Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud fears lack of projects in recession will hit TV show

 
On reflection: Kevin McCloud says modern buildings made of glass lack confidence
Rod Kitson29 April 2014

Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud has claimed the programme’s future could be threatened by fewer people embarking on ambitious builds after the recession.

A new series airs in the autumn, but its makers are concerned they may not have enough content.

McCloud told the Standard: “In the last six years everything has slowed down and we’ve found it hard — and we’re still finding it hard — to put series together because projects take so much longer than they used to.

“We’re airing in September, and if we were just waiting for the final piece we’d be relaxed, but we’re trying to get projects together. Especially because of this last very wet winter. Building doesn’t follow the schedule that TV executives do, that’s for sure.”

But he said that the constraints had helped produce some of the “best programmes, because the buildings have been more interesting as a result” as people are forced to think creatively.

He said the new series of the show includes a “young architect building a wooden house in Cornwall”, and, “an enormous circular house in Milton Keynes”.

“It represents Grand Designs at its best — people out on the margins trying stuff which most of us wouldn’t tackle, but they, bless them, with their questioning minds, manage to pull off.

“But if I think it’s going to be a crap building we don’t make the programme. There’s enough crap on TV already,” he added.

The 55-year-old hosts the Grand Designs Live exhibition at the ExCel Centre from May 3.

An advocate of conservation, he said he believed modern buildings in London were not built to last more than “25, 30, or 50 years”.

“No one is designing buildings with the pride of wanting to make something last,” he said. “When Wren built St Paul’s Cathedral I think he thoroughly expected it to last 1,000 years. We don’t do that anymore, which is an enormous shame.

“I look around the contemporary buildings going up around London and I think to myself, where is the confidence to speak of our time?

“Glass-walled buildings of the last 10 years say it all. They try not to be there, they are reflecting everything else.” McCloud said he lived in the capital “for about three minutes” before selling up and moving to Somerset.

“Did I leave any design faux pas? Yeah, I ripped out all the original features, installed plastic double glazing and stuck hardboard all over the doors,” he joked.

Speaking of the housing squeeze in London, the presenter said new models of home ownership could help get young people on the ladder.

He said: “The old model of either owning or renting seems so crude. To break down that traditional ownership model can help make stuff more affordable ... Which means we stop thinking about our home as a piece of investment, and start thinking about it as a place where we live and understand that for it to function properly, community has to flourish and we have to create places that are affordable.”

He said “one of the great problems in London” was that the housing market was “propped up by foreign nationals buying up residential property”.

“That’s not the way you build communities,” he said.

“As a developer you can counteract that by doing all sorts of things to ensure that your potential customers and residents are people who need to and want to live in that part of the world. It’s not difficult to do.”

A spokesman from the makers of Grand Designs said: "The Bafta nominated series is commissioned up until 2016 and many of the projects that will feature in the next three series are already underway. There has been no difficulty in finding extraordinary, innovative stories to film.

"During the recession of 2008, when many people struggled to find finance, we found that for some the building process took longer, but also resulted in many being more creative and ingenious with their build. At no time have we seen the recession as a threat to the series."

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