Grand Designs makes history with ‘ugliest home ever’ that can float away

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Grand Designs viewers have expressed their disbelief over a ‘gloriously mad’ project that has 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 returned for its 23rd season, with the first episode following a groundbreaking project that has never been tackled in the property renovation programme’s 26-year history.

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

However, it’s fair to say that the finished property was not to every viewer’s taste, with @MillieJonesView making the bold claim: ‘Could this be the ugliest home ever on #GrandDesigns? I think so…’

Echoing their sentiment, @stryder444 said: ‘Doesn’t look very homely. All the comfort of a visitor centre. #granddesigns.’

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

In a savage takedown, @truly_woolie wrote: ‘It looks like a child of Elon’s Cybertruck. Hideous. #GrandDesigns.’

@Jasonharvey70g1 added: It’s a massive cyber truck #GrandDesigns.’

Some Grand Designs viewers, though, were in awe of the scale and the ambition of Howard and Sarah’s project.

@Toady exclaimed: ‘Oh this looks gloriously mad #GrandDesigns.’

@TheMizzCBB said: ‘This one is very bonkers. I like the design but how will the bottom look like in a few years? #granddesigns.’

@arrmstronski commented: ‘Well, this looks ambitious. #granddesigns.

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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.

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.

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

‘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…’

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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