This green ‘oasis’ was the best new house built in London in 2025

Living in London, it’s fun to dream about what sort of grand property you would live in if money were no object. We now have another very swanky home for your daydreams, because the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has revealed its House of the Year for 2025. One London building was on the HOTY shortlist, making it the de facto best house in London for the past year. 

Clinching the title for London was the ‘Chelsea Brut’ by Pricegore Architects. The minimalist’s dream home is an extension, refurbishment and retrofit of a four-storey 1960s townhouse in a dense part of west central London. 

The house, which was unveiled in a special episode of Grand Designs, features a sleek grey brick façade, while its inside has been stripped back to its structure, also finished in grey using raw materials like lime plaster, lime slurry and clay-block floors.

When renovating the house, the architects were overjoyed to discover the foundations were 1.5 metres lower than the existing floor level, which allowed them to lower the ground and create a kitchen, dining and living space with 3.5-metre ceilings. 

Chelsea Brut also features a small ‘oasis’ garden at the back, as well as a lust planted roof that sits atop the extension. On the second floor, the posh digs has a film room which doubles up as a spare bedroom, while the house’s previous five bedrooms on the top floor have been converted into three larger bedrooms. 

The whole abode was given a sustainable makeover, with thick wood fibre insulation, an automated skylight that allows ventilation in the summer months, and a new air-source heat pump that provides hot water and underfloor heating.

A total of seven houses made the RIBA HOTY shortlist for 2025, with the top prize going to a self-built home in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. You can read all about that home on Time Out here.

First look: inside the huge revamp of a Northern line station in north London. 

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