‘People have found new ways to adapt’
The self-builders featured in the new series of Grand Designs have faced extra challenges this year – and so has host Kevin McCloud, he tells Boudicca Fox-Leonard
‘Grand only ever meant the vision, not the money. Paying for something is not the same as fighting for it’
McCloud has been visiting properties in a camper van: ‘It’s now less pleasant than it was in June’
‘The people who have come out strongest have learnt to work as communities’
As temperatures rose in July this year, prices for building plaster also happened to be soaring. Bags that usually cost £7 were selling for up to £70. People were stealing them from building sites as everyone from homeowners doing DIY through to professional building contractors struggled to get their hands on supplies, a consequence of manufacturing grinding to a halt during lockdown.
In a year that was far from normal in the construction trade, no one could predict whether there would be enough labour to complete a job, or if essential materials would be available. If you wanted to build anything in 2020, you had to cut your cloth accordingly.
Given the challenging state of affairs, it’s remarkable that the Grand Designs team had any finished projects to feature on the 21st series of the much-loved property show, which starts next week.
Unsurprisingly, the ones that have made it over the finish line aren’t the more exotic projects that viewers will be familiar with; the ones with fabulous custom-made kitchens imported from Italy, handcrafted tiles flown in from Turkey and the latest insulation innovation from Germany. Projects like those have been delayed.
Instead, the new-builds and renovations that have been completed on time are more in tune with the current mood of resilience and self-reliance: a radical barn reconstruction for a remarkable young couple defying illness to build a new life near Sevenoaks; a risk-taking, skydiving couple breathing new life into a 17th- century Cornish mill on the verge of collapse. In west London, an ex-soldier builds a giant subterranean extension to a listed lodge within the boundary of a cemetery and, in Lincolnshire, a local builder creates an enormous Dutch- influenced tileskinned home at breakneck speed.
“What we’ve got are a series of six projects that are projects for the times,” says host Kevin McCloud. “People have found ways of being resourceful; that is, of course, second nature to the selfbuilder.” The way this series’ homemakers have coped with the unforeseen challenges of a pandemic year is something that speaks to the thoughtful presenter and cherished ruminator. When we talk over the phone, he is in typically introspective mood, quoting from Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
“People always talk about ‘ the survival of the fittest’, but what Darwin actually wrote is: ‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change’, and that I find interesting. The people who have come out strongest this year are those who’ve learnt to work with each other as communities, households that work together, people who collaborate and co- operate. I thought that was really powerful.” There has been plenty of time for contemplation this year. McCloud, 61, who has suffered chronic asthma since his 20s, went into selfimposed lockdown in early March, even before the balloon went up. He hasn’t set foot in a shop since.
He says his home outside Bath, like everyone’s, turned from being a place of sanctuary, an impregnable fortress, to somewhere that felt under threat.
“I have a first line of defence in the hall with lots of proper alcohol sprays, just to be able to keep the thing at bay and stop it entering my home. And I’ve continued to take that really seriously.”
The notion of home for McCloud is immensely variable. “We talk about home nations, we talk about the globe. Home can be a street, a town, a country, a planet.”
But in terms of the building we live in, there is no doubt in his mind that Covid has felt like a violation of that sanctity and safety. He interprets the fervour behind the weekly clap for the NHS as a way for people to subconsciously reclaim those social spaces between our houses and make that public realm our own again.
He started to go outside again in late June, when he and the rest of the Grand Designs team endeavoured to follow through on the stories for the new series – which has been delayed from its scheduled September transmission – some of which had started three years ago. It’s been an odd experience.
There were no taxis and trains, no hotel stays, and no well- earned pint at the end of a long day of socially distanced filming.
Conscious of his pre- existing lung condition, McCloud bought a camper van and has spent hours driving all over the country, from Cornwall to Lincolnshire, and sleeping on board.
“It’s now less pleasant than it was in June,” he says. “But it’s the only way to do the job.”
It’s late afternoon as we talk, already dark outside. About 20 minutes in, McCloud tells me this is the longest he’s talked to anyone today. Fortunately, the solitude of self-isolation isn’t something he has struggled with.
His allotment has been a godsend, he says, and he has found himself with time to idle, enjoying the mental spaces that open up.
“There were a few weeks when I’d sit and look at the ceiling in my study, the weather was so good and there would be light bouncing off my chrome table lamp, making a pattern. I’d sit for 20 minutes in awe of the shapes they were making,” says McCloud.
“A friend similarly said he’d never noticed the way the light fell on the bookshelf before.”
These small details about our homes and the lives we live in them have been put under the microscope in 2020. So too, though, has been our lack of living space. Our homes have had unprecedented pressure on them as a result of us being cooped up in them for weeks on end, 24/7.
“It has strained the social infrastructure and the need that everybody has for both sociability and, of course, privacy,” says McCloud. “Traditionally, we found our private contemplation in spaces we could go to, whether that’s a church, a public garden, or even a pub at lunchtime. Now you have to try to find these spaces at home.”
He feels that’s an impossible ask of most domestic houses, given that we live in some of the smallest homes in Europe. He says he knows plenty of people in broadcasting who have turned downstairs loos into sound studios to record voice- overs; he himself has built a studio in his cellar using equipment bought second-hand online. With many homes desperate for more space, he predicts it won’t be long before Ikea releases a piece of furniture that can turn our landings into both spare bedrooms and home offices.
He has watched the pandemic’s impact on the housing market with interest, with growing numbers seeking new lives in less cramped conditions, taking advantage of the stamp duty holiday. He’s noted how London rentals have struggled while rural sales have been strong. Self-build plots have even been selling a little faster, despite the rising cost of land.
He wishes we had a housing market closer to that of Austria, where 86 per cent of new homes are built by the homeowners – either self-built or custom-designed: “And as a result they are beautifully built, highly sustainable, spacious, and relatively affordable.”
And he sees no reason why that can’t be possible in the UK.
“I don’t think I’m a socialist, but I find the open market model of land acquisition and reselling in order to return the value of land enormously corrosive,” he says. “It means we end up with extremely poor- quality housing, which is tiny, and sold at huge prices that no one can afford.”
While Covid will have done little to solve these problems, he hopes that, in the long term, it will enable as many people as possible to live more sustainable lives; a re- evaluated world where people aren’t prepared to go to the office five days a week, and which will have a positive impact on communities.
“You can see as people begin to base themselves in the countryside and villages out of London, how the need for infrastructure and support means that not only do we have to take more, but we have to give more.
“The home is no longer a dormitory, the village is no longer a dormitory. The post office becomes a place where you can get a coffee and print off A3 paper for a presentation.
“It becomes a place where people live and work as a community.”
In the meantime, with the fluctuating tier restrictions, the quiet life will continue for many of us, well into 2021. And as for Christmas: “I’m doing it in May, after the vaccine.”
McCloud and all the Grand Designs team feel enormously proud that they have managed to finish the series, given the difficulties of the past year.
“We’ve had to work harder and put more in, just as the people we film have done, to make it happen,” he says. “And it does mean much more to us as a result. Whether that’s tangible in the end, I’m not sure. I think what matters, as ever, is that the series is diverse and fresh, and we tackle subjects and ideas that we haven’t done before.”
That, after all these years, is what sustains him. “I often turn up on site tired and grumpy from getting up first thing when it’s dark,” he admits. “But by the end of the day, I feel invigorated, enthused and inspired by what these people are doing.
“If it was the opposite way round, I would have stopped long ago.”
Has this series and the events of the year changed the nature of what a Grand Design is? McCloud chuckles. “‘Grand’ only ever meant one thing in my head, which is to do with vision, to do with scale. It has nothing to do with money, and is much more about the leap that something might involve,” he says. “The relative hardship, pain and risk that something takes.
“I don’t like chequebook architecture. Paying for something is not the same as fighting for it.”
The new series of Grand Designs starts on Jan 6 on Channel 4 at 9pm