'I'm so fed up with bifold doors': Kevin McCloud on 20 years of Grand Designs

And while there have been plenty of Mies van der Rohe copycats on the show, there have also been the more offbeat, eccentric projects, like Monty Ravenscourt’s Peckham house with glass sliding roof (“that was strange and hybrid and glued together by bits”), Ben Law’s low-impact woodland house in Sussex, from an episode that viewers once voted their favourite, or the doughnut house built in Milton Keynes by Peter Berkin, a retired GP and builder. “And thank goodness. If all we’d done over the years was film grey boxes and glass-what-have-yous, I would have slit my wrists by now,” says McCloud, stridently.

First and foremost a building historian, the 60-year-old has built a reputation as a presenter who neither dumbs down his subject nor minces his words. He has seen it as his mission to open the nation’s eyes to buildings in a way that isn’t simply about “dull blobs of fake historical architecture”. 

Stock Orchard, the home and practice of architect Sarah Wigglesworth, is in many ways a typical Grand Designs property. With its stone gabions and sandbag walls, it’s uncompromising, singular, hi-tech and very green, designed precisely to fit its surroundings and its occupants’ needs. Perhaps the most disappointing thing is that, 20 years later, it hasn’t inspired architecture like it on a mass scale. 

Having said that, the programme is now so much part of our television culture that not a week goes by when McCloud isn’t approached by a member of the public to say how it kick-started their own grand design. Largely thanks to McCloud, an Englishman’s (or woman’s) home can now literally be a castle (or converted water tower, eco-friendly cob dwelling or Jenga-style shipping container sculpture), but it’s McCloud’s dedication to dissecting the integrity of each building that has elevated Grand Designs from just another property programme into something unique.

Wigglesworth is away, but younger members of her practice come out to greet McCloud. They stand in a row, clutching mugs and looking at him as though he might break into song at any moment (he did study opera in Italy in his 20s, after all). In person he’s as personable and watchable – serious one moment, impish another – as on screen, and they hang on his every word. 

McCloud is clearly used to such youthful crushes (when I tell him that a Telegraph colleague has a man-crush on him, he flits back: “Oh, tell him I’m too old”) and after some genial chat, he politely sends the young ’uns on their way. 

It must be strange being held in such reverence? “The most glorious thing is when people say: ‘I started watching Grand Designs when I was eight and I’m now fully qualified and working in practice.’ And you go: ‘Wow. That’s lovely.’”

His own son is an architect, roughly the same age as the fans at Stock Orchard. “I can’t believe that was anything to do with me, though, that’s the funny thing,” says McCloud. “I’m very admiring of him. He’s a very good architect.” 

So what does he think is good architecture? His own taste isn’t something he’s easily drawn on. McCloud prizes his objectivity (“It’s almost like my job is to just provide voice-over and my second job is to be there and interpret events for the viewer”) but for the 20th-anniversary programme, he was pressed to choose his favourite projects. It’s his least favourite question. Asked by his producers for an initial list of 20, he gave them 60 (roughly a third that have featured on the show). It’s been whittled down to five, which will be shown on air later this month. 

What he will say is that his choices tended to be deeply personal, because he liked the people, or because the project was representative of a raft of themes, such as eco-living or a sense of community. “Or maybe I just really got on with the director on that one,” says McCloud. “It does colour your choice.” 

He has filmed more than 200 episodes and they have one thing in common, he tells me; every single home featured has been near a good pub. He won’t film a project otherwise, he jokes. “When you’re filming in the mud and rain you need somewhere you can go and warm up at lunchtime.”

Such is the nature of the building process, filming days can be long and unpredictable. He and the crew criss-cross the country checking in on several projects multiple times, all at different stages of development. 

Even though the show is as much about human beings as bricks and mortar (“the glorious thing about the series for me is getting to know people”), McCloud doesn’t like to get too pally; it wouldn’t be good for objectivity. Although, after some 30 site visits, he has come to see Ed and Rowena Waghorn, who built a hobbit-style dome house in Herefordshire, as friends. 

“I may react negatively to a project to begin with, but I can probably respect its qualities if it’s something original and interesting,” he says. “And in getting to know the people I get to like the design, because I get to understand them.”

There are of course episodes when the viewer can get a whiff of McCloud’s distaste, from foundations to finish. Last year, he likened a concrete four-bedroom house in Lewes to a nuclear bunker and a multistorey car park, although he had warmed to it by the end. 

Does he hate any of the homes he has featured? There’s a diplomatic pause. A train rumbles past, ramping up the tension. “There were a couple I knew I wouldn’t like, and I didn’t like them. I thought they were badly built and badly designed.” But he quickly adds: “There aren’t many like that.” 

Looking at earlier episodes, it’s easy to see how the show has evolved – certain features that seemed ludicrously fancy back then now seem commonplace – but there remains a time-honoured and much-loved formula to the show. 

Case in point, when McCloud suggests a project will never run on time, it definitely won’t. And there are the inevitable probing questions at the end of each episode about cost (and how far over budget the owners went – one couple spent £1 million more than they planned to). Contrary to the determination with which he pursues the latter, he says he doesn’t actually care. Rather, he feels the reticence of the owners ­underscores how obsessed we are as a nation with how much other people are spending.

He can tell though, from the size of a property, roughly how much a project has cost, even if doesn’t always tally with the figures quoted by the owners. “I know viewers are often amazed that people can do it so cheaply – but I’ll leave you to join the dots in that sentence…” 

Ultimately, McCloud is more interested in whether the individuals involved have enough money to do their design justice. “What upsets me isn’t the jeopardy in terms of the narrative, the ‘will they or won’t they finish?’ All I care about is the bloody design. I just want it to be well executed.”

There are groans around the production office, he says, when they find out that a project is in financial trouble, knowing that will now dominate the narrative. “It means we’re just going to talk about money for the next 45 minutes,” he sighs. 

On that note, he doesn’t like it when people just tune in for the last 15 minutes of Grand Designs to ooh and ahh over the finished, glossy article. And the show as a whole certainly seems more glossy today, compared with the grainy video footage of the early years. 

I tell him that the episodes I’ve enjoyed the most are the ones where we are shown around a beautiful, luxurious new home, usually as the sun sets and golden light streams through the extremely large windows, only to see that the living room has the same tatty old sofa and dark brown sideboard from the owners’ semi-detached days. 

“I love that, too!” says McCloud. “Fantasy architecture, great spaces… and s--- furniture. It’s great, though. Because it demonstrates where they have decided to spend; it’s all gone into the home. 

“You know you’re watching Grand Designs when you see really terrible furniture inside a really great building.”

What makes a Grand Design grand?

“I don’t know what a grand design is! I suspect it can be anything you want it to be, even an extension at the back of your house. We’ve filmed some really small, cheap projects and they are just as interesting as the huge ones. I think it’s about the relationship between vision and risk. If somebody’s got very little money but a fantastic idea, then that’s what defines it. It’s not to do with budgets or big sofas. It’s about doing great things in the built world. 

“Just occasionally, we film houses that have a rich contextual response. It’s all about trying to make the building feel not only part of where it is, but that it’s from where it is. 

“A building ought to be able to tell us to put our phones down, come and sit down and enjoy the view or a connection to your friends and family.

“I was in an amazing place recently where you just wanted to sit and gaze through the skylight at the clouds, rather than look at a picture of some clouds on Instagram.” 

How easy is it to do a Grand Design today?

“There is still land. There are places like Graven Hill, which we portrayed in The Street earlier this year, where you can buy a plot for £150,000. There is a huge amount of support for self-builds that didn’t exist 20 years ago. You can choose an architect much more easily than when Grand Designs started. 

“Now you can click on Dezeen and smash through hundreds of photographs. Although I don’t think that’s a good way to do it; gauging someone’s performance by pictures. There’s a cult at the worst end of the market where magazines are devoted to almost pornographic images of buildings and junkies lap this stuff up. But how can you know a building’s quality from a photo?”

Has Grand Designs shaped the nation’s taste?

“It’s reflected and shaped my own taste, but I don’t know about anybody else’s. My own taste isn’t what it was 20 years ago. Neither is your taste. Nor will it be 20 years hence. And the point about taste, therefore, is that it’s unreliable. 

“I’ve learnt that I may not like something, but I can admire it. Being able to tuck your own prejudice away allows you to remain more open to other people’s ambitions and desires.” 

What’s innovative now?

“New corrugated panelling made with hemp fibre and sugar resin, all made in East Anglia. That’s pretty cool. 

“I’m interested in buildings that lock carbon in and are naturally intelligent without having to put loads of stuff in. I’m not that interested in tech. The trouble with tech is that you put all the cabling in and then five years later, you’re ripping it all out. In earlier series people were putting in Category 6 cabling and trying to future-proof. In the meantime, Wi-Fi quietly comes along and nobody needs any cabling. Nobody can predict what’s going to happen. For me it’s not a linear progression. It’s lateral. 

“Whatever is the ‘next big thing’, I’m not interested. What I’m interested in is the weird stuff at the sides. What really excites me is when we can show something nobody’s thought of before. Hemp panelling was super-marginal and now it’s making its way to the mainstream. Straw bale construction was radical, but no longer.”

What should we avoid? 

“In 20 years’ time we’ll look back and go: ‘I’ve got to paint those grey powder-coated window frames another colour.’ In fact, we’ve almost reached that point already. Twenty years ago we just painted everything brown. In the Sixties it was white. Grey is already looking a little tired. 

“I’d also be very careful about putting in bifold doors right now. The bifold doors mania doesn’t stop. I now call them French windows; I’m so fed up of calling them bifold doors. I meet people who say, ‘I’ve got this house and we’ve just put some bifold doors in and they are amazing.’ But it doesn’t deal with all the problems. You might have really poor air quality, or your front garden might be a tip. You might need a lot of clever stuff to make a building work – putting in bifold doors isn’t always the answer. It’s one of those very-easy-to-see quick fixes. In the Sixties is was cement cladding in yellow and pink to fix damp and crumbling mortar. Then it was UPVC double glazing.

“It’s why I don’t advocate products. If your kitchen has been specially made, then I’m interested. But otherwise, no, it’s simply standard issue product out of a catalogue. And that isn’t architecture, it’s shopping. 

“Boiling water taps have been around for 20 years, for heaven’s sake. They are yesterday’s idea.” 

How are we designing rooms and space now?

“What makes my blood boil is when I walk into a home that is poorly laid out. Where the majority of the building is staircase and hallway, and there’s no storage. People have paid money believing what they are buying is something of value. It might have a value in the market, but personally I think the value should lie in the experience the building offers you. 

“People are beginning to realise we don’t need separate dining spaces. The kitchen has become a more focused place for food preparation and gatherings. People put a television and sofa in the kitchen. As a result there’s a need for a quieter room where you put the laundry. I increasingly see people putting laundry on the same floor as the bedrooms; it makes sense to put it near where it comes from. Likewise when people put the kitchen near the car or entrance. It’s where stuff comes into the house. 

“I think we’ve moved away from an obsession with bling and some of the superficial elements of interior design towards an appreciation of the need and use of buildings, and the way they can be organised to make life simpler.” 

Are houses getting more eco-friendly?

“Government legislation and agendas have changed a lot in the past 20 years. Gordon Brown’s 2016 zero carbon in building objective was a big thing, but it was swept away by the subsequent Conservative government. We now have building regulations that are much weaker and watered down than they used to be. I lament that because I think we could be doing a lot better. 

“However, Grand Designs sits in the margins where people are doing experimental stuff with their lives and experimenting with new technologies. What I love is when we get a retiring businessman who wants a low-energy home to save money on his heating bills. And by the end of filming the programme he has sold his 4x4 and bought an electric car. He’s also got solar panels and become a little eco warrior. I like following that transition of people on their journey of discovery.” 

What’s the most essential element of good design?

“Quality. Always. You can admire the quality of the design, you can admire the quality of a finished crafted object. I believe we all have within us the ability to do that. 

“Taste gets in the way, and sometimes fashion does, and often money does. Lack of money certainly gets in the way! But the quality of design and quality of craftsmanship is always important.” 

Kevin’s five rules for budding grand designers

1. “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. It’s an old military term and a cliché, but it’s true. If you spend three years planning then you might spend 18 months building, but if you spend 18 months planning then you’ll spend three years building and it will cost a fortune. The design process is to resolve problems quickly and cheaply, whereas trying to resolve problems using blockwork and timber on site is really expensive and takes a lot of time. Don’t redesign. Design it all in detail before, really work hard with your architect on nailing down all the detail as soon as you possibly can.”
2. “Use cost consultants. When I ask people at the beginning, ‘what’s your budget?’, what they’re telling me is a notional figure based on what they want to spend, not what it’s costed at, because people so rarely have it costed. Go to a proper cost consultant. Go to a quantity surveyor and get them to properly price the scheme, and you will say ‘Oh, I can do this for half’ and he’ll say ‘You can’t’, and when you’ve finished you’ll discover that you’ve spent exactly what he said.”
3. “Work with an architect who shares your view of the world. If you don’t, you won’t get your view of the world, you’ll get somebody else’s, so it’s important to find the right person. There’s no excuse these days because they’ve all got great websites, so you can make a choice even before you go and meet someone. Draw up a shortlist and go and visit them, don’t just employ the nearest or the cheapest.”
4. “Choose a builder based on trust. If you happen to know a good builder who’s worked with you before and you like them and trust them, use them. If your brother or sister or friend has used a great builder, use them.” 
5. “Be a good client. On any house build, you will need to make maybe 5,000, maybe 10,000 decisions. You cannot hope to be making those decisions unless you have help and unless you devote time to researching and thinking. You will not do any of that if you are project-managing the thing yourself and you’re also trying to hold down three jobs and a family. You must be prepared for the fact that it is going to be tough just being a client.” 

Cutting-edge home design: 1999 and 2019

Then Approx 27 miles of cabling and fibre optics buried inside your walls for your gadgets.

Now Smart Wi-Fi-connected homes and voice-assisted everything. Zero wires.

Then Utility room off the kitchen (because who wants a washing machine near the cooker?).

Now Utility room near the bedrooms (because who wants to lug all that washing downstairs?).

Then Underfloor heating – using pipes cleverly buried beneath your kitchen.

Now Ground source heat pump – using pipes cleverly buried beneath your garden.

Then Wet room, walk-in shower, no bath (except in the bedroom).

Now Copper bath, retro avocado suite, his-and-hers separate loos.

Then Giant stainless steel seven-ring gas stove with double oven, inspired by Jamie Oliver.

Now Eco-friendly induction hob on which all your saucepans spin around like Tonya Harding.

Then Structural insulated panels (SIPs) – super hi-tech synthetic wall insulation.

Now Agricultural cladding – super low-tech natural wall insulation.

Then Bifold doors, with enormous panes of glass (imported from Germany).

Now Genuine Crittall doors, with small panes of glass and steel frames (made in the UK).

Kevin’s Grandest Design is on Channel 4, Wednesday Aug 28 at 9pm, and will be followed by a new Grand Designs series