NORTH HILL

Location: Highgate, London
Interior Design: Faye Toogood

You'd never know it was there. Set back from the road, sandwiched between a row of smart 19th-century townhouses and hidden behind an unprepossessing garage door, the former home of the Swiss-born architect Walter Segal doesn't show up on Google Maps.

Built in the early '60s by Segal, the enthusiastic father of the self-build movement, for himself and his family, the house is as compact and functional as a Swiss Army knife. There is a vast, verdant garden. At its foot sits the first "Segal method" building, which dispensed with traditional bricklaying and plastering techniques in favour of mass-produced materials assembled in their market sizes.