Grand Designs makes history with ‘radical’ new build

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The new season of Grand Designs returns tonight with an ambitious project that’s never been attempted before.

Airing since 1999, the Channel 4 series presented by Kevin McCloud follows unique property builds, often taking several years and presenting plenty of challenges.

Tonight it will return for its 23rd season, with the first episode following a groundbreaking project.

Over the past 30 years, Howard and Sarah have embarked on several ambitious building designs together but are now looking to their most radical yet – a sleek, angled, metallic floating home on a tidal estuary near Worthing.

Designed to look like a boat, and nestled within a houseboat community, the structure will sit on an experimental, prefabricated, polystyrene slab to deal with high tides alternating with hours sitting in the mud.

On top of the floating polystyrene will sit a steel frame that will need to be strong enough to resist the stresses of a moving structure, covered in composite, insulated steel cladding.

Grand Designs’ season return follows a couple using ‘surfboard technology’ to build their home (Picture: Channel 4)

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Upstairs there will be a soaring, open-plan living space with an outer deck and views of the estuary, while below deck they’ve planned accommodation for them and their teenage children, a home office and a cinema room.

They’ve set aside £385,000 to spend across an 18-month schedule, also planning to do much of the work themselves and finalising the engineering as they go.

It’s been teased: ‘Things get off to an agonizingly slow start when it takes months to painstakingly remove a condemned D-Day Landing Craft that sits on the plot. Design and fabrication of the floating polystyrene slab is a real headscratcher.

‘They need to buy a crane to get materials over a tall sea defence wall. Add to all that the constant tidal shifts that disrupt any construction and it’s a real recipe for disaster…’

Howard jokes they are in the unfortunate position of being the experimenters’ (Picture: Channel 4)

Two clips from the episode show the pair in the early stages of the process. In one Howard explains their plan to use ‘surfboard technology’.

Showing a paddleboard, he made 15 years ago, he said the construction is ‘very light and can be lifted really easily’.

‘We can make them in a workshop which means we can control the quality, and it also manages the cost because we aren’t having to rent a huge shipyard to make it in one piece,’ he said.

‘But as far as we are aware, no-one has actually used this technology to make a floating home before. We are in the unfortunate position of being the experimenters’.

In a voice-over, Kevin said the ‘radical ethos of this project is hardcore self-build territory’.

The home will be made from blocks of polystyrene (Picture: Channel 4)

The other clip shows them putting together blocks of polystyrene that are being connected by glue, which is then activated when water is sprayed on.

However, they quickly realise there’s a problem when rushing to connect blocks to find they haven’t been cut correctly and don’t fit…

Speaking ahead of the season premiere, Kevin also offered an insight into what viewers can expect.

‘It is short, we are making something that is not too lengthy, we are making it snappy. We have two new revisits which are really meaningful.  One of the revisits is with a blended family, a couple who were both bereaved and brought their children together into a house. The house is designed by the husband and honestly, it is sort of one of my favourite projects,’ he said.

Grand Designs returns tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.

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