Grand Designs' most memorable projects
Grand Designs is celebrating a milestone, with its upcoming new series marking its 25th birthday.
The Channel 4 show has become beloved by viewers since it started back in 1999, with fans as gripped by its ambitious and creative designs as they are some of the incredible and emotional stories behind the projects. The new series - which is hosted as usual by TV star Kevin McCloud - will take fans on new architectural adventures, but will also look back at some of the highlights from its quarter of a century on air.
As Grand Designs returns to our screens, we look back at some of the standout builds over the years.
Wooden house - 2003
According to Grand Designs magazine, the episode featuring the wooden house in West Sussex was one of the most popular ever to air.
Owner Ben Law set out to create a self-sufficient home using timber from the local woodland, while making walls from straw bales and using recycled newspaper for insulation.
He relied on the help of volunteers and only spent £28,000 to make what presenter McCloud said was "a house so ecologically sound, it breathes in time to the trees around it".
Water tower conversion - 2012
Ask Grand Designs fans for some of their most memorable projects, and most will name the water tower that featured in 2012. The plan to turn the disused building into a home was a tricky one, as it needed bundles of cash but also had to take into account that the tower dated back to 1877 and its history had to be preserved. Plus it had to be done fast, as owner Leigh Osborne had negotiated access to the tower in Kennington, London via a neighbouring plot – but only for a year.
The conversion was one of Grand Designs' most impressive jobs, and after eight months the tower – which McCloud had referred to as a “crumbling giant” – had been turned into a stunning five-bedroom home featuring a living space set inside an eye-catching glass cube and 360 degree views.
However, the build came with a hefty price tag – apparently costing around £2 million from start to finish.
Shipping container house - 2014
McCloud has suggested in the past that the shipping container home from 2014 was one of his favourite ever projects on the show. The episode saw Patrick Bradley aiming to weld together four large shipping containers to build a unique home in County Derry.
The end result surpassed everyone’s expectations, when the team created an incredible home that managed to both catch the eye and blend into its farmland surroundings. It was also impressive inside, offering 115 square metres of open plan living space.
“To be honest, I just feel so privileged to live here,” Bradley once told Grand Designs magazine. “Every day I wake up to the view and it just feels as if I’m on holiday.”
Barcelona Pavilion home - 2015
In 2015, Clinton Dall dazzled even McCloud as he revealed his grand plans to make a huge home inspired by inspired by Mies Van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion. The sheer scale of the plan was huge, but Dall would not be deterred. "I don’t want to compromise, I want it to be bang on," he said when his property was on the show.
Dall didn't really have a budget for his West Sussex pad, with realising his elaborate vision the main aim. But the costs mounted as the months went on, with all the panes of glass costing thousands and thousands, and even the glue for the floor tiles coming in at more than £6,000.
Dursley treehouse - 2016
Viewers were intrigued as Jon Martin and Noreen Jaafar revealed that they had decided to build a treehouse home, because their plot in Gloucestershire was within a protected conservation area and they couldn’t chop down the trees.
The plan was something of a jigsaw, as the intricate design had to allow room for each specific branch, as they couldn’t be removed. With such an unusual exterior, the owners decided the interior had to be something special too and set about decorating with items they sourced at flea markets and even timber saved from a science lab at a school.
They also managed something rare when they managed to complete the project pretty much within their £268,000 budget.
McCloud was a big fan of the build, declaring it “truly magical” as he toured the finished home and praising the way it had been created within the trees to the extent that it was pretty much invisible from the nearby road.
Chesil Cliff House - 2019
Chesil Cliff House in Croyde, Devon, ended up being known as the programme’s saddest ever build after it featured on Grand Designs in 2019. Owner Edward Short put everything into creating a special lighthouse home but it ran into several obstacles along the way, with costs shooting up dramatically.
Short told McCloud on the show that his dream to transform the property into a gorgeous family home consumed him, explaining: “This is a baby that’s got so hungry that it’ll eat me – it’s that savage now.”
As costs spiralled, Short ended up in debt and his marriage to wife Hazel broke down. In 2022 he told The Sun that the breakdown of his marriage wasn't entirely due to the stress of the build, but he said: "There’s no doubt what I put Hazel through was horrendous. There’s a lot of guilt about that. But there was no way out, once we started. If we didn’t finish we’d have been in big trouble.”
The new series of Grand Designs starts at 9pm on Channel 4 on Wednesday, 11 September.
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This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/grand-design-memorable-kevin-mccloud-135617953.html
