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- #desing
Kevin McCloud visita a una pareja que busca construir su casa moderna de alta tecnología en una tranquila calle del norte de Londres. Sarah y Coneyl llevan mucho tiempo soñando con el espacio perfecto para vivir y trabajar. Al no encontrar lo que buscaban, decidieron construir el suyo propio. Sin embargo, el sitio que encontraron está situado en una calle predominantemente eduardiana y compraron el terreno sin obtener primero el permiso de construcción.
Kevin McCloud visits a couple who are looking to build their hi-tech modern house in a quiet north London street. Sarah and Coneyl have long dreamt of the perfect work and living space. Unable to find what they were looking for they decided to build their own. However the site they have found is situated in a predominately Edwardian street, and they have purchased the land without first obtaining planning permission.
#architecture #art #desing
Kevin McCloud visits a couple who are looking to build their hi-tech modern house in a quiet north London street. Sarah and Coneyl have long dreamt of the perfect work and living space. Unable to find what they were looking for they decided to build their own. However the site they have found is situated in a predominately Edwardian street, and they have purchased the land without first obtaining planning permission.
#architecture #art #desing
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00:01It's definitely not going to be one of your pointy-roofed houses.
00:04If I want to live here now, it's going to be the longest ten weeks in history,
00:07you know, just because you want it to happen.
00:09Nobody, when they see this final thing, will expect it of us.
00:30London is currently being overwhelmed by a mass outbreak of modern millennium building
00:39that is transforming the capital.
00:41And wherever we live, most of us in Britain know and probably admire
00:46one local piece of avant-garde public architecture.
00:53But how would you feel if a high-tech building suddenly sprang up in your street?
00:57And for that matter, is it your idea of a dream home?
01:00Well, it's certainly a long-held dream of the couple I'm meeting this week,
01:04Sarah and Connell.
01:06We've been looking for somewhere for about three or four years
01:08that we could move into, possibly convert, change, you know,
01:11make it to a live workspace, whatever.
01:13But we just couldn't find anything.
01:15So I was talking to some architects who came to the conclusion
01:17that we could actually build somewhere.
01:19It seemed very far-fetched at the beginning, but at the end
01:21it seemed like a logical idea.
01:23So for better or worse, we took the plunge.
01:25Both Connell and I live for the moment, live for now.
01:28And so it seems to be absolutely perfect that we're creating a house
01:32that will be a 21st-century house.
01:35They're no strangers to modern design.
01:37Sarah Jordan makes award-winning contemporary jewellery,
01:40and Connell Jay is a freelance photographer.
01:42They want to live in a unique, modern space
01:45that'll also accommodate their businesses.
01:47What we do anyway in our working life, we always create new things.
01:52So it just seems like one step further to create a house
01:55and an environment for us to live in,
01:57which is something totally and utterly new.
01:59It's a challenge, a massive challenge.
02:02To build their 21st-century dream,
02:04they've employed architect Mike Tonkin.
02:06Ronald and Sarah being a jeweller and a photographer,
02:11that was the key for us.
02:12And we said that jewellery's about being looked at
02:16and attracting attention, and photography's about looking.
02:19So they're very nice, nicely opposed.
02:21So we said, well, let's just simply make two buildings that look at each other.
02:25What are you putting into this building which is jewell-like and is photographic?
02:29We've taken the house, and we said the house is like a jewel box.
02:32And the jewels are the objects in the house that you live with,
02:35so the bath becomes a jewel for washing in,
02:38and the kitchen becomes a jewel that you cook at.
02:40And each of the jewels have lights in that light up.
02:43And the studio we've actually made into a camera obscura,
02:46and it's working like a very, very large pinhole camera.
02:49It's dark inside, it has a black outline that comes down,
02:52and it'll have a small pinhole.
02:53A little hole in the black outline, and that will project an image of what?
02:57That'll project an image of a house upside down on the back of the studio.
03:01This is all in theory?
03:03In theory, yeah.
03:04So have you done this kind of domestic build before?
03:07We've not done a new build before, so...
03:10So this is your first complete new build?
03:12This is our first new building, yes.
03:14The design is for two buildings, a double-height studio and a house
03:19that face each other across a sunken water garden.
03:22This whole design is about the play of light.
03:27Vast glass walls flood the open-plan interior with sunlight,
03:32while the kitchen units have lighting built into them so they glow in the dark.
03:36Upstairs, on a mezzanine floor, the master bedroom and bathroom
03:40also feature custom-made furniture with built-in lighting.
03:44The house looks out across the flooded courtyard to the double-height studio at the opposite end of the site.
03:51A sheltered walkway on the left connects the two buildings,
03:54while on the right there's a long glass-walled wing containing bedrooms and Sarah's workshop,
03:59leading through to photographer Connell's studio.
04:03Taking advantage of the long tapering site, the studio will behave like a huge pin-hole camera.
04:10When the specially designed blinds are lowered, an image of the house will project itself onto the studio walls.
04:16They plan to use lots of newly developed materials and cutting-edge building methods,
04:21yet the frame of this very contemporary design will be built from the most ancient of materials, wood.
04:28But it'll be given an original finish, with a coating of white render mixed with glass beads.
04:34This way, the whole building will sparkle inside and out.
04:41So where else is this starkly contemporary piece of architecture being built,
04:45but in a quiet residential street in North London?
04:50Hello.
04:51Hello.
04:52How are you?
04:53Very well.
04:54I have to say, this place is not easy to find.
04:56It's kind of really tucked away.
04:57What did the place used to be? Is it garages?
05:00It's the old mechanics workshop.
05:01Really?
05:02And all these garages along here?
05:04Yeah.
05:05The whole site, which is quite large there.
05:06Yeah, it is.
05:07How's it going to work?
05:08I mean, because it's an extremely long, narrow position, isn't it?
05:11Yeah.
05:12The side is very thin.
05:13Well, sort of planning on moving a lot of the living accommodation over to the right-hand side,
05:18having bedrooms on the right-hand side here.
05:20At the front here, we're going to build an absolutely outstanding glittery box,
05:25and then to have the working at the rear of the site.
05:28At the far end, so it's going to be a long, thin building.
05:30Yeah, with a sort of garden in the centre.
05:32It's definitely not going to be one of your pointy-roofed houses.
05:35Show me out the back here.
05:37This was the garage, was it?
05:39I'm sure the local planners have views on Connell and Sarah's modern design.
05:43Yeah.
05:44Getting permission to build any new house is never straightforward.
05:47A good start is to buy a plot that already has planning permission,
05:50or find a plot with a derelict house that can be replaced.
05:54But Connell and Sarah are taking a different approach.
05:57So, has it gone through relatively easily?
05:59We're still waiting to get the final piece of paper at the moment.
06:02So you haven't actually got planning permission?
06:04No.
06:05We had no idea that we could even get planning permission.
06:07That's kind of breaking the first golden rule, isn't it?
06:09Yeah.
06:10When did you put in the application?
06:11July, last year.
06:12July 99.
06:13That's 11 months.
06:15We've just believed in what we wanted to do.
06:18I mean, we risked everything by buying the site without planning permission.
06:22Either we risk losing the land, or we got the land and then risk not getting planning permission.
06:27And risking the planning permission is a much better risk, I think,
06:31than risk trying to find this again.
06:32I mean, you're never going to find this again.
06:34Yeah.
06:35But the fact that you haven't got the paper,
06:38does that imply that you'll receive the paper soon,
06:41or could it be another 11 months before?
06:42We do believe that the planners will come through.
06:46But it's the one part of the process where you can not really force the issue.
06:51You have to go with the speed and the pace of which they work at.
06:55Basically, they've got our head in the noose.
06:57If they say no, then we stop. It's the end.
07:03Conal and Sarah have gone and bought a piece of land with no planning permission.
07:07So, are they mad or just naive?
07:10Well, in fact, theirs is quite a well-calculated risk,
07:14because the site already has a building on it,
07:16albeit one which is derelict, disused and light industrial,
07:20and it's squeezed in between houses and shops.
07:23So the chances are that the planners are going to want to change its use to residential.
07:28Having said that, I just don't know if they'll buy the avant-garde design
07:33in what is such a polite Edwardian street.
07:43A nail-biting year after first applying for planning permission,
07:47the architect, Mike, gets a response.
07:49Oh, I should have given you this before, really.
07:53Oh, my God! I don't believe it!
07:57I don't believe it!
08:01Oh, well done!
08:05Cheers!
08:09I think we're probably the most happy people in the whole of North London at the moment.
08:13It's been one absolutely amazing day, incredibly busy,
08:17and the best news that you could possibly have ever had.
08:21Very unexpected. I mean, I think we've wasted a long while for it,
08:25and it was worth the patience, and it was worth keeping cool.
08:29They're all up for some modern design.
08:31To be honest, it seems almost unreal that we've actually got it,
08:34because we've stopped ourselves getting excited for so long,
08:37because until you've actually got this piece of paper
08:40that we've been talking about for so long as well,
08:42it's like, can it really be true?
08:45We can actually, actually do this most dreamlike thing.
08:51To pay for the new build, Connell and Sarah are selling the family home
08:55that Connell's lived in his whole life.
08:58They're renting a flat nearby for the duration of the build.
09:06It's all going now. Everything else has kind of fallen into place,
09:08and the house is ready for sale, and we've found a flat to move to,
09:12and that's it. It's a green light, really.
09:15It's a major day. It's a really, really big day.
09:18It is like the first day of the rest of the life, really.
09:23Some sentimental sort of attachments to memories here, which is obvious,
09:27but it's kind of outweighed by the excitement of,
09:29this is one step closer to what we're trying to do, sort of dream.
09:31You can sign off the past now and go to the future with, like, no fears whatsoever.
09:37Connell and Sarah are hoping to start on site in two weeks.
09:46They're using every inch of their land by building right up to the edge of the site.
09:50But in a built-up area like this, that means a lot of neighbours
09:53and a lot of time-consuming negotiations.
09:56Two weeks turns into two months.
09:59But Mike's confident that once they get started, it will be a fast-track build.
10:04Now we've got the contractor appointed and the start on site.
10:09It's 21 weeks construction time.
10:12It's a fast programme we're working to,
10:14but all of the techniques we're using and the construction methods
10:18mean we should be able to produce a building on time.
10:21Like the architect, the main building contractors have never built anything like this before,
10:26but they're showing the same confidence.
10:29So, Bob, you're running this job?
10:31I am.
10:32The build is 20 weeks, plus you've got a week off for Christmas, haven't you?
10:35That's right.
10:36So, is that doable?
10:38Oh, yeah, it's easily doable.
10:41It's probably a little bit more than we need.
10:45A little bit generous?
10:46In places.
10:47Quid pro quo.
10:48Absolutely.
10:49Do you think you'll be in more or less on schedule?
10:52We'll be on schedule, yes.
10:54I'm really curious to see if a house can be built in 20 weeks,
10:59let alone an ambitious piece of modern architecture.
11:02Work finally begins on site with the demolition of the old garages.
11:07The fast-track build starts out at a snail's pace.
11:11It's not really a demolition, it's more of a dismantling
11:13because the buildings have to be contained down very carefully.
11:17We're surrounded by about nine neighbours and obviously don't want anything that we do to affect their business, their home or whatever.
11:28Demolition may go slower than expected, but after waiting two years, Conall and Sarah aren't complaining.
11:35Today I've started taking up all of the old garage doors and slowly knocking down, all by hand.
11:42Things are happening, it's moving, it's like a running elephant now, you can't get in the way, you can't stop it.
11:47But it's exciting and scary in equal measures because suddenly it's becoming a real thing, it's not abstract.
11:52It's like the feeling when we first decided that we were going to build and design our own house,
11:58we were really, really excited then.
12:00And then in between there's been like tons of hassle and now we've come out the other end
12:04where actually it is actually being built for us and that is just really exciting.
12:09To make this a record breaking fast build, Mike's using a series of technical innovations,
12:23some of which have never been used in a domestic build, like the steel micro piles he's using as foundations.
12:30Most houses are built on concrete filled trenches, but here the entire building will be raised completely off the ground on hollow steel rods.
12:40The micro piles are drilled six metres into the ground.
12:44Cement slurry is then pumped through them into the earth below where it spreads and sets to form a solid base.
12:51Bob, these big galvanised brackets here are going to carry the main beams.
12:59They carry the main beams of the floor, aren't they, of the building?
13:01That's right.
13:02The whole building sits on these?
13:04It sits on these with the primary supports for the building running through here, full length of the building.
13:09Blimey. So how many are there?
13:10There are 83.
13:12Blimey, that's a lot, isn't there?
13:13It is.
13:14And what's it used for?
13:15It's actually normally used for embankment stabilisation.
13:18Where an embankment, I mean recently with rail tracks floods, they've lost a lot of embankment.
13:23This is the sort of thing that would go back and stitch it all together.
13:26You stitch it together and you fill it with concrete and you stop the bank from slipping down that way.
13:31That's right.
13:32But this is an entirely different use because this is taking weight in compression, isn't it?
13:36It is, but in compression it's actually a little bit better than it would be in tension.
13:40Yeah, it's a kind of wonderful new use for it.
13:42A new use for it.
13:43Yeah.
13:44And it's so much quicker than conventional foundations.
13:47I'm just amazed no one's thought of it before.
13:52In his quest for speed, Mike's not afraid to use mass market construction methods.
13:57He's having the framework of the house manufactured off-site in a timber factory.
14:02They'll prefabricate all the timber panels here.
14:08The details that we've done, I think, is going to make the package quite straightforward to put together on site.
14:12All the thinking of it will have been done at this end before we hit the site.
14:16And we're probably going to be looking at maybe a time span of two and a half weeks, hopefully, on site, getting the superstructure up.
14:25Once on site, the panels will just have to be bolted together like a giant Meccano set.
14:31And as such, construction should be child's play.
14:37This is a 20-week build, which is very tight.
14:41There's not much room for manoeuvre.
14:42They're six weeks in, and they're already a week and a half behind.
14:47But today is the day that the timber frame arrives,
14:50which means that within two weeks, Sarah and Connell should have the skeleton of their new house.
14:57The first delivery from the factory is the floor panels.
15:00These are simply bolted onto wooden beams that sit on top of the micro piles.
15:03The builders get off to a flying start, and it doesn't take long to map out the footprint of the house.
15:13Are you pleased, though, with what you've got so far?
15:24It's great seeing it sort of take shape after it's just all been discussions and talks and papers and facts.
15:28We went away, and there were just pretty much the drains here.
15:32And we came back, and they started to put the whole floor pan and the piles were all there,
15:37so you could sort of see the space and where the rooms were going.
15:40And that was pretty amazing, actually.
15:42You've got a real sense of how, you know, this whole size and perspective and everything.
15:45And now this is up, you get a sort of indication of the size of the courtyard, don't you,
15:50and the walkway and the rooms the size.
15:52And now you're seeing the real thing.
15:54It just, well, I want to put my sleeping bag down and come down here.
15:57I want to live here now, that's the thing, isn't it?
15:59It's like, you're going to be the longest ten or twelve weeks in history, you know,
16:03just because you want it to happen.
16:05Ten weeks may seem a long time to them, but when you're making a building,
16:09time can pass all too quickly.
16:15This is the cloister that connects Connell and Sarah's dual house at the front with their photography studio at the back.
16:26Now, according to the schedule, all the timber work on the site should now be up.
16:31Unfortunately, neither the house nor the studio have even been started.
16:36They're three weeks behind, and they're on a 20-week fast-track schedule.
16:41So what I want to know is, how are they going to make up the difference?
16:45So now, Mike, you're already, what, two and a half, nearly three weeks late on it, so why's that?
16:55It's happened a couple of reasons. The pile caps didn't get galvanised, which is a sort of silly mistake.
17:02You spec them as being galvanised?
17:04We spec them as galvanised, so they had to go into a queue to get galvanised in a galvanising bar.
17:08And that's just somebody forgetting?
17:10Somebody just forgot. I mean, the building process is thousands of people making decisions,
17:13and just needs one person in that chain to somehow get it wrong.
17:18And the whole apple cart's sort of tipped.
17:22So that's what's happened to us here.
17:24And then we're having a few problems with the timber frame, and most of it should have been here now.
17:30There are loads of panels here, but these are not the right panels.
17:32These are the roof panels, but they built the roof panels first because that's the easy bit.
17:37The tricky details are on the wall panels, and so they're building those.
17:41They're slightly behind.
17:42You'd think that they would build the wall panels first because you put them up.
17:45I would build a difficult one first.
17:47Well, you'd put them up first. You'd want to put the floor down, and then the walls, and then the roof goes on last.
17:51The building's very simple, but some of the joints are quite complicated.
17:54OK.
17:55Because although the building is just two boxes looking at each other, when it's finished it'll be very seamless.
18:00A lot of the complexity is actually inside the joint, so a lot of the clever structural work is actually hidden.
18:06Now, you chose the joinery company because they came with the best quote, I guess.
18:11They were relatively cheap.
18:13Yeah, they had the best price.
18:14Yeah.
18:15Do you think, on reflection, perhaps they might not quite be up to it?
18:19Well...
18:20It's just that it's not like a regular house.
18:22Yeah.
18:23Is it also something quite ambitious for them?
18:25I think so, and maybe it's quite complicated for them.
18:29Building always takes a long time.
18:30I think Alvar Aalto said, if you want a building, you can have it quite quickly.
18:33If you want a piece of architecture, you're going to have to wait.
18:37That's not good news for a fast-track build.
18:40The first batch of wall panels arrive in the new year, and the framework can start to go up.
18:51There's nothing revolutionary about timber frame houses, but the way this house is being put together is far from ordinary.
18:59Conventional timber-panelled houses rely on a skin of plywood and a frame of thick, chunky soft wood.
19:16Now, when these are nailed together, you're always going to get a degree of movement between the two.
19:21So how do builders get over that?
19:22Well, what they do is they stick loads and loads and loads of nails in.
19:26They use really solid, thick, chunky timbers.
19:29They use loads of them, and then they put internal partition walls in your house, which help brace the whole structure.
19:35But Connell and Sarah don't want lots of internal walls breaking up their space.
19:41They want a big, open, plan house.
19:44And so to help them, the architect and the engineer have gone right back to basic engineering principles,
19:50and they've designed a system of timber framing that nobody's ever used before.
19:54They're using a glue which performs rather like welding does on steel.
20:05It forms a really tight bond between two pieces of metal,
20:09just as the glue forms a really tight intimate joint between the piece of plywood and the softwood on it.
20:15And the result of that is there's absolutely no flex in it at all.
20:20But at the sub-zero temperatures of early January, the glue isn't drying,
20:27and the builders are constantly having to reset the timber.
20:31On top of that, a lot of the panels are having to be tweaked on site to get them to fit.
20:38I've been working on timber frame for about 12 years now,
20:42and this is, I've never done a timber frame house like this before in the 12 years I've worked.
20:47It's very complex.
20:50There's a lot of gluing, a lot of bolting, a lot of rebates,
20:54and it's just different than we've ever done before.
20:58It's not really going quite as smoothly as planned.
21:02Pre-fabrigating the frame in a factory was meant to save time on site.
21:07I think basically they just maybe overlooked how much work was involved in this building,
21:15because a typical timber frame, what I call a timber frame,
21:18would basically have been finished in anything from seven, ten days.
21:22As it is, assembling this framework has taken three weeks, and they're not even halfway.
21:30Conal and Sarah return in February from a business trip, hoping to find their house up.
21:36We've just got back from Japan, and we went to the site on the Sunday when we got back in the evening,
21:44and we were obviously expecting to see all the rest of the timber frame up,
21:48and we thought, hmm, looks as if something's gone a little bit wrong here.
21:52After a handful of pretty usual delays, an act of God brings an unmitigated disaster.
21:59There's been a fire in the timber frame factory.
22:04They've lost their machinery, tools, and all the detailed drawings to make the panels.
22:10I was woken up about five past one on a Saturday morning,
22:13and basically we were informed that the workshop was on fire.
22:17We didn't really know what to expect, other than the fact that we could see, you know,
22:21a big chimney effect of flame and steam rising on the horizon sort of thing,
22:25and obviously we realised as we got nearer that it was our workshop we was going.
22:30That's wiped out all of the manufacturing facility,
22:33and obviously the follow-on from that has been that we can't get the stuff onto site when it should have been.
22:39With the schedule now spiralling out of control, Mike calls an emergency meeting.
22:45So, to fill you in a bit more with the news on the fire,
22:49we've lost some time, but it's obviously caused a sort of complete hiccup in the system.
22:57The fire throws the schedule completely out,
23:00and Mike's given up all hope of making up lost time.
23:04They're now looking at running a minimum of four weeks over their programme.
23:10At least Conal and Sarah won't suffer financially.
23:13They've been smart enough to negotiate a fixed-price deal with their contractors,
23:17which means they've aggrieved a total price for the build regardless of how long it takes.
23:22In one respect it doesn't really matter because we're not dependent on having to move into the house on a certain date,
23:30but on the other side it's incredibly frustrating because we really want to be there now.
23:35Even with a few weeks delay it's still a quick build compared to a traditional build.
23:39So that's still a good thing, but it's frustrating because you still do want to be in there, you know,
23:45and sooner the better really.
23:49The factory pulls out all the stops and manages to deliver the remaining panels an amazing ten days after the fire.
23:56While the timber frame contractors finish off the house frame, the roofers are making a start on the studio and the covered walkway.
24:16Mike's chosen another innovative technique to use on the roof, a flat waterproof membrane.
24:24This is made up of a vapour barrier that's heat-sealed to the timber roof.
24:29Once that layer's cooled, insulation's sandwiched between it and a final waterproofing surface.
24:34This kind of membrane roofing is more often used on big-budget commercial projects.
24:49But Mike's keen to use a top-end product instead of the cheaper option of roofing felt or tiles
24:55to guarantee that on a totally flat roof like this the surface will be 100% waterproof.
25:00It's another example of how Mike's borrowing methods and products from commercial building.
25:06It's tactics like this that'll make his design unique.
25:10This build seems to push all the boundaries in terms of its design and its construction.
25:16For example, down here, these steel and concrete micro-piles which normally are used to reinforce motorway embankments,
25:23but which here are supporting the whole building.
25:26And the surprisingly thin roof panel section which relies on glue rather than masses of timber for its strength.
25:39And the reflective concrete render which is going to be made with little glass beads.
25:45Now each of these ideas may seem risky and experimental, but in fact they're all proven in their own areas.
25:52If Mike's taking a risk here at all, it's in bringing these different technologies together in one house.
25:59But I think that's a risk worth taking because the result is going to be a very interesting building.
26:05Are there any glue knocked up, Ad?
26:07It may look like the building's just starting to go up, but it's enough to give Conal and Sarah a glimpse of their new home.
26:17So is this space working out as you thought it would?
26:19I think it's working out better than we thought it would, to be honest.
26:22I mean, you see the model and you imagine things being quite small, but you're actually standing here and you can get a real feeling of the double height void that'll be here.
26:29Yeah.
26:30And the whole width of the lounge.
26:31I was quite sort of worried that the rooms were going to seem too small over there.
26:35But when you're standing in it, it seems like...
26:37It seems fine.
26:38But it starts to create its own little world and I think that's really interesting.
26:40It makes me think we're probably going to never leave once we get in.
26:42So now you can see the structure coming along. How are you planning the interiors? What are they going to look like?
26:51Very simple, basically. I'm trying to make something that's going to last and just be hard wearing.
26:56It will actually look better the more it gets worn.
26:58I suppose it's like a sort of interpretation of places that we've always been really happy and felt at home with.
27:04There's also some of the old temples in Japan.
27:06Yeah.
27:07It has the idea of a courtyard and a very calm space in the centre and then the rooms around the outside.
27:12So will it in any way look, then, Japanese? Will it have an oriental quality?
27:18I think it'll have the calmness that you feel.
27:20There are certain elements.
27:21The sereneness of being...
27:22The idea of a courtyard is definitely a Japanese story.
27:25Yeah.
27:26And there are definitely themes, I think, and elements and flavours, but it's not strictly trying to copy something else.
27:31If you've got a kind of clean slate to start building, you might as well go for your sort of wildest ideas.
27:36Connell and Sarah are both frequent visitors to Japan for their work, and it's obviously an important source of inspiration for them.
27:46I went with them to look around a brand new bar in London that has a Japanese design to get a better understanding of the look they're planning.
27:54Listening to how you describe your place, I'd have thought there's quite a lot of those elements in this bar, no?
28:02I mean, self-coloured materials, wood, that kind of thing?
28:05I mean, the textures and the feel and the look does have a sort of similarity, but our interpretation is completely different.
28:12It's much simpler.
28:13It's a lot more decorative, the sort of finishes and the detailing here, than what we're going to have.
28:18I think we've paired things down.
28:19I mean, there's similar influences here. There is a similar palette. There's a darkness to it that will be appropriate to the colours that we're using.
28:26So, natural materials, self-coloured materials, simple.
28:31Yeah. But there is an ambience here which I think is quite interesting. You know, the sort of large areas of light, you're not aware of any specific specular sort of lights either.
28:39So there's no harsh glare, there's no obvious light sources, it's a kind of gentle...
28:44The studio will be dark, but the living area will be quite light, so it should be a lot more open.
28:49But it will vary. At night time you'll have light coming from the furniture, and it'll make it softer, more ambient, perhaps more intimate at night time.
28:55In the daytime you'll have the light coming from the very big windows, and that should open the space out.
29:00So it'll have two different stories going on, I think.
29:04Connell and Sarah's interior is inspired by more than just a love of the Far East.
29:09They have a collection of different images on CD-ROM that they gave Mike as part of the original design brief.
29:16We've made up a scrapbook of things that we've seen just from magazines or things that we've photographed.
29:21And these ones are actually holiday snaps. Yeah.
29:24But it was just like the atmosphere, they sort of show the difference in textures, say from the sea to the sand to the bizarre rocks that are there.
29:32They give you all that natural feeling.
29:34Looking through these scrolling images, you seem to have quite a lot of early sort of modern movement architecture, don't you?
29:41Really modernist stuff, yeah? And then you've got all these landscapes with kind of, you know, wonderful soft natural textures.
29:46And then you've got these very formal Japanese interiors with sliding screens.
29:50So is it literally a sort of melded sort of combination of those ideas?
29:54The whole thing, we feel, sort of ties together.
29:57Even though you have got the modern, you've got the hard, you've got the soft.
30:01It's just a whole palette which just combines.
30:04Trying to take it forward, because it needs to be something that's of this time,
30:09not something that's trying to repeat a previous design or a previous time or a previous solution.
30:13And hopefully, you know, that's what we're doing, we're taking the best of those things, the simple ideas.
30:17To begin with, really, we didn't realise that we could create absolutely something totally fresh from scratch.
30:24We didn't have to copy or use anything else that was there already.
30:28We could just, it could be brand new.
30:30Nobody, when they see this final thing, will expect it of us.
30:34This is like the real us.
30:36So, Mike's turning a scrapbook of holiday snaps into a cutting edge piece of architecture.
30:42I wonder how?
30:44Well, I think when people give you images like that, it's very useful because you look at the images not as an image, but as a value.
30:50So, if they show you a picture of a sort of all-white house, it doesn't mean they want an all-white house.
30:54It means they want a house full of light, for instance.
30:57Images that are about nature and the beach and the pebbles and the trees,
31:01and they're telling you about their love of nature and light.
31:04In a way, those are the really important ones.
31:06I mean, I think they're much more important for me than the sort of architectural images.
31:11So, I think you have to always read between the lines.
31:14To give Conal and Sarah the light-filled home they want, Mike's making four whole walls entirely out of glass.
31:23It's not just any glass either.
31:39These huge sheets cost £3,000 each, and they had to be ordered from Germany 16 weeks ago.
31:46We've only seen a sample this big so far, so seeing them that huge is just amazing.
31:52Just different angles. Fantastic.
32:04Glass walls sound great.
32:06But, of course, Conal and Sarah don't want to be on public display.
32:10So, for the wall facing the street, Mike's using another obscure product,
32:15consisting of miniature plastic tubes, sandwiched between two sheets of glass.
32:21Because they're angled up, these tubes allow you to catch a glimpse of the sky,
32:26but prevent anyone outside from seeing in.
32:31It's taken four months to get this far,
32:34and the structure is only beginning to look like a house.
32:38But, you can see a very daring building starting to emerge.
32:46It's March, and according to the original schedule, Conal and Sarah should be moving in around now.
32:53But, I don't think they're going to be having their house warming for, what, at least another month.
32:59Getting the builders in is always unpredictable.
33:02But, here, with such an experimental project, I have to say, I'm surprised they're not any further behind than a month.
33:09There's still a long way to go, but as the last sheets of glass are fitted, they're finally making the building watertight.
33:21Time for the traditional topping-out ceremony.
33:28That's one milestone they've managed to reach.
33:33But, by now, any hopes of the fast-track build are long forgotten.
33:37Conal and Sarah are only just beginning to discuss the internal finishes that might once for the house.
33:48He's taking them to see a rather surprising material that he's used on an earlier project.
33:54Viroc, which is MDF to you and me.
34:03This is a Viroc flooring here, and this is a floor we're going to be using in the low area of the low building, basically.
34:11Is it sanded?
34:12This has been sanded, yeah.
34:13Which is why you can see it coming through to the wood element of it as well.
34:18I like it rougher, I think. It's pretty good, isn't it?
34:21Yeah, you like it, it's good.
34:22Yeah.
34:23The colour's quite nice, it's grey, but it's got a warmth to it as well.
34:25Yeah.
34:28So, this is Viroc unsanded.
34:31This material's running all the way along the colonnade, and also in the low building, all the way along the side building.
34:37Inside and out.
34:38Inside and out, yeah.
34:39I'd much prefer this.
34:41Yeah, but that's what you get with the stone, if you cut stone, you'd get unevenness and that whole roughness, wouldn't you?
34:46Yeah.
34:47So, these are basically the MDF cupboards.
34:50This MDF has been stained with an emulsion that's been watered down.
34:55Right.
34:56So, the idea is you can still see the texture of the MDF underneath, so you're still being sort of honest about the material, but you're transforming it slightly.
35:02I like the contrast, the way it defines the shape, because you're still getting that rhythm of lines and the rhythm of rectangles, which ties into everything else.
35:09This is made of a material phylon that we were going to use in the low building.
35:15Right.
35:16And I'm going to persuade you to use it again, actually, but this time on the screen in the second bedroom.
35:21I like it that it looks like ice.
35:22I mean, that's...
35:23I think really...
35:24I think I'd still like to see different options, though, because I'm a bit worried about the darkness of the rooms.
35:28Right.
35:29Like, reflecting into it.
35:30Okay, I can see I'm not going to get my own way this time.
35:32I'll show you some more choices.
35:34It was really good to see the place that Mike's just recently finished. The finishes and the quality of the finishes were very, very good.
35:42Seeing material in large scales as opposed to small little swatches was really good. And, you know, the size of walls or the size of floors.
35:48And just seeing the gaps between the materials, like the way rock, you know, one mil gap or two mil gap, how does it feel in an actual room?
35:55As for the exterior, Mike had planned to coat the entire building in a white render that sparkles just like a jewel, using a technique he's borrowed from a typically unusual source.
36:10I once saw some men putting white lines on the road and realised that the reason lines glow is because they have these tiny glass beads in.
36:19We then went out and found a company that was making white lines in the road, got some beads and gave them to the render company.
36:26We did think they could just put it on like a pebble dash, but because it's so fine, the guns that usually fire that don't work for it, so it had to be put on by hand.
36:37But innovation comes at a cost.
36:40I got my quote a couple of weeks ago, and it was basically £7,500 more than we had in the contract.
36:48As we just had some cost overruns on the drainage, I'm afraid the drainage ain't my render.
36:53Because of building regulations, we've had to put double drains in at vast, vast expense. It actually cost us £24,000.
37:01And because of that reason, something had to go and it was the render.
37:06And it would look fantastic, but I think at the end of the day we'd start to make some compromises.
37:12So, they've had to settle for a plain white render, but one specially designed for wooden buildings.
37:19It's a shame, because we've lost our glowing building in a way.
37:24It's the middle of April, seven weeks after Connell and Sarah were hoping to move in.
37:30Indoors, the builders are only just getting round to the first fix, putting in electrics and insulation.
37:36Mike's opted for recycled newspaper that can be blown directly into the wall cavities.
37:41The plumbing and underfloor heating are also going in.
37:45The finished floors and walls in fact won't look much different, because they're going for materials like chipboard and MDF.
37:54It's nearly the end of May, and despite all the setbacks, from here it looks like Sarah and Connell have got there.
38:23Hi. Hi. Good to see you. How are you? Hi, how are you doing? Yeah. Very well. Good, good.
38:51I'm excited. What an amazing space, what an amazing view down the end.
38:56But, er, it's not finished. Not quite, no.
39:00This is the kitchen here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's going to go where here?
39:04This is a central island. Yes.
39:07Over here we're going to have the sink, and then here is going to be the hob.
39:11And it's backed by this enormous glass wall.
39:14The glass is like a honeycomb of straws that is angled upwards.
39:18It's designed for, like, er, glass scrapers to stop heat coming in, so they're normal angle it the other way, so the heat doesn't come into the building.
39:23Right.
39:24But we've flipped it around and done it the other way, so light comes in.
39:26It needs to say Mike is the first person to use it that way. Something like that, yeah.
39:30So that's natural light. Artificial light in here is provided by what?
39:35Well, these are all the jewel items here. I mean, the honeycomb...
39:38These cupboards? Yeah.
39:39Yeah. They're all going to have fluorescent lights inside, and a lot of the light of the space is going to be provided by these.
39:45Beautiful. It's very delicate as well. It's very fragile.
39:47Yeah, it was very. Yeah.
39:48So this area here is your living room? Yeah.
39:50Is that correct? Yes.
39:52I mean, this morning it is bathed in light, isn't it?
39:56It's going to be so beautiful. It's just going to be fantastic sitting here and reading the papers and drinking coffee on a Sunday morning.
40:01And what's this flooring that's going to go down?
40:03It's actually just chipboard, and it's been painted just with white paint.
40:07So it's the same stuff that's on the wall here, isn't it?
40:10Yeah. The whole of this space is all going to be chipboard.
40:13It's stained white. It's a bit like Japanese paper.
40:15So that's going to fill the entire space. It's going to cover everything.
40:18This whole box will go all the way around.
40:20Glass, white rock board, and a few jewels, and that's it, isn't it, really? And light. It's very, very simple.
40:30There's only one room above the living space, the master bedroom.
40:36Great space up here, isn't it? This is your bedroom, yeah?
40:41And bathroom.
40:42Yeah.
40:43Where's the bathroom going to go?
40:44There's going to be a bench across here with a bath setting and a sink next to it.
40:48So where's the toilet going?
40:50The toilet is here. It's within a jewel. It's basically a freestanding cupboard.
40:54And you can go around either side into the bedroom.
40:56In the middle of the room. It's stood in the middle of the room.
40:58Yeah. On this side here is the loo, and on the other side is a wardrobe.
41:03So it's a wardrobe backed onto a freestanding cupboard that you can walk all the way around, in which there is the pan.
41:09Yeah.
41:10It's like a 21st century privy inside the house.
41:15You've got quite a view, haven't you, from here. I mean, downstairs it's very private, but up here you can be seen from those houses over there, can't you?
41:22Yeah, yeah. But here we've got the blind, which is going to come up, and that will give it the privacy.
41:26Well, that would be just all about here, wouldn't it?
41:27Yeah.
41:28Yeah.
41:29This will then seem like a separate room, whereas at the moment it seems like it feels as if it's part of the whole thing.
41:34It does feel like all of a sudden we're in the south of France, we're on a holiday somewhere, maybe in Italy, doesn't it?
41:38Yeah.
41:39Because of the amount of light that's just coming into the space. Even now, unpainted, unfinished.
41:42But despite that, it still is a one-bedroom building, isn't it, this?
41:47Well, except for the side...
41:48Well, there's rooms down the side which are also bedrooms. They can be bedrooms, they can be whatever you want them to be.
41:54In conventional terms, it's a one-bedroom house.
41:57Me, isn't it?
41:58It's a very expensive one-bedroom house.
42:00I love this view down here.
42:02It's great.
42:03All the way down that corridor.
42:04And all the way down the side here, up all these colonnade parts, we're going to grow robinia and jasmine.
42:10And from here, you look across and...
42:12Yeah.
42:13Well, this is obviously the other...
42:14In this exact mirror, you can see the rooms on the other side.
42:15Yeah.
42:16And this leads right back to the studio.
42:19This is a very different space, isn't it, to the house.
42:23It's a higher ceiling than the main living area downstairs.
42:27Yeah.
42:28And what's it going to be used for?
42:29Is this your studio, photography studio?
42:31A whole sort of multi-purpose space, really.
42:33Is it going to be any different over there?
42:34It's going to be a darker finish.
42:36You're going for...
42:37Slightly based on some of the Japanese ideas.
42:40This is like a stained MDF, which is very, very stable and solid.
42:43Now, what about the pinhole camera?
42:45Because that's the blind, presumably.
42:47Yeah, the blind's in, so...
42:48Yeah?
42:49I mean, does it work?
42:50We had a practice ago with sheets of card and bits of paper.
42:52What?
42:53Here?
42:54Or on the model?
42:55No, here.
42:56Okay.
42:57Half worked.
42:58Is there an optimum time of day when that happens?
42:59No, when it's brightest at that end, like...
43:01Like now?
43:02Like now, for example.
43:17Outside, at least, this house looks nearly finished.
43:20The elegant, super-thin construction, the gleaming white paint and the expanses of glass
43:27all suggest delicacy and lightness.
43:34But there's more.
43:36This is an enclosed space, which mirrors itself.
43:40The reflections keep presenting, like the camera obscura, new illusions of more space.
43:46But the greatest triumph of this design has to be the way the two main buildings,
43:51jewel box and camera gaze at each other across the water as though in love.
43:57Mike has brilliantly engineered this relationship by building the pair of connecting corridors,
44:03one of which is divided into rooms, one of which is an open walkway.
44:07These link the main buildings and are sufficiently tall to exclude the rest of the world.
44:13In this tranquil, poised and very romantic space, you could be almost anywhere in the world.
44:32So now, the 21-week super-fast build on this project, that was originally envisaged, didn't quite happen like that.
44:41It's a bit like life itself, I think. Things are difficult, so building is a really difficult process.
44:46Yeah.
44:47You know, it's a bit medieval, frankly.
44:50So what have you learned from the process?
44:52You need an awful lot of energy and you need to put in a sort of 150%.
44:56If you want to do something that hasn't necessarily been done, you need to keep pushing and pushing and pushing.
45:01Sometimes the harder you try, maybe the harder it is because you're making your own standards.
45:08So it's hard.
45:10Do you feel that this is your house? Or is this a house that belongs to Mike that he's going to give you?
45:19Um, it's our house. It's got, I think it's got, Mike has basically picked up on all of our sort of sensitivities and put them in here.
45:28But in his own personal way. And we're, you know, pretty much totally in tune. And I think that has been so key to this whole project.
45:37We've had a fixed, specific budget for this job.
45:40Well, it seems to me that the projects don't really work in that way. You talk about fixed budget. And that's, that's...
45:46Some do.
45:47Yeah, but that is a fairly naive point of view because it's like, which budget are you talking about? The first budget you had when you started talking about it? The first budget it was costed at? Or the first budget when people started putting real figures together?
45:57But do you know how much it's cost you so far? Have you kept a tally?
46:01Er, sort of.
46:02And what's it work out at?
46:04Quite a lot.
46:05A lot.
46:06I reckon it's cost you 450,000.
46:08We're a bit too drawn on that, but...
46:10Probably plus the site, I'd say.
46:12But, er, yeah.
46:13Yeah.
46:14I don't know.
46:15You're kind of in the ballpark, basically.
46:16I mean, I must admit, selling's not in our mind at all. It's like, have we actually done something that we wanted to do? Would it make us happy? And that's the main thing, really.
46:23That's the most important thing.
46:24And that's at all that is yes.
46:25And that's at all that so far is yes, yeah.
46:27Exactly.
46:28Talking sometimes and we think, God, we must be mad to do this. Why are we doing this? Our lives could have been so peaceful and we've added on this extra stress for about two years, I suppose, and we've been through all this stress.
46:41But then you think, but I really wanted to. I had to do it.
46:45That's a whole creative thing, isn't it? You make something because it doesn't exist. It's like we couldn't find it, so we had to make it.
46:54Some might label this house a modernist, impersonal glass box. But forget the labels. It's actually very personal to Connell and Sarah. They see it as a simple, private, modest home.
47:09More importantly, they can now recognise it as the space they've always dreamed of living in. And Mike's genius has been to deliver them that intimate dream. It don't come cheap. It don't come easy. But it's well worth the wait.
47:25But when you come in, it starts to reveal itself. It's like the more you get to know it, the better it gets, really. You know?
47:43It feels like the place I've always imagined to live in and be in. It feels natural to be here.
47:52It feels natural to be here.
47:53It feels natural to be here.
47:54It feels natural to be here.
47:55It feels natural to imagination.
47:56It feels natural to normal to yourself.
47:57Oh, you think I'm here?
47:58It is anemic reality.
47:59Hm, it feels natural to me.
48:00It feels natural to me.
48:03And each other is, it feels natural to me.
48:04It feels natural to me.
48:09And every day I've always imagined toDB.
48:10When you're living in the house today.
48:12It feels natural, to get changed my life.
48:14So the name of
48:16Lothar Sarawenne Graham
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