Film Edmund Cook
Photography Elliot Sheppard

For the second film in our series, Homing In, our co-founder, Matt Gibberd, journeys to rural Kent to explore the self-built eco-home of artist duo Langlands & Bell. As with each of the films in the series, we aim to show how adherence to five key design principles – space, light, materials, nature and decoration – allows you, in Matt’s words, “to live a better and more fulfilled life.”

As spouses and collaborators of 45 years, for Ben and Nikki, life and work are seamless and interchangeable. Their art explores the webs of communication linking people and buildings, and their home is an extension of that work. And in their home, light shines brightest. In fact, it has been designed to facilitate their daily migrations and the changing light that moves with them throughout the house.

As artists, they know precisely what kind of light they want to usher into their home and how to achieve the desired level of illumination at any given hour of the day. “It’s the reflected light that is, counterintuitively, the most beautiful a lot of the time,” says Ben. The uniformly white-washed interiors boost those reflective levels: “It’s a wonderful, neutral and optimistic palette.” Nikki says. “You just concentrate on the structure, on the body of the space.”

White-washed walls are met with reflective surfaces. “Mirrors create unexpected views” Ben explains. “That startling moment when something outside is inside.” Sightlines guide through open-plan spaces to large picture windows which themselves transform as the day dims. By nightfall, they too have become mirrors.

Though their home is strikingly singular, the couple didn’t want it to stand out: “We want to disappear, not appear,” says Nikki. “We didn’t want to make a building that was going to be a statement: we want it to be an understatement.” As such, they have called their home ‘Untitled’ – the only work they have not named. (And yes – it does cause problems with the post.)

Sunk down into a meadow that ripples in the wind, and sheltered behind white walls that welcome in just the right levels of luminosity, their home has become a canvas for everything. As Ben explains: “It’s our life, it’s our work, it’s our relaxation. It fulfils all of those functions. It’s our future and it’s our past.”

Watch the full film here and tell us what you think in the comments, before subscribing to our YouTube channel. And stay tuned for the next film in our series, featuring the architect Laura Dewe Matthews. Happy watching.