Neighbourhood · 6 March 2026 · 6 min read
The hour the architect designed for
We view every house twice. The second viewing is the one that decides it, and it is never in the morning.
Every house has an hour. It is the moment the building was drawn around — the low sun coming down the length of the gallery, the courtyard filling with light, the west wall going orange for twenty minutes in October.
Estate agency has traditionally shown houses at whatever time is convenient, which is usually eleven on a Saturday. At eleven on a Saturday almost every good house looks ordinary.
We ask the architect, or we work it out from the drawings, and then we show you the house then. It costs us scheduling flexibility and it is the single most useful thing we do.
Written by Ines Halvorsen · Coastal
