Words Ellie Hughes
Photography Josh Shinner

Over regular episodes, The Modern House will follow the build in real time – beginning with the moment the couple break ground, half a decade after they first started planning the project. "We could have learned Spanish or how to bake the perfect sourdough loaf during those grim lockdowns, but we spent them conjuring up our dream home. Five years later, and sometimes to our surprise, we're actually building it," says Anna.

The couple both work in creative industries, Josh as a photographer and Anna in marketing across photography and film. Fizmer will be very different from the small north London flat they currently live in. It will have three main functions: home, work space (a separate building with office space, darkroom and studio) and meeting point for friends and family. It's connection to nature will also be key to the success of the project.

Josh and Anna had been yearning for nature and space and, after looking at a few different options, settled on a long-since defunct kitchen garden and orchard in the grounds of the arts and crafts house that Josh’s grandparents bought in the 60s, and where Josh's dad still lives today. "This location would also give us the opportunity to create something that'll be around long after we've gone; a mosaic of wildflower meadows, woodlands and scrub covering some 40 acres of of land that has for decades been heavily farmed," says Anna.

The name they have chosen for their house, Fizmer, reflects this yearning for nature and also the house’s relationship with it. Fizmer “means the rustling noise that is produced in grass by petty agitations of the wind,” explains Josh. (The couple discovered the word in one of their favourite nature writers, Robert Macfarlane's books.) The house will be linked to the landscape in a number of ways – through the mixture of ever-changing views offered by the building’s apertures, the variety of terraces, and the choice of materials, such as cedar roof shingles, which will set the house into its woodland location. “The essence of Fizmer is that it should be a place – day or night – to reconnect, strengthen and lift everything that is linked to it through the surrounding landscape and thoughtful design.”

The episodes will cover the physical progress on site, the key people involved in the project and the rationale behind their design principles and key decisions. Above all we're excited for this opportunity: to create a piece of architecture that truly belongs in this particular location and for us to make lifelong memories there," says Anna.

Follow the progress of Fizmer on The Modern House’s YouTube and Instagram channels and @fizmer.house.