Exquisite taste in north London

IN THE mid-90s, the most exciting new homes were only to be found in the US, Scandinavia or Australia, but more recently, Londoners have learned to embrace the joys of free-flowing, well designed spaces, making the most of natural light and blurring the boundaries between inside and out, while revelling in beautiful new materials.

Naturally, Homes Property takes some credit for this turnaround - being one of the pioneering publications shining the spotlight on Britain's leading architects. And, continuing our mission to find and show off the very best in contemporary design, we have selected 10 of the cleverest recently completed one-off homes, each with outstanding qualities that point to how we may all be living in the future

THE chance to build a new detached house in London is rare indeed, but it came for journalist Geraldine Bedell and her writer husband, Charles Leadbeater, when they found a small plot of scrubland in Highbury, north London. For the task of designing their new home they hired architects Joyce Owens and Ferhan Azman. The pair created an exquisite courtyard house - a form that has fascinated designers for centuries - and made it contemporary and surprising by building the entire structure in solid concrete.

Bedell immortalized the story in her book The Handmade House: A Love Story Set in Concrete