Awarded the Anna Whitehead Prize at the 2025 BIID Awards in recognition of its outstanding commitment to sustainability and wellbeing in residential design, The Vawdrey House is paving the way for high-end sustainable design and architecture.
The accolade acknowledges our innovative application of environmental performance principles within a design-led practice, combining high-end design, thoughtful materiality and genuinely human-centred spaces.
At the heart of this recognition is Westside Common, our first PassivHaus project and one of the first retrofit homes in London to achieve EnerPHit certification – the PassivHaus Institute’s bespoke standard for retrofitted buildings. This project exemplifies how rigorous environmental performance can be woven into the design of a sophisticated luxury home without compromising on spatial quality, architectural expression or comfort.
We approached sustainability holistically through meticulous insulation and airtightness, high-performance triple glazing, careful avoidance of thermal bridges and an advanced MVHR system, working together to create a home with negligible heating demand and exceptional air quality.
Strategic design moves such as carefully shaded glazing, roof overhangs and a considered building orientation ensure thermal comfort throughout the seasons, while thoughtful detailing allows this performance to coexist with a refined material palette and richly textured interiors.
However, Westside Common is not the only project to receive this approach. We continue to apply the same strict PassivHaus principles across a growing body of work.
Over on the Dulwich Estate, we are breaking ground on another home designed to meet these demanding standards: highly insulated, airtight, powered by an MVHR system and heated via an air source heat pump. Here, the challenge lies in delivering all of this whilst creating striking architectural spaces and simultaneously navigating the constraints of a particularly restrictive conservation area.
Meanwhile, on the banks of the Thames, construction is getting underway on another Passiv-standard new-build family home. This ultra-low energy, climate-resilient design is raised above the 1–100-year flood levels and pushes the limits of an extremely constrained site to create a compact but perfectly formed three-bedroom house that is both future-proof and deeply liveable.
Our philosophy extends beyond energy metrics. Healthy indoor environments – free from pollutants, with controlled humidity and continuously filtered fresh air – are central to a sustainable brief. Projects such as Westside Common demonstrate that sustainability is not an add-on feature but a fundamental aspect of how architecture supports daily life and long-term wellbeing.
Rather than treating sustainability and luxury as opposing forces, we can embed environmental strategies into the very fabric of its projects – from the way extensions improve light and flow, to how landscape and built form interact.
The BIID award highlights a growing shift in high-end residential design: clients are no longer willing to choose between beautiful design and responsibility. The Vawdrey House is leading this change, showing that sustainable homes can be expressive, generous and deeply human, not defined by minimalism, but by thoughtful decisions that enrich everyday life.
