This week we caught up with award-winning British architect Sarah Featherstone, one half of renowned practice Featherstone Young.

What inspired your interest in Modern architecture and design?
My best friends’ houses. As a child my choice of best friends seemed to be those who lived in amazing modern houses; totally subconscious, of course. Surprisingly the parents of two of my friends had commissioned architects to design them new houses, one was a 1960s modernist brick house in South Kensington, London by architect Tom Kay, very compact with an extraordinary brick spiral staircase and another was a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired house nestled in the Somerset hills.

If we could arrange a house swap for you, is there a house or apartment block in the UK that you’d like to live in?
Creek Vean by Team 4. I’ve stood on its roof but never been inside. Whilst unequivocally modern, it is also contextual in the way the building splits in to two wings, responding to the landscape by parting for the stairs and slope to pass through.

Tell us about the house you grew up in.
A fairly non-descript red brick Victorian pile that stuck out rather awkwardly in a small Dorset village full of stone cottages. It did have one redeeming feature an unusual brick bond that the local historian would always point out when conducting his guided village tours past our dining room window.

When you’re thinking about buying a house, what’s the one thing you won’t compromise on?
I find myself drawn to places that on the surface may not seem to have a lot going for them. I currently live in a house that we transformed from a flat over shop with lean to stores behind. It looked awful, was only 4m wide with a warren of rooms and outbuildings and virtually no natural light. However we found out the foundations to the outbuildings were built for a three-storey building and that its south facing orientation had the best views to a park and trees one street away. We were able to transform the mid-terrace plot into a house with living spaces and gardens at the top and bedrooms at the bottom looking out on to a private courtyard.

Is there a British architect or practice whose work you’re particularly excited by at the moment?
A hard question, but Mikhail Riches springs to mind as I recently visited a beautiful exhibition of their current housing projects curated around story-telling. I particularly like the way they take cues from the traditional terraced house, a successful low rise, high density typology, which they reinterpret turning layouts on their head, introducing shared gardens and maintaining the idea of your own front door.

Who are you following on Instagram?
I’m not a big social media user, but I do follow a few people on Twitter – I like Piers Taylor.