve an eminently habitable and sustainable home.
"The quality of construction is very high, exemplary and demanding detailing executed with evident local skill and obvious pride (who said craft was dead?): a credit to architect, client and builder."
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