Inside the 'flatpack' style house — and more Grand Designs projects
Inside the 'flatpack' style house — and more Grand Designs projects
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1/47 Grand Designs: The Street
Grand Designs: The Street is a six-part series following 10 households as they attempt to build a new street from scratch in Oxfordshire.
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2/47 Building woes
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. The couple were keen to show off their build on new show Grand Designs: The Street.
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3/47 'Flatpack' house
Chris and Roxie had a budget of £220,000 to self-build their house out of plywood, with Chris project managing. However the couple went over budget by £80,000 to finish their project.
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4/47 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.
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5/47 Made for Chris and Roxie
Cut into co-ordinating shapes, U-Build is made from plywood boxes which were custom made for the project.
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6/47 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.
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7/47 Natural materials
The U-Build shell also includes insulation, membrane and cladding in natural materials.
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8/47 Design details
Simple design details create an eye-catching look.
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9/47 Rustic interiors
The couple have kept the rustic look of the plywood in most of the house, though they whitewashed the living room walls.
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10/47 Simple design
Upstairs, the minimalist style continues, with pale pink and whitewashed walls.
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11/47 Hotel-style living
Exposed pipes creates the hotel-style bathroom Roxie wanted.
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12/47 Room for improvement
There's a large, open gallery upstairs, which could become two more rooms if Chris and Roxie decide to extend.
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13/47 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
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14/47 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
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15/47 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.
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16/47 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.
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17/47 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 fullChannel 4
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18/47 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.
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19/47 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.
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20/47 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
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21/47 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.
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22/47 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 fullChannel 4
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23/47 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.
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24/47 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.
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25/47 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.
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26/47 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.
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27/47 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 fullChannel 4
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28/47 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.
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29/47 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.
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30/47 Chaos – episode four, Leominster
The end result was worth the ordeal. It's sizeable, contemporary, stylish and a far cry from the caravan.
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31/47 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.
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32/47 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 fullChannel 4
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33/47 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.
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34/47 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.
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35/47 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.
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36/47 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.
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37/47 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 fullChannel 4
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38/47 '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.
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39/47 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.
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40/47 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.
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41/47 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.
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42/47 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 fullChannel 4
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43/47 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.
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44/47 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”.
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45/47 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.
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46/47 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.
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47/47 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 fullChannel 4
The latest episode of Grand Designs: The Street brought up more questions than answers for some viewers as eagle-eyed fans were left wondering if the stress of the build had taken its toll on one young couple.
The six-part series follows 10 households as they attempt to build a new street from scratch and is thought to be the UK's largest self-build project.
Five years in the making, the experiment is set on a stretch of land close to Bicester and just 14 miles from Oxford.
The fourth episode focused on couple Chris and Roxie who were just 24 when they first began their epic build and one of the youngest ever Grand Designs couples to take part in the show.
THE 'BOX HOUSE' BUILD
Priced out of the housing market where they previously lived, the couple had a budget of £220,000 to spend on a ‘flatpack’ home made from plywood and designed to be built on-site, with Chris project managing the construction.
During the episode, Chris and Roxie, who’d been together for nine years, were seen to be struggling with the intense project, which they'd spent more than they intended on. The experimental project ended up a hefty £80,000 over budget.
But after last the most recent episode, which followed the tumultuous project's progress, viewers weren't sure if Chris and Roxie were still together.
At the point of reveal, Chris appeared on the programme by himself, while announcing that Roxie was at work. However, some viewers were quick to point out their doubts, taking to Twitter to question if the couple had made it through the stressful build.
During filming for the show, Chris said, "Working full-time and trying to do a house build is a nightmare. It's made me feel like I've been a bit of failure at times."
"I found it hard. I don't know if it's because we're quite young doing it. Things haven't been going to plan," adds Roxie.
Despite widespread concern across social media, it has been confirmed that Chris and Roxie are still together following the stressful build.
A CUSTOM-MADE CHALLENGE: HOW THE BOX HOUSE WAS BUILT
Chris and Roxie worked with architectural practice Studio Bark, who created a cost-effective system called U-Build, the first time the system had been used on such an ambitious scale.
Cut into co-ordinating shapes, U-Build is made from plywood boxes which were custom made for the project and designed for minimal wastage.
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.
The U-Build shell also includes insulation, membrane and cladding in natural materials.
The couple also chose to make eco-friendly choices where possible, though this was not always possible on their tight budget.
A green roof harvests rainwater and is fitted with solar panels, while the timber cladding was made with wood from local woodlands and insulated with sheep wool.
They also saved money along the way by hiring architectural students who camped out nearby in order to help on the ambitious project and everything was assembled and bolted by hand.
THE BIG REVEAL
The interior makes the most of the exposed plywood to create a Scandi-style living space which is minimal too.
The two-bedroom, two-bathroom property also features a large double-height gallery space which can be transformed into extra rooms if needed.
"The whole point of the house is to not constrain you to a certain use in certain areas. It delivers in that," Chris explains to Kevin McCloud as he shows him around the newly finished home.
The experimental scheme will eventually be home to social housing, custom-builds and self-builds to create a whole community from what was once a field.
Over the next ten years, 1900 houses will be built on the site, with housing options for all budgets and skill levels.
Eager homeowners who want to put their own stamp on a property at Graven Hill can self-build their own home from scratch like Chris and Roxie, 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 ambitious project also includes 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
Take a look at our gallery above to see inside the ambitious self-build plywood home…
