Grand Designs: The Street finale follows a house built in just 9 weeks

Latest series The Street — and more Grand Designs projects

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Latest series The Street — and more Grand Designs projects

• 1/54 Grand Designs: The Street - episode 6

  Pauline and Godfrey are hoping to downsize from their three-floored suburban house in Southampton, to a bespoke single-storey modular dwelling.

• 2/54 Grand Designs: The Street - episode 6

  They set out to build a two-bedroom house with two bathrooms on a budget of £220k

• 3/54 Grand Designs: The Street - episode 6

  They settle on a particular construction system that allows their home to be built in a factory and delivered to site.

• 4/54 Grand Designs: The Street - episode 6

  But first they must tackle an unsympathetic mortgage market.

• 5/54 Grand Designs: The Street episode 5

  Grand Designs: The Street is a six-part series following 10 households as they attempt to build a new street from scratch in Oxfordshire.

• 6/54 Grand Designs: The Street episode 5

  In episode five Garrie and Sue need a home tailored to their needs and want to self-build a four-bedroom house.

• 7/54 The Street episode 5: three-storey home

  Sue and Garrie were able to buy a plot of land in Oxfordshire for £100,000.

• 8/54 The Street episode 5: tailored design

  Sue has osteoporosis and the couple's previous home, with all its stairs, was unsuitable for her needs.

  The couple hope that building their own home will improve Sue’s quality of life, and also allow Garrie to fulfill a lifelong dream to build his own home.

• 9/54 The Street episode 5: The Glass House

  Their home, nicknamed The Glass House, is the street's most expensive home.

• 10/54 The Street episode 5: an upside-down house

  Taking over plot seven, engineers Sean and Dianna plan to build a minimalist, open-plan, upside-down house.

• 11/54 Estimated cost

  The couple estimate that their self-build will cost £300k.

• 12/54 A spanner in the works?

  However, after Dianna takes a job in Russia, much of the planning will have to be done from 2,000 miles away.

• 13/54 Long distance build

  Most elements of their design will be built off-site...

• 14/54 Slotting into place

  ...and then assembled on site.

• 15/54 Grand Designs: The Street episode 4 - the 'Flatpack' house

  Priced out of the housing market where they lived, young couple Chris and Roxie wanted a 'flatpack' home that would be easy to build and need little construction experience.

• 16/54 Slotting together

  Chris and Roxie saved money by using 'flatpack' style boxes designed to be assembled on site, the first time the U-Build system was used on such a grand scale.

• 17/54 Project management

  Chris took on the role of project manager

• 18/54 Made for Chris and Roxie

  Cut into co-ordinating shapes, U-Build is made from plywood boxes which were custom made for the project.

• 19/54 Saving money where they could

  The flatpack system is designed to slot into place and is then fixed with screws. Designed for home builders with little experience, it is simple to put together using basic tools.

• 20/54 Revisit the last series of Grand Designs – episode one, Aylesbury Vale

  A couple in Aylesbury Vale were drawn to a miniature folly. They paid £100,000 for it, with no planning permission, in a move some may call brave, others reckless.
  Getting approval to start work took a year, but they had to agree not to add to the original, tiny footprint.
  Spanish architect Jimmy Fernandez and his wife Mimi had a budget of just £200,000 and insisted it would be ready to move Mimi and his two children (George, 2, and Luke, born during filming) into in just six months.

  Channel 4

• 21/54 Restoring our heritage – episode one, Aylesbury Vale

  The miniature castle, in Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, may look like an old Tudor tower, but it wasn't built for defence. Purely decorative, it was erected 250 years ago to house a gentleman’s fossil collection, and is something of a relic itself, with crumbling stonework and insides gutted by fire.
  Kevin sums it up best: "It’s a building that doesn't want to stand up anymore."

  Channel 4

• 22/54 Surprisingly spacious – episode one, Aylesbury Vale

  Finally, six months later than planned and £100,000 over budget, after excavating Anglo Saxon skeletons, securing a loan from family, they get there – and it's beautiful.

  Channel 4

• 23/54 Treehouse delight – episode one, Aylesbury Vale

  Jimmy's pride and joy, a spiral staircase made from giant chunks of plywood, leads up the east turret to a roof terrace, giving them the feeling of "being in a treehouse" and playing into the building's sense of magic and romance.

  Channel 4

• 24/54 Reaping the rewards – episode one, Aylesbury Vale

  Kevin concludes by asking: "Was this fossil of a building a folly to take on?"
  Maybe, but for the first time in its long history, it now has a meaningful purpose.
  Read Jimmy and Mimi's story in full

  Channel 4

• 25/54 Hollywood inspiration – episode two, Padstow

  London leavers Harry and Briony have relocated their young family to Padstow, Cornwall with the aim of building a modernist steel and glass house like the one made famous in cult Eighties teen movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

  Channel 4

• 26/54 Ferris Bueller fanboy – episode two, Padstow

  Harry has taken on the role of project manager after developing an "obsession" with James Speyer's Ben Rose House, whichinspired the classic pavilion seen in the hit comedy. Despite never visiting it himself, he seems sure that he can honour it – in just eight months.

  Channel 4

• 27/54 Readjusting the dream – episode two, Padstow

  Crucial measurement mistakes and spiralling spending forces them to veer away from their dream by replacing much of the glazing with orange larch cladding. But 14 months later and £100,000 over budget, their new home is fabulous in its own right. Reaching for the stars paid off.

  © Emily Whitfield-Wicks/ UNP 0845 600 7737

• 28/54 Ply paradise – episode two, Padstow

  The walls of the vast kitchen/diner have been covered in ply to cool, industrial effect and everything is super-sized, from the huge sofa area and 3.5 metre-long island to the ceiling-high custom-built bookcase on wheels that serves as a movable wall.

  Channel 4

• 29/54 Proud of their efforts – episode two, Padstow

  "Speyer was pure glass and perhaps a bit impractical, but it inspired us and this is our version," says Harry proudly.
  Read Harry and Bryony's story in full

  Channel 4

• 30/54 The most admirable of motives – episode three, Richmond

  Born and Elinor's young sons Pascal, 5, and Avery, 7, suffer from a smorgasbord of life-threatening allergies, from dust and pollen to the chemicals in certain cleaning products, forcing them to spend a lot of time in hospital.

  Channel 4

• 31/54 Calling in the specialists – episode three, Richmond

  Episode three followed their journey as they built a ‘healthy house’ free from toxins in Richmond, south-west London. They spent time and money sourcing low-toxin materials and installing a mechanical ventilation system to filter the air.

  Channel 4

• 32/54 Clever design – episode three, Richmond

  They used solvent-free paints, formaldehyde-free MDF panels and flooring low in VOCs (volatile organic compounds) which slowly release chemicals and produce a charming cloud of toxicity that ends up in our lungs.

  Channel 4

• 33/54 The iceberg effect – episode three, Richmond

  Since moving into their stunning contemporary home, the boys have had "only one or two” allergic reactions, as opposed to a minimum of one attack every other week. The University of York lent Born and Elinor a VOC monitor to assess their air quality. It shows that their home is performing over 70 per cent better than the average new build.

  Channel 4

• 34/54 Enjoying the fruits of their labour – episode three, Richmond

  "It's been a rollercoaster ride but we feel really proud," says Elinor, explaining that they only went over budget by £60,000.
  "The moments that we get to sit down, reflect on what we've done and enjoy the house, and see the children enjoying the house, are priceless."
  Read Born and Elinor's story in full

  Channel 4

• 35/54 Starting from scratch – episode four, Leominster

  Steph and Alex from Leominster, Herefordshire, sold their comfortable bungalow to spent three years living in a leaky, draughty caravan - including during the Beast from the East - while they built a modern black barnhouse on the site of her beloved late grandad’s farm.

  Channel 4

• 36/54 Nostalgia at the heart – episode four, Leominster

  When Alex was made redundant unexpectedly, everything crashed down around them. But they pushed on, with Steph taking on extra hours at work and selling off some of the land to fund the build.

  Channel 4

• 37/54 Chaos – episode four, Leominster

  The end result was worth the ordeal. It's sizeable, contemporary, stylish and a far cry from the caravan.

  Channel 4

• 38/54 Thoughtful design – episode four, Leominster

  Overall, they spent £270,000 — just £20,000 over budget — which they felt was justified after three years climbing up the walls of a glorified tent.

  Channel 4

• 39/54 Mission complete – episode four, Leominster

  "The fact that I'm now continuing my grandad's legacy on his land, with the kids involved too, would make him so proud," says Steph. "I think he’s watching down."
  Read Steph and Alex's story in full

  Channel 4

• 40/54 Identical everything – episode five, Sheffield

  Identical twins Nik and Jon were living next door to each other with the same cars and dogs when they decided to build two modern-industrial homes side-by-side for themselves and their families.

  Channel 4

• 41/54 The countryside contrast – episode five, Sheffield

  Overall, they ended up splurging £610,000 which, although extremely impressive for the urban oasis they somehow conjure from a rundown industrial yard, was a whopping £265,000 more than they originally intended to spend. Ouch.

  Channel 4

• 42/54 Homage to steel – episode five, Sheffield

  The living space looks fresh and the extension has been clad entirely in plywood sheets. Jon's girlfriend Ali admits she struggled to accept his heavy usage of raw materials, but quickly fell in love with the result.

  Channel 4

• 43/54 Warming things up – episode five, Sheffield

  Nik’s rooms are more defined and cosier, with everything oriented to make the most of the countryside views outside.

  Channel 4

• 44/54 Heads together – episode five, Sheffield

  "This is an exercise in getting stuff right and proving two minds are better than one,” says Kevin. "I like that very much.”
  Read Nik and Jon's story in full

  Channel 4

• 45/54 'I'd do it again' – episode six, Lewes

  Dad of-three Adrian’s long love affair with concrete started as a young BMX biker in Glasgow’s skateparks. This passion developed into an appreciation of Brutalist architecture and the obvious next step was to build a concrete house in Lewes, East Sussex for his wife Megan and their young family.

  Channel 4

• 46/54 Flawed beauty – episode six, Lewes

  Their motto throughout this love-it-or-hate-it, rough and ready build was the rawer and more exposed, the better.

  Channel 4

• 47/54 Commanding respect – episode six, Lewes

  It is concrete inside and out, with no conventional finishes like plaster or paint in sight. Floor-to-ceiling glazing floods the dank interior spaces with light, giving the house its soul.

  Channel 4

• 48/54 Narratives woven throughout – episode six, Lewes

  The interiors are as bold and brave as the facade, yet warming. Plumbing and electrics have been installed through surface mounted tubes, giving the place an edge of industrial chic. Everything is chunky and tells a story, from the upcycled university science cabinets the couple are using as kitchen units to the colourful, well-loved furnishings they have owned for years.

  Channel 4

• 49/54 Freedom to move – episode six, Lewes

  This home is a radical piece of engineering, built beautifully, yet full of the imperfections we all have. It may be made of unfeeling concrete but it is, at heart, a very human home.
  Read Adrian and Megan's story in full

  Channel 4

• 50/54 Revisiting the 'King of Cob' - episode seven, east Devon

  Five years ago, Kevin visited another Kevin, master builder Kevin ‘King of Cob’ McCabe, who had determined to build a family home from mud and straw in east Devon. But that wasn’t all: Kevin also wanted it to meet the highest environmental performance standards ever set in the UK.

  Channel 4

• 51/54 Sprung from the earth - episode seven, east Devon

  Following a long battle with the British weather and dwindling funds, the house emerged from the earth looking, as presenter Kevin noted, "like something straight off the cover of a Seventies prog-rock album”.

  Channel 4

• 52/54 Hidden house - episode seven, east Devon

  The roof - undulating to mirror the rolling hills beyond - was insulated and covered with an eco-friendly plastic membrane, soil and seeds to grow a wildflower meadow that would blend in with the surrounding landscape.

  Channel 4

• 53/54 Handmade touches - episode seven, east Devon

  Kevin handmade much of the kitchen, from the cob wine racks to the worktops cut from his own oak tree. Light fittings hang from branches of birch grown on site as part of his carbon-neutral renewable fuel strategy.

  Channel 4

• 54/54 Huge but affordable to live in - episode seven, east Devon

  "Size-wise, it's a manor house, but its running costs are negligible,” says Kevin, proud to have proven that it is possible to "live green” in luxury.
  Read Kevin 'King of Cob' McCabe's story in full

  Channel 4

Grand Designs: The Street concludes tonight with the final episode of the six-part series following the build of a single-storey modular home, which is to be built off site in a factory and assembled in situ within a timeframe of just nine weeks.

The ambitious series has been 10 years in the making and has taken five years to film the progress of the first 10 self-built homes in neighbouring plots.

Called Graven Hill, this experimental new village is located on a stretch of land close to Bicester, just 14 miles from Oxford.

It's the largest project of its kind ever attempted in the UK and series presenter Kevin McCloud and the Grand Designs crew have documented the trials and stresses encountered by the pioneering households attempting to build a new street.

Each set of participants bought a plot of land for £100,000, on which they were tasked with building a home to fit their own individual requirements.

We've seen flat-pack homes, an upside-down home and tonight we watch as Pauline, 55, and Godfrey,62, take on the challenge of designing and building a single-storey modular home with two bedrooms and two bathrooms on a budget of £220,000. 

But there are many practical and financial hurdles along the way before their bespoke home can be delivered to their plot at Graven Hill.

Kevin McCloud exclusive on The Street: What Happens Next at Graven Hill

Graven Hill: an experimental new village

The experimental scheme will eventually be home to social housing, custom-builds and self-builds to create a whole community on what was once a field.

Over the next decade, 1,900 houses will be built on the site, with housing options for all budgets and skill levels on offer.

Eager homeowners who want to put their own stamp on a property at Graven Hill can their own home from scratch like the show’s participants, while those wanting a new home without having to get involved in the construction process can customise one of the new-build houses available in the scheme.

The project will also include open-plan apartments in the village centre, within walking distance of Bicester train station, plus 32 shared-ownership homes as part of the first wave of affordable housing in the area.

Grand Designs: The Street airs on Thursday evenings on Channel 4