Costa’s Barbers, Wandsworth

2025 RIBA London Award  
2025 RIBA London Small Project of the Year

House
Costa’s Barbers, Wandsworth 
Brisco Loran and Arrant Industries for Duncan Blackmore 
Contract value: £110,000 
GIA: 54m² 
Cost per m²: £2,037

This delightful project is modest in scale and budget yet broad in ambition and potential, offering a possible template for the regeneration and reinvigoration of similar ailing high streets up and down the country. 

Conceived, designed and almost entirely delivered by a collaboration between Brisco Loran Architects and small-scale, progressive developer Arrant Industries, the project explores new ideas for what constitutes home and office, and challenges traditional notions of public and private space.

A former retail unit on Battersea High Street has been remade as a home and workspace while retaining every potential to be returned to retail use or refitted as a café, office or exhibition space. Indeed, such is the ingenuity of the design approach, it is possible to imagine almost any community or commercial use being made of it, even within the confines of the compact 54m² plan.

The sequence of spaces starts from the public street where a new awning defines an area associated with the property, even if actually in public ownership. The multi-functional front room forms a compact but bright living room and office, linked to a kitchen and servery area by a series of single steps rising past a bathroom and storage and finally to the two bedrooms at the rear. A small shared courtyard beyond is accessed via a set of steps made of reclaimed bricks, pebbles and shells.

The sequence establishes a series of thresholds, first defined by the front door, and thereafter by each step that separates one space from another. More practically, they help raise the sleeping areas to the level required by the flood zone, being only a short distance from the Thames.

This reflects the ingenuity at play throughout the project, as the array of regulatory compliance required in designing a simple home is skilfully harnessed to contribute positively to its philosophy, as well as its mainly self-build nature. The jury saw how pragmatic constraints such as external meter locations informed the internal arrangement of the bedrooms and design of the rear facade.

A determination to pursue circularity through the reuse of materials and the minimisation of waste informed the overall character of the project and created many of the moments of humour and delight.

The shopfront facade is particularly ingenious, with remade sash windows able to be configured for varying levels of openness and privacy through making the most of some innovative techniques of patterned glass-making. The incorporation of found materials within the joinery, including the clever use of a set of snooker-table legs, brings elements of traditional shopfront detailing that enriches the street, even for passers-by who may not guess at the origins of these materials.

The jury left uplifted by the passion of the team that conceived this transformative little project, and by the commitment and skill required to self-deliver. This may not offer a mode of living suitable to all, but as a template for increased flexibility in how we inhabit and reuse our buildings, it takes some beating.

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RIBA UK Awards 2025 sponsored by Autodesk, EH Smith, Equitone and VELUX