Grand Designs (1999–…): Season 13, Episode 7 - South London - full transcript
Britain is full of relatively
mediocre,
somewhat unloved buildings put
up in the last century.
Most people would like to
tear them down.
What if, instead of tearing them
down, instead of being snobbish
and prejudiced against
them, we could instead be
imaginative with them?
What if we could reinvent them?
Ben and Rachel Hammond have been
scouring South London for that
special plot of land for them
and their children Sylva and Lola.
We've been looking for about a
year.
For something that was a little
different.
Something that we could do something
to, where we could make our mark.
They both have busy lives.
Ben runs a media business and Rachel
is a marketing consultant
but they've taken on a new
shared challenge.
We were looking for a project.
Then this popped up, didn't it?
I thought, "Oh, wow.
What an amazing location!"
The plot they've bought is
idyllic for London.
Surrounded by a beautiful
park just five miles
from the centre of the city.
But there is one drawback.
The ugly, inefficient, red-brick
house that stands on it.
The house is horrible. There's no
redeeming features about it at all.
Rachel called me at work and said,
"Check this place out.
"Shall we just knock it down
and start again?"
What they've opted for is a more
challenging route -
total transformation.
Retro-fitting and rebuilding
this mediocre mid-century
house into a proper modern home.
We're taking that
house-that-Jack-built pitch roof away
and we are
extending to the front
and back on the ground floor level
and completely remodel it.
MACHINES HAMMER
The sound of hammering,
of jack hammering.
That means there
are builders at work.
Good grief, yeah.
LOUD HAMMERING
Hello. Hello.
This is rather wonderful. I know.
Beautiful place cos you're right
next to the park here. We're in it!
You're in the park? Yeah.
We're next to the church. Was this
the vicarage? It was indeed.
The church came and cut out this
area of the park in the mid-1800s,
stuck a really nice, probably,
Victoriana vicarage there-ish
and, in the '50s, this popped up.
What's the plan? Are you
going to keep some of this building?
Yeah? Yes. Well,
just three-and-a-half walls. Wow.
And then what? And remodel it,
extend and hide it?
The design that we came up with
with our architect is a double
extension that wraps around
the existing building.
We're going to give it a body lift.
THEY LAUGH
We're going to give it
a whole new identity.
We had been looking
for something unusual.
We were in central London
and most of the housing stock are
either Victorian terraces with
little postage stamps,
and we wanted something different.
So we've been looking
for plots of land,
we've been looking for probates
where we could come in and shake
it all up and do our own thing.
'It's going to require some
imagination to transform
'this place from lumpy brick
vicarage into stand out home.
'Although it won't be that
stand out, because the first
'act of its reinvention
will be to remove
'the clunky pitched orange roof.
'That should make it look more
European and progressive.
'The house will nearly
double in size
'and will look like three
interpenetrating blocks.
'First off,
the front will be extended
'and swallow up the garage to make
a self-contained ground floor flat,
'and above it, a cantilevered
first-floor, all clad in wood.
'Secondly, they'll recycle
the building
and keep the existing brick block,
super-insulate it
'and then re-skin it with a cladding
of new, blue-grey brick tiles.
'And then, on the park side,
they'll add the third block -
'an elegant glass walled rectangular
prism with minimalist detailing.
'In the spirit of the times,
the small ground floor rooms get
'knocked through to form nearly
an entirely open plan space,
'unified with one polished concrete
floor that, like the glass,
'will stretch
the length of the building.
'Upstairs, there's bedrooms
for the two girls, a study,
'and a multipurpose living space.
'Plus, bathrooms in the cantilevered
extension and master bedroom.
'The great challenge here will be
to transform a bog-standard house
'into an energy-efficient home
with architectural status,
'while also pleasing the planners.
'The vicarage will undergo a change
of identity as Ben and Rachel sweep
'through the building, dictating
what will stay and what will go.'
So, does the staircase stay
exactly as is, then? Yeah.
The treads all stay. And the
handrail? Beautiful oak handrail.
I know.
There's a plan for this to be glass.
You're out of your mind
to throw this away.
SHE LAUGHS
And then...
Oh. So I see the point
of all this now, yeah.
Wow, isn't that just utterly
delightful? Fantastic, isn't it?
It is fantastic.
We're going to make a little vista
through those trees as well.
You're going to take down
some of those saplings? Yeah.
And the sycamore, which
basically is a weed.
Well, a weed is anything
in the wrong place.
It's great to think that you'll
have a bit more of a view out
that way, which looks
teasingly beautiful.
I can see what you bought this
place now. Worth the money, eh?
Yeah, definitely.
Worth the money.
Just about. £800,000.
Yeah. Money well spent. Mmm.
And how much will it cost to do the
works, do you think? Do you know?
Well, the two years that we've spent
planning it, you know...
Our architects have put a lot of
time into building the schedules,
so there's some very clear
instructions...
Just answer the question.
THEY LAUGH
400, I reckon.
So where does the money come
from to pay for all of this?
We've got a great big fat mortgage.
Yeah? Yeah.
'That's a total cost
of £1.2 million.
'They put the job out to tender
'and their chosen contractor
is already busy on site.'
Have you done this before?
Yes. Yeah.
But not with main contractors
in this way.
But we have done housing projects
before.
Whenever we've worked on houses,
we've done it ourselves
and felt very much more in control.
That's a bit nerve-racking.
Is it a fixed-price? Yeah. Yeah.
'That's a clever move.
'If there are any unexpected costs,
'it'll be down to the contractor
to pay for them.
'Having sold their home
to finance the project,
'Ben and Rachel are currently
renting nearby.
'They want to be living here in just
eight months, so they've handed the
'site over to their contractor while
they continue to work full-time.'
Are these walls really coming out?
These ones?
I thought they were staying in.
Are they not?
Ben is the chief exec of
a growing media business.
If you start going any
smaller than that...
I mean, you're in O2 Arena.
OK.
And Rachel works as a marketing
consultant from home.
'We have elected to both just
focus on working to pay for it.
'It's a shame, in a way,
because a bit of a life's dream,
'building your own house.'
Right now, Ben and Rachel's house
has little or no architectural
merit, but it does have
a rather illustrious neighbour.
Just down the road is
Brockwell Park Lido,
a sleek, modernist, flat-roofed
building that's been an inspiration.
Opened in the 1930s,
this Olympic-sized open air pool
is now a Grade II listed building.
It's a much-loved local landmark
and proof that simple,
streamlined buildings can work,
with a little imagination.
'Before taking the plunge and buying
the house in the park,
'Ben and Rachel consulted
their architect friend Zac Monro,
'who saw only potential in
their boxy brick property.'
Just phoned them up and said, "You
have to buy this house." Seriously?
You just went and thought,
"Yeah ..."
There's no question those buildings
lend themselves beautifully
to being renovated.
And that's the best kind
of recycling, isn't it?
They're devoid of Victorian
higgledy-piggledy walls,
funny detailing.
The classic Victorian detailing
where you hide every junction.
They don't have that.
Their volumes, they have a bit of a
modernist influence in the volumes.
So they don't assume you
have butlers and outdoor loos
and stuff, they have a basic square.
So are we saying that there
are tens of thousands,
perhaps even hundreds
of thousands of 1930s
and '40s buildings all over Britain
which are modernist buildings
masquerading as 1930s and
'40s semis?
We are saying exactly that.
Even things like these blocks,
which I think have some beauty.
Even things like this could
be made very desirable.
That's why I'm quite attracted
to houses like these,
because there's nothing
incredibly wrong with them
and you just need to strip them
back a bit to see what they can be.
And you're just now getting clients
like Ben and Rachel who get it.
This beautiful lido is just
a stone's throw away from
Ben and Rachel's house.
It was built at the same time,
even out of the same brick.
However, that's where
the similarities end,
because this place has all that
conviction and passion of 1930s
British Art Deco, whereas their
place is a bit of a lump, really.
It never had that conviction.
But what they're doing
is interesting,
because they're taking the roof off,
they're making it lower,
sleeker and flatter and giving it
that beautiful, long,
sleek elegance.
They're giving their home the
make over, the face-lift, that it
deserved from the very day
it was built.
'Ben and Rachel Hammond
are remodelling, recladding
'and retrofitting their glum
old house to make an ambitious
'and sleek piece of architecture.
'They've gutted the old building
and laid concrete foundations for
'the extensions, front and back.
'Although the planners are yet to
sign off some of the materials,
'today, a very important one
is arriving.'
Once the steels go in today, then,
suddenly, we've got some structure
to start building everything around,
really.
This is the front extension
on the ground floor
which, basically, is going to be
the bedroom for the granny annexe.
And where you're standing here
is going...is the porch.
In effect, it's the entrance....
Because then it's cantilevered
over the top.
It's extended all the way across
the top there and extended down here
and this corner is cantilevered,
so that's going to be really cool.
Ooh!
It's grown, hasn't it?
It's certainly growing. Quite a
lot of steel, by the look of it.
My goodness me, that's a big
lump of metal. My goodness me.
That's a ship-builder's-sized joist,
that one.
Ooh, this shows promise, doesn't it?
It's the tantalising thing
about a frame.
It's definitely moving forwards.
Yeah.
'There's now not much left
of the old vicarage.'
You're being very sensible about
what you keep, very sensible
about what you add.
You kept the balustrade I like.
The jury is still out.
It's the one piece of conservation
in the building.
If you had your way!
'Look, this is not
a conservation project.
'What Zack's designed is
a modernised mini villa,
'held in a minimal steel frame.
'A glass prism will stretch
across the building.'
So this is lovely.
Very thin, very fine, and the idea
behind using this very thin steel
to support your roof here is...
you don't see it.
You don't see it. You won't see it.
And these are clad in a millimetre
of stainless steel plate...
Ooh. ..to reflect... Like the Mies
van der Rohe Barcelona Pavilion.
That's the idea. It will reflect
everything and therefore disappear.
It will be beautiful.
Some of the most beautiful
architecture in the world
looks like it's defying gravity.
The idea of it soaring and floating,
which is what your roof will do.
Except... What?
..building control have come along
and said that it can't be this
beautifully slim
and that we have to...
stuff stuff around it.
We've been asked to put a 9mm board
on either side before we clad it...
Like a fire resistant board?
Fire protection, yeah.
It's going to be twice as thick.
It goes from lovely to ugly.
Oh, man! Yeah.
'Mies van der Rohe,
architect of the Barcelona Pavilion,
'wasn't restricted
by modern fire regs.
'For a start,
he built it in the 1920s,
'and it doesn't have many walls.
'Polished, luxurious plains
of stone and glass
'are supported on slender,
mirror-finished columns.
'Borrowing ideas like this,
'Zack is hoping to revitalise
the old vicarage.
'So, can Ben and Rachel create
a breathtaking garden pavilion
'from their little brown lump
in South London?
'The design has to withstand
scrutiny
'and not just from building control.
'The Planning Department visit site
tomorrow to decide whether they can
'go ahead with their palette
of building materials.'
Presumably, this is satisfying
a condition of planning, that they
wanted to sign off on a panel
of samples on site. Exactly.
So, this is the cladding, edge on.
The timber is what?
That is iroko.
This is interesting. This is a brick
which looks like a hung tile.
It's a tile brick.
It's a brick where the mortar
joint is invisible. Exactly.
It's hidden behind this lip.
Why we chose this was because
we couldn't find anything else...
Let's clean that. Hang on.
Let's just...
..that was exactly that colour.
Also, we want a really nice,
clean detail.
And that, now...that's much closer
to the roof of the church next door.
That dark, dark Welsh slate.
Look at that -
the light hitting the spire.
It's beautiful, isn't it?
'Ben and Rachel have a difficult
balance to strike here.
'Getting their design to fit
a local palette of materials
'while all the time trying to
find colours and textures
'that will reinforce a new identity
for their home.'
What are you most concerned
they might um-and-ah about?
In terms of the construction
process, it would be a nightmare
if they didn't like these.
They've been ordered.
KEVIN LAUGHS
And we've built the footings.
That's what it boils down to.
You've ordered the bloody things.
'Ordering 6,000 tiled bricks
'costing ?15,000 without planning
approval might be foolhardy
'but Ben and Rachel
are dead set on them.
'In fact, they're already being made
in a factory in the Black Country.
'They're called Staffordshire
blue bricks, and get their colour
'and finish through a process
known as reduction firing,
'where a lack of oxygen in the kiln,
heated to over 1,000 degrees,
'causes a chemical reaction,
turning the clay a greyish-blue.
'Two weeks after the site visit,
Ben and Rachel get their decision.
'The planners have said no
to the beautiful tile bricks
'and want them to find something
more conservative instead.'
We're not giving up because it's
such an integral part of the design
and part of what takes it from a...
kind of, boring, insignificant,
'60s design
to being very contemporary.
I'm absolutely determined that we
fight through and fight our corner
on this one because we've spent
months, hours,
looking at alternatives -
way back in the design phase,
and, you know, the planners come
along and spend...two hours,
and to say they don't really
like it.
Persistence beats resistance
and I'm telling you,
I want those bricks.
'Rachel believes their brave
reinvention of this building
'into three blocks of brick,
wood and glass is sympathetic
'to the location,
and so does their architect.'
Each block that is indicated
on this building has a function.
So the glass one's function
is to almost not exist.
It's the connection with the park.
The wooden one is lightweight,
vertical slats that are supposed
to be quite natural, in a way.
It's supposed to mimic
vertical trees.
And the brick block,
which is the main existing body,
is supposed to be solid, grounded
and reflect the urban nature.
It sounds a bit pretentious but,
you do read it, and the point is,
when you look at these bricks,
they connect with the background
of all these buildings
and the slate and stuff.
'They've threatened to appeal
against the planners' decision
'in the hope that the planners
will reconsider.
'They hear nothing
over the Christmas break
'and the wait is agonising.
'The biggest risk here
is a design risk -
'that the level of invention
and crisp detailing they want
'may be compromised and that the
building's new identity stunted.
'After nearly a month of campaigning
from Rachel and Zack,
'the answer comes through.'
Did you call her as well? I called
her twice and left voicemails
and when she called back, I was
fully expecting to be quite shirty.
She was, like, "About these...
We've decided not to take it
any further."
I was, like, "Pardon?" Yeah, yeah.
"Thank you!"
'It's excellent news at what is
the halfway point of the project.
'At this point too,
the cantilevered structure
has emerged on the first floor.
'The original red brick skin of
the building is being insulated
'on the outside
and then clad with tiled bricks,
'but that's proving a slow
and painful process.
'But Ben and Rachel can,
for the first time,
'see their hard-fought-for
tile bricks going up.'
Wow.
On that end, there,
and then that's what...
How are they looking?
They are looking great.
They are looking all right.
I'm really pleased with them,
actually.
'Laying these unusual tile bricks,
however, has not been popular.
'It's a first for the brick layers,
for whom hiding the mortar in order
'to achieve this clean appearance
has turned it into a precision job.'
I know that builders hate these.
From an aesthetic perspective
or a practical perspective?
It doesn't matter.
What they don't like is that they
can only do six quarters at a time
and that they're fiddly. You know,
conventional brick work...
These require a bit of effort and
concentration and they screw up.
They just don't like it.
They just don't like it.
It's good to have a challenge,
isn't it?
'God is in the detail,
said Mies van der Rohe,
'and that's certainly true here.
'It suggests this building might
just soar architecturally.'
The sooner we cover up all these
red bricks, the better.
'They might hate the look of the red
bricks but they do serve a purpose.'
These bricks are the old wall
of the old building
and they used to leak heat out
into the atmosphere.
Now, what they're doing is sticking
a layer of insulation on the outside
of this brick skin,
slowing down the heat loss,
keeping the heat within the bricks,
which will then slowly radiate
the heat back into the house.
The old building
is being turned into
one giant night storage radiator -
a heat battery.
'On a freezing March morning, three
months before they hope to move in,
'the flat roof is nearly finished
and, after five solid weeks
'of laying tile bricks,
the final one is about to go in.'
Ben's been itching to do this.
The last brick. Yay!
'It's been a thoroughly
miserable task, by all accounts,
'taking twice as long
'and costing the contractor
twice as much as expected.
'In addition, they've suffered
their first significant delay.
'A roofing contractor let them down,
putting them back four weeks.'
Does that upset you? It doesn't
upset us as much as it's probably
upsetting the builders
who have got a contract of work.
It's probably going to cost them
more than us, really.
They're under a bit more stress.
Yeah.
'This is where a fixed-price
contract is working in Ben
and Rachel's favour.'
I think they gave
a really keen price
and so, because of that,
their margin's very slim
and they have to make sure
they can deliver on that.
There have been elements
like the brick laying taking
far longer than they anticipated,
the roofing being a bit of an issue
and now with the time for them...
I think the bricks were meant to
take two weeks and they took five.
When does the glass come to get
it enclosed? In a couple of weeks.
It's arriving in the UK today.
Ta-da!
And then it comes here
in a couple of weeks.
And how are they going to
get it onto site?
We've got a crane to come
and lift it over the fence.
From the park? Yes.
The driver... Have you got
permission to do that?
Not yet. We're speaking to
the park about it. OK.
'Oh, I do admire the optimism.
'After all the trouble with steel,
the brick and the roof,
'I'm sure installing the glass
will be just fine.'
Ben and Rachel have taken advantage
of other people's inability to see
what might be possible.
The genius of this project
is that it re-imagines
a faceless 1940s home
as a crystalline modern mini-wonder.
The first fix is well under way,
and Ben, who works in media
and communications,
is on-site to oversee the
installation of miles of cabling.
You've got some very pretty cables
here.
Yeah, the pink is especially...
What are they?
Pink ones are audio. Is it going
to be a very, very techy house?
The idea is not to be
too over the top.
I don't see the point in being
able to open the gate
while sitting on the toilet
in your en-suite bathroom.
Really?! Oh, what a shame!
So it's just future-proofed,
is the idea.
Upstairs, Zack's design is taking
advantage of the new flat roof,
and adding some large overhead
openings for more light.
The rooms are being transformed.
This is the guest room.
It'll have these amazing doors that
just... Fold and slide. That fold.
This is the...cantilever.
I am standing above...
This is new space. Yes.
Carved from fresh air.
Yes, this is the old external wall.
Yeah, yeah.
So this is all new. Bathroom in here
and everything. Yeah.
However, buried behind their
beautiful blue-tiled brick coat,
lies the red brick skeleton of
the old vicarage.
Their builders won't have thanked
them for keeping it.
Mark, the builder, says about this -
"Easier to start from scratch."
Yeah.
Of course. Because look, you've
got to chase in these boxes,
and then you've got to mortar...
If you just did it all in studwork -
bing bang bish bosh -
up goes the timber frame,
it's done.
Here, instead, you've got
old plaster,
you've got modern block-work,
you've got a bit of concrete,
you've got brick, and old
stuff, and timber frame,
and it's all has to slot and fit,
match and mix.
But that was a decision
we made at the beginning,
and very consciously so,
that we keep the building.
That we don't just knock it down.
That there is a sustainable element
to working with it.
And renewing it.
Sure.
It's a noble thing to re-use
the building, although personally
I'd like to see a bit more
of it on show.
Are you not tempted to somewhere
keep a bit of the old...
The reason I mention keeping this,
is because this is the exterior
of the old building
and yet you're in a room.
So there's a kind of dressed quality
to this wall with the pointing,
and a warm quality in the patination
that you get.
I'm not sure it's necessarily what
you want to look at in your
bathroom. No.
I was thinking more of a digital
print mural on that wall.
I don't know, I'd be tempted to try
and explore at least,
whether there was a way of keeping
a little tiny slice of
the old building.
No!
Rachel's not having any of it.
She and Ben don't share my
romanticism for old bits of wall,
perhaps for good reasons.
When I first visited Ben and
Rachel's house
I remember saying, "Oh, you've
got to keep the handrail,
"you've got to keep that banister,
"because it's a part
of the old building."
And today I found myself saying,
"Oh, you've gotta keep a little
bit of that brick wall exposed,
"because it's beautiful pointing
and part of the history
of the place."
I keep saying these things because
I am a bit of a die-hard
conservationist,
but I have got to stop.
Because the project isn't about that
at all.
The old building simply serves
as a technical vehicle
for achieving something new,
something of the imagination,
something much more powerful
than the old building.
This project is all about
giving that place an entirely
new personality.
It's May and they're a month behind,
due mainly to the delay with
the roof.
But they've another problem.
Their giant triple-glazed panels
are still to arrive on site.
They've failed on three occasions
to have them installed.
It's just because so many people
are involved.
Masses of different people,
and, you know, involving
the park, as well,
and the people at the lido
to open the gate,
and then making sure the wind
conditions are right...
It was all a bit "Argh!"
So here we are.
The family wanted to be in
within a month,
which is not looking very likely.
The glass prism is the final and
most powerful of the three blocks.
Its detailing will be fine
and elegantly thought through.
It should add a transparent,
almost weightless quality,
to the ground floor
and it should be here by now.
It is very much worth it.
We are utterly convinced
that it's deserving of as much
effort as we can put into it.
It will be such an incredible house
when it is finished.
The views out of the bedrooms
- bedrooms aren't huge and the
bedroom windows are not enormous -
but the views are incredible.
The views are framed by trees
onto a park.
They all get fantastic light.
Everything about the volume
of the light that is pre-existing
is enough to make it exceptional.
So I think it's not going
to be easy,
by any stretch of the imagination,
but it never is.
After a wait of nearly three
months, 60 square metres of triple
glazing are crossing the capital.
For the final part of their journey
there's no option but to go through
the park itself.
Whoa! Whoa!
That's in the tree now. Just have to
get up there and...
Want a leg up over?
No, look at that!
With such a precious cargo,
Ben's decided to take charge.
Once installed,
their fine glass prism
could elevate this building
architectural status
from interesting to outstanding.
Well, if you want something amazing
I think you have to go through
a bit of hassle.
It must have cost more than you
thought, then. Just logistics.
Everything's costing more
than we thought.
But right down to,
I've had to give the park ?5,000,
just in case
I damage anything in the park.
I then had to sign a disclaimer
for the truck today
if anything gets scratched
or chipped,
or the exhaust falls off the truck,
I'm going to have to pay for that.
The glass is not
in the fixed-price contract,
so the logistics and the cost of
installation fall to Ben and Rachel.
I think there's 25 people here today
working on this project.
Do you know how much
it's going to cost?
What, the overall glass...?
Mm, everything. Erm...
The glass itself is somewhere
around the 60 mark.
60?! Yeah.
60 what?
Pence.
60,000...
Yeah.
Pounds?
And then... But then, the...
For the whole building, surely?
No, no, no, just for the...
Just for the glazing sections
at the back.
60? Something like that. You could
build a house for that. You could.
The glass walls are constructed with
five giant triple-glazed panels,
the largest of which weighs
nearly a tonne.
It's taken months to organise,
and with so many people involved,
heaven knows what the overall bill
will be.
When we initially scoped
the whole thing out,
I was under the impression, and I was
told,
that we could just roll them in on
these trolleys
and bring them around the side
of the house.
KEVIN LAUGHS UPROARIOUSLY
Using this much glass is daring,
possibly a little predictable,
but actually a decision
perfectly applied here.
It elongates the building,
adding no little elegance to it.
Isn't it amazing? Wow.
You can see the whole park behind us
there, look.
The trees and everything. You do
get a reverse view of the entire
park!
It completely changes the way the
house looks. A mirror image of it.
Wow. It's beguiling, isn't it?
You can't really tire of it.
I know it's all slightly cliched,
the idea of a glass box
a glass wall, a glass building,
but it does deliver.
I've never seen an old vicarage that
looks like this. No.
We still get mail.
If there was a vicarage that looked
like this, I think I'd become
a holy man!
This is more of a pavilion,
in the park, isn't it?
It's the pavilion in the park.
Now I know what you're thinking,
you're thinking this kind of
building is commonplace now.
But, you know, modernism,
which was sort of invented in the
1920s by people like Le Corbusier
was all about glass-walled buildings
and light and space and white
emulsion.
When they tried to do it in Britain,
they were doing it in buildings
with no insulation,
and no double glazing,
which were cold and damp
and they ran with condensation.
Nowadays, we have insulation.
We have triple glazing.
It's as though Le Corbusier's
modernism has finally come of age.
Nearly a century later.
The delights of all that glass -
the light, space,
and visual connection to the park,
must be tantalising Ben and Rachel
now.
Their finished home is within
sight,
although they are keen - more than
ever now -
to work through every junction
and detail with their contractor
to finesse their ?400,000 budget
to the finishing line.
The iroko?
So some of it's substandard?
Are you happy with it?
I don't know yet.
Timber's a timber.
But surely they would change it
if that's split.
Well, if it's split, then, yes.
There's also a ton of decisions
to be made about cladding,
paint colours, tiles, flooring,
and every tiny detail.
Why is there a hole in the wall?
Because you have a switch of
some sort there.
Will that be green? That'll have
to be made Pigeon. Oh, Jesus.
Well, what's the radiator colour?
Going with the Dulux Jasmine thing,
please.
That's how the planner wants it?
Yes.
The builders want to be out,
and Ben and Rachel want to be in.
But everyone needs to be happy
that the work's been done
as agreed in the contract.
Why are the lights set at different
sort of spacing?
I'm just having a look at them
myself.
And have we allowed for wall units
coming out?
And we don't have - I know it's
a bit late in the day now -
an electric point here.
A socket point.
For?
The kettle?
I've got to go.
You've got to go?
I'm perfectly happy for you to...
It's an almost predictable wrestle
over the grey areas.
What's included in the fixed price,
and what's an extra.
Now it's quite stressful for us
because we have to make decisions
about tiles and paint...
I wake up in the middle of the night
thinking carcass interiors,
colours...
So there's quite a lot going on.
A month later at the pavilion in
the park,
Ben and Rachel are still negotiating
the tricky end-stage of the project.
OK, shall we move it over then?
Because then I can roll this
one out that way.
One job that's not included
in the fixed price,
is the landscaping
and laying of a queen roof.
So Ben and Rachel are now having
to get well and truly stuck in.
Sedum with wild flowers.
So, we don't just get the benefit of
having this plump green mat,
but we also have flowers that
will grow up every now and then.
Beautiful!
Beautiful, yes.
But they've got to lug three tonnes
of the stuff onto the roof first.
LOUD GRUNTING
That one smells of dog do.
You look like a miner.
It's nice, literally
getting your hands dirty.
Rather than just swanning in
and pointing at things and paying.
I'm so sweaty and dirty.
This building is making its first
big gesture of friendship
with the park.
I think this green roof is more
important than a second bathroom.
Because it's so much part of the
transformation of this property.
And also so integral to the view
as you look out from these bedroom
windows and out into the park.
This is where the park starts
as far as I'm concerned.
The seeds of ladies bedstraw,
kidney vetch, birdsfoot trefoil
and South London dog's-do,
have all been sown into the
substrate of their green roof.
The vicarage is undergoing the nips
and tucks of its full body
make over.
I mean, I still walk in and suddenly
all the glass has gone up
or the bathroom's been fitted.
Now it's feeling more like a home,
and the colour's going on
the wall...
Although money is tight, they have
allowed themselves an extravagance
- a handcrafted, 4m long,
concrete-topped kitchen island.
This is the kitchen island.
This is the beautiful carcass.
There's going to be two sides
to these.
Dishwasher, wine fridge,
beautiful polished concrete top.
It really feels
like we are almost there.
Although this looks like
a building site,
to me, it feels like we are not
very far away.
Very close.
(It's very exciting!)
It's a year since Ben
and Rachel Hammond began work
on their ugly duckling house
in a south London park.
It's very hidden, this building.
Very unusually for something
in the middle of a city,
it, sort of,
snuck in behind the trees.
Well, what a change, eh?
It's like a toasted, caramel
wafer, ready to eat.
Hello! Hello! How are you?
Very well, lovely to see you.
Nice to see you again.
I feel as though I've stepped over
the threshold.
You have. The threshold
is right here.
You know, cos it's marked out
underneath this extraordinary
cantilevered awning. It's beautiful,
isn't it? It's very generous.
It's a grand entrance. Well, it sort
of suggests more to come. Yeah!
Come and have a look.
Beautifully detailed,
all of this.
Eh, what happened to your 1940s'
building? We worked around it.
That hand rail. We were never going
to keep the hand rail, were we?
I think it's in a skip in Chiswick.
This is just... You know, it fits
the modernisation of this house.
Come through. Oh, it beckons.
Oh, this is achingly...
..blisteringly...fashionable
and contemporary!
Wow! This is...
rather fabulous.
This is like a Danish festival
of concrete.
SHE LAUGHS
We do like a bit of polished
concrete. Don't you just!
Downstairs, this building was...
There were three lounges along here
and they were all pretty small.
The big difference between the 1940s
and now is the fact that
there is now a taste for this open
plan, or semi open plan...
Yeah, it's the way people
live now, isn't it?
Having this space just to roam
is wonderful.
Yeah, because the glazing is so big
and disappears into the floor
and up behind the ceiling,
I can't tell whether
there's actually a piece of glass
in that hole.
I mean, there is, isn't there?
There is! Yes...it's there.
Glass gives you that link out to
the sky over there and the trees
on three sides, as though you were
in the middle of a woodland.
You wouldn't think you were in the
city at all. I know.
Just maximum contact.
The roof of their glass box
is skilfully supported by just
four steel posts.
They've been fireproofed
and re-clad in an alloy skin
and still appear almost
impossibly slender.
Delightful!
It's hard to imagine, isn't it, that
these are holding the building up?
It represents some feat of
engineering. Yeah.
A little magic trick.
What lies behind that wall,
or door, I should say?
It's a sliding wall, isn't it?
It's a rolling wall.
You see, every open plan space needs
one of these, doesn't it?
Oh, I like the fact that
it's dark inside.
You can open it all the way,
if you want it open.
But then you can also shut it,
that's what I like.
Cos, then you shut
the kids in here,
with their mates.
Or you can come in here.
Or we can be here as a family.
Occasionally, yeah.
THEY LAUGH
Yeah, good to see it dark and snug.
Yes.
The dark colour just makes it
loads more comfortable.
Yeah, I'm in favour
of a bit of gloom.
That's what you need for
this kind of...
Well, it's a room to hunker down in,
you know, that's what it is. Yeah.
'In my view, you need the odd
gloomy and cramped corner,
'to appreciate the modern mantra
of light and space. And Ben
'and Rachel have been mature enough
to form some contrast of scale
'and colour here, in what is
not a large building.
'But as you rise up through it, the
light levels increase, provided
'by large, overhead apertures,
slotted into the flat roof.'
Your room, with another
fabulous view to the park
and a wall of greenery.
And a skylight that is
the full width of the house.
The full length, yeah.
Wow, a very, very good idea.
If you walk up the driveway,
that slit window there,
lines up perfectly with all
the roof lights.
So, you can see in and out again?
You can see through and then out
to the sky again... Lovely.
The window reveals are very deep,
thanks to the wall thickness,
made up of the old building's
red brick skin,
the added insulation and the new
outer coat of blue-grey brick tiles.
Really big thick walls like
that are quite unusual.
They're very comforting, aren't
they? To have a deep reveal,
it's as though you're being really
protected by the house.
It's a good feeling.
It really is. Home. Yeah.
The upstairs layout is pretty much
that of the old vicarage.
The bedrooms all look out
over the park.
Whereas the bathrooms are absorbed
into
the timber clad cantilevered box.
God, with a great wall of glass...
I'm really chuffed with it.
..it's terrific.
And you're back in London. Yes.
Aren't you just? With the buses
going past and the traffic -
it's a different kind
of thing again.
I've just noticed the spire,
out there.
The super generous landing is
not just a landing,
it's a first floor living room
and a bedroom.
So, this is... Oh, I like that,
there's storage behind it, as well.
Yes. It's good.
And that's it - there's a room.
It's what you pay an architect for,
isn't it?
Mm...
So, I remember standing here,
I think it was by this window...
I think it was this window.
..with the roof off... Yeah.
..saying, "This is what it's all
about."
It looks like wilderness out there,
it's trees and long grass
and mounds and, you know,
where does that go?
I mean, that's Brixton
somewhere...but it feels like
you're in the country.
Maybe Brixton in the 18th century.
Yeah, exactly!
This house is, obviously,
now a time machine
and a place machine, thoroughly
adapted to its setting.
From the street, trees camouflage
a facade that's broken up,
like sticks in a forest.
Meanwhile, out back, the opulent
glass walls reflect the park.
And the blue bricks just melt
the building
into the surrounding architecture.
But to reinvent this home
in the park,
they've had to spend
over ?1.2 million.
What we've spent combined with buying
and then the doing up of,
we could've bought just a normal
five bedroom house around the corner
and we wouldn't have had the quality
of living that we have now -
that I couldn't have anticipated -
you know, this calm and stillness.
Put into that context,
it's phenomenal!
This was a brutish,
brown lump of a box.
I have to forgive Ben and Rachel for
going ?50,000 over their budget -
that's just 4% -
because they've made a valuable
contribution to this place,
improving the park
and producing
an outstanding building.
When we first bought the place,
we were just going to knock
it down and start again and it
actually felt, emotionally,
felt better to do the conversion.
It's a challenge to work with
an existing building
and certainly from a builder's
point of view... Yeah.
I can't quite believe it. I can't
quite believe A, we've got
through all that and we're here...and
what an amazing home we've created!
I've been looking for the ghosts
of the previous building
but I can't find any. I mean...
There is a ghost, actually.
The footprint of the old building,
very much
is here, but it's a very good
re-model, you know,
because it has completely transformed
it from the ugly duckling that
was to...well, in our opinion,
a complete triumph of a modern
building, that we love.
This started out as an ambitious
recycling project.
It is, of course, now completely
transformed, it is a lot bigger,
better, greener and much, much more
beautiful than the old place was.
I think, also,
Ben and Rachel are pointing perhaps
to a transformation on a wider scale
here, because, as I've
said before, out there,
there are tens of thousands of
interesting, adaptable, 20th century
homes, masquerading as mediocre
semi-detached and detached houses.
If we want more of this
kind of architecture,
then we just need to open our eyes
to see what's possible.
Looks like they're building
a bloody bypass, look at it.
I reckon it's going to be the largest
cob building on the planet.
Sounds like a recipe for insanity!
Only another 1,900 tonnes to go.
Kevin is really determined,
he's quite demanding.
It's just relentless.
BLEEP!
If it was easy, it wouldn't be worth
anything, would it? Good point.
mediocre,
somewhat unloved buildings put
up in the last century.
Most people would like to
tear them down.
What if, instead of tearing them
down, instead of being snobbish
and prejudiced against
them, we could instead be
imaginative with them?
What if we could reinvent them?
Ben and Rachel Hammond have been
scouring South London for that
special plot of land for them
and their children Sylva and Lola.
We've been looking for about a
year.
For something that was a little
different.
Something that we could do something
to, where we could make our mark.
They both have busy lives.
Ben runs a media business and Rachel
is a marketing consultant
but they've taken on a new
shared challenge.
We were looking for a project.
Then this popped up, didn't it?
I thought, "Oh, wow.
What an amazing location!"
The plot they've bought is
idyllic for London.
Surrounded by a beautiful
park just five miles
from the centre of the city.
But there is one drawback.
The ugly, inefficient, red-brick
house that stands on it.
The house is horrible. There's no
redeeming features about it at all.
Rachel called me at work and said,
"Check this place out.
"Shall we just knock it down
and start again?"
What they've opted for is a more
challenging route -
total transformation.
Retro-fitting and rebuilding
this mediocre mid-century
house into a proper modern home.
We're taking that
house-that-Jack-built pitch roof away
and we are
extending to the front
and back on the ground floor level
and completely remodel it.
MACHINES HAMMER
The sound of hammering,
of jack hammering.
That means there
are builders at work.
Good grief, yeah.
LOUD HAMMERING
Hello. Hello.
This is rather wonderful. I know.
Beautiful place cos you're right
next to the park here. We're in it!
You're in the park? Yeah.
We're next to the church. Was this
the vicarage? It was indeed.
The church came and cut out this
area of the park in the mid-1800s,
stuck a really nice, probably,
Victoriana vicarage there-ish
and, in the '50s, this popped up.
What's the plan? Are you
going to keep some of this building?
Yeah? Yes. Well,
just three-and-a-half walls. Wow.
And then what? And remodel it,
extend and hide it?
The design that we came up with
with our architect is a double
extension that wraps around
the existing building.
We're going to give it a body lift.
THEY LAUGH
We're going to give it
a whole new identity.
We had been looking
for something unusual.
We were in central London
and most of the housing stock are
either Victorian terraces with
little postage stamps,
and we wanted something different.
So we've been looking
for plots of land,
we've been looking for probates
where we could come in and shake
it all up and do our own thing.
'It's going to require some
imagination to transform
'this place from lumpy brick
vicarage into stand out home.
'Although it won't be that
stand out, because the first
'act of its reinvention
will be to remove
'the clunky pitched orange roof.
'That should make it look more
European and progressive.
'The house will nearly
double in size
'and will look like three
interpenetrating blocks.
'First off,
the front will be extended
'and swallow up the garage to make
a self-contained ground floor flat,
'and above it, a cantilevered
first-floor, all clad in wood.
'Secondly, they'll recycle
the building
and keep the existing brick block,
super-insulate it
'and then re-skin it with a cladding
of new, blue-grey brick tiles.
'And then, on the park side,
they'll add the third block -
'an elegant glass walled rectangular
prism with minimalist detailing.
'In the spirit of the times,
the small ground floor rooms get
'knocked through to form nearly
an entirely open plan space,
'unified with one polished concrete
floor that, like the glass,
'will stretch
the length of the building.
'Upstairs, there's bedrooms
for the two girls, a study,
'and a multipurpose living space.
'Plus, bathrooms in the cantilevered
extension and master bedroom.
'The great challenge here will be
to transform a bog-standard house
'into an energy-efficient home
with architectural status,
'while also pleasing the planners.
'The vicarage will undergo a change
of identity as Ben and Rachel sweep
'through the building, dictating
what will stay and what will go.'
So, does the staircase stay
exactly as is, then? Yeah.
The treads all stay. And the
handrail? Beautiful oak handrail.
I know.
There's a plan for this to be glass.
You're out of your mind
to throw this away.
SHE LAUGHS
And then...
Oh. So I see the point
of all this now, yeah.
Wow, isn't that just utterly
delightful? Fantastic, isn't it?
It is fantastic.
We're going to make a little vista
through those trees as well.
You're going to take down
some of those saplings? Yeah.
And the sycamore, which
basically is a weed.
Well, a weed is anything
in the wrong place.
It's great to think that you'll
have a bit more of a view out
that way, which looks
teasingly beautiful.
I can see what you bought this
place now. Worth the money, eh?
Yeah, definitely.
Worth the money.
Just about. £800,000.
Yeah. Money well spent. Mmm.
And how much will it cost to do the
works, do you think? Do you know?
Well, the two years that we've spent
planning it, you know...
Our architects have put a lot of
time into building the schedules,
so there's some very clear
instructions...
Just answer the question.
THEY LAUGH
400, I reckon.
So where does the money come
from to pay for all of this?
We've got a great big fat mortgage.
Yeah? Yeah.
'That's a total cost
of £1.2 million.
'They put the job out to tender
'and their chosen contractor
is already busy on site.'
Have you done this before?
Yes. Yeah.
But not with main contractors
in this way.
But we have done housing projects
before.
Whenever we've worked on houses,
we've done it ourselves
and felt very much more in control.
That's a bit nerve-racking.
Is it a fixed-price? Yeah. Yeah.
'That's a clever move.
'If there are any unexpected costs,
'it'll be down to the contractor
to pay for them.
'Having sold their home
to finance the project,
'Ben and Rachel are currently
renting nearby.
'They want to be living here in just
eight months, so they've handed the
'site over to their contractor while
they continue to work full-time.'
Are these walls really coming out?
These ones?
I thought they were staying in.
Are they not?
Ben is the chief exec of
a growing media business.
If you start going any
smaller than that...
I mean, you're in O2 Arena.
OK.
And Rachel works as a marketing
consultant from home.
'We have elected to both just
focus on working to pay for it.
'It's a shame, in a way,
because a bit of a life's dream,
'building your own house.'
Right now, Ben and Rachel's house
has little or no architectural
merit, but it does have
a rather illustrious neighbour.
Just down the road is
Brockwell Park Lido,
a sleek, modernist, flat-roofed
building that's been an inspiration.
Opened in the 1930s,
this Olympic-sized open air pool
is now a Grade II listed building.
It's a much-loved local landmark
and proof that simple,
streamlined buildings can work,
with a little imagination.
'Before taking the plunge and buying
the house in the park,
'Ben and Rachel consulted
their architect friend Zac Monro,
'who saw only potential in
their boxy brick property.'
Just phoned them up and said, "You
have to buy this house." Seriously?
You just went and thought,
"Yeah ..."
There's no question those buildings
lend themselves beautifully
to being renovated.
And that's the best kind
of recycling, isn't it?
They're devoid of Victorian
higgledy-piggledy walls,
funny detailing.
The classic Victorian detailing
where you hide every junction.
They don't have that.
Their volumes, they have a bit of a
modernist influence in the volumes.
So they don't assume you
have butlers and outdoor loos
and stuff, they have a basic square.
So are we saying that there
are tens of thousands,
perhaps even hundreds
of thousands of 1930s
and '40s buildings all over Britain
which are modernist buildings
masquerading as 1930s and
'40s semis?
We are saying exactly that.
Even things like these blocks,
which I think have some beauty.
Even things like this could
be made very desirable.
That's why I'm quite attracted
to houses like these,
because there's nothing
incredibly wrong with them
and you just need to strip them
back a bit to see what they can be.
And you're just now getting clients
like Ben and Rachel who get it.
This beautiful lido is just
a stone's throw away from
Ben and Rachel's house.
It was built at the same time,
even out of the same brick.
However, that's where
the similarities end,
because this place has all that
conviction and passion of 1930s
British Art Deco, whereas their
place is a bit of a lump, really.
It never had that conviction.
But what they're doing
is interesting,
because they're taking the roof off,
they're making it lower,
sleeker and flatter and giving it
that beautiful, long,
sleek elegance.
They're giving their home the
make over, the face-lift, that it
deserved from the very day
it was built.
'Ben and Rachel Hammond
are remodelling, recladding
'and retrofitting their glum
old house to make an ambitious
'and sleek piece of architecture.
'They've gutted the old building
and laid concrete foundations for
'the extensions, front and back.
'Although the planners are yet to
sign off some of the materials,
'today, a very important one
is arriving.'
Once the steels go in today, then,
suddenly, we've got some structure
to start building everything around,
really.
This is the front extension
on the ground floor
which, basically, is going to be
the bedroom for the granny annexe.
And where you're standing here
is going...is the porch.
In effect, it's the entrance....
Because then it's cantilevered
over the top.
It's extended all the way across
the top there and extended down here
and this corner is cantilevered,
so that's going to be really cool.
Ooh!
It's grown, hasn't it?
It's certainly growing. Quite a
lot of steel, by the look of it.
My goodness me, that's a big
lump of metal. My goodness me.
That's a ship-builder's-sized joist,
that one.
Ooh, this shows promise, doesn't it?
It's the tantalising thing
about a frame.
It's definitely moving forwards.
Yeah.
'There's now not much left
of the old vicarage.'
You're being very sensible about
what you keep, very sensible
about what you add.
You kept the balustrade I like.
The jury is still out.
It's the one piece of conservation
in the building.
If you had your way!
'Look, this is not
a conservation project.
'What Zack's designed is
a modernised mini villa,
'held in a minimal steel frame.
'A glass prism will stretch
across the building.'
So this is lovely.
Very thin, very fine, and the idea
behind using this very thin steel
to support your roof here is...
you don't see it.
You don't see it. You won't see it.
And these are clad in a millimetre
of stainless steel plate...
Ooh. ..to reflect... Like the Mies
van der Rohe Barcelona Pavilion.
That's the idea. It will reflect
everything and therefore disappear.
It will be beautiful.
Some of the most beautiful
architecture in the world
looks like it's defying gravity.
The idea of it soaring and floating,
which is what your roof will do.
Except... What?
..building control have come along
and said that it can't be this
beautifully slim
and that we have to...
stuff stuff around it.
We've been asked to put a 9mm board
on either side before we clad it...
Like a fire resistant board?
Fire protection, yeah.
It's going to be twice as thick.
It goes from lovely to ugly.
Oh, man! Yeah.
'Mies van der Rohe,
architect of the Barcelona Pavilion,
'wasn't restricted
by modern fire regs.
'For a start,
he built it in the 1920s,
'and it doesn't have many walls.
'Polished, luxurious plains
of stone and glass
'are supported on slender,
mirror-finished columns.
'Borrowing ideas like this,
'Zack is hoping to revitalise
the old vicarage.
'So, can Ben and Rachel create
a breathtaking garden pavilion
'from their little brown lump
in South London?
'The design has to withstand
scrutiny
'and not just from building control.
'The Planning Department visit site
tomorrow to decide whether they can
'go ahead with their palette
of building materials.'
Presumably, this is satisfying
a condition of planning, that they
wanted to sign off on a panel
of samples on site. Exactly.
So, this is the cladding, edge on.
The timber is what?
That is iroko.
This is interesting. This is a brick
which looks like a hung tile.
It's a tile brick.
It's a brick where the mortar
joint is invisible. Exactly.
It's hidden behind this lip.
Why we chose this was because
we couldn't find anything else...
Let's clean that. Hang on.
Let's just...
..that was exactly that colour.
Also, we want a really nice,
clean detail.
And that, now...that's much closer
to the roof of the church next door.
That dark, dark Welsh slate.
Look at that -
the light hitting the spire.
It's beautiful, isn't it?
'Ben and Rachel have a difficult
balance to strike here.
'Getting their design to fit
a local palette of materials
'while all the time trying to
find colours and textures
'that will reinforce a new identity
for their home.'
What are you most concerned
they might um-and-ah about?
In terms of the construction
process, it would be a nightmare
if they didn't like these.
They've been ordered.
KEVIN LAUGHS
And we've built the footings.
That's what it boils down to.
You've ordered the bloody things.
'Ordering 6,000 tiled bricks
'costing ?15,000 without planning
approval might be foolhardy
'but Ben and Rachel
are dead set on them.
'In fact, they're already being made
in a factory in the Black Country.
'They're called Staffordshire
blue bricks, and get their colour
'and finish through a process
known as reduction firing,
'where a lack of oxygen in the kiln,
heated to over 1,000 degrees,
'causes a chemical reaction,
turning the clay a greyish-blue.
'Two weeks after the site visit,
Ben and Rachel get their decision.
'The planners have said no
to the beautiful tile bricks
'and want them to find something
more conservative instead.'
We're not giving up because it's
such an integral part of the design
and part of what takes it from a...
kind of, boring, insignificant,
'60s design
to being very contemporary.
I'm absolutely determined that we
fight through and fight our corner
on this one because we've spent
months, hours,
looking at alternatives -
way back in the design phase,
and, you know, the planners come
along and spend...two hours,
and to say they don't really
like it.
Persistence beats resistance
and I'm telling you,
I want those bricks.
'Rachel believes their brave
reinvention of this building
'into three blocks of brick,
wood and glass is sympathetic
'to the location,
and so does their architect.'
Each block that is indicated
on this building has a function.
So the glass one's function
is to almost not exist.
It's the connection with the park.
The wooden one is lightweight,
vertical slats that are supposed
to be quite natural, in a way.
It's supposed to mimic
vertical trees.
And the brick block,
which is the main existing body,
is supposed to be solid, grounded
and reflect the urban nature.
It sounds a bit pretentious but,
you do read it, and the point is,
when you look at these bricks,
they connect with the background
of all these buildings
and the slate and stuff.
'They've threatened to appeal
against the planners' decision
'in the hope that the planners
will reconsider.
'They hear nothing
over the Christmas break
'and the wait is agonising.
'The biggest risk here
is a design risk -
'that the level of invention
and crisp detailing they want
'may be compromised and that the
building's new identity stunted.
'After nearly a month of campaigning
from Rachel and Zack,
'the answer comes through.'
Did you call her as well? I called
her twice and left voicemails
and when she called back, I was
fully expecting to be quite shirty.
She was, like, "About these...
We've decided not to take it
any further."
I was, like, "Pardon?" Yeah, yeah.
"Thank you!"
'It's excellent news at what is
the halfway point of the project.
'At this point too,
the cantilevered structure
has emerged on the first floor.
'The original red brick skin of
the building is being insulated
'on the outside
and then clad with tiled bricks,
'but that's proving a slow
and painful process.
'But Ben and Rachel can,
for the first time,
'see their hard-fought-for
tile bricks going up.'
Wow.
On that end, there,
and then that's what...
How are they looking?
They are looking great.
They are looking all right.
I'm really pleased with them,
actually.
'Laying these unusual tile bricks,
however, has not been popular.
'It's a first for the brick layers,
for whom hiding the mortar in order
'to achieve this clean appearance
has turned it into a precision job.'
I know that builders hate these.
From an aesthetic perspective
or a practical perspective?
It doesn't matter.
What they don't like is that they
can only do six quarters at a time
and that they're fiddly. You know,
conventional brick work...
These require a bit of effort and
concentration and they screw up.
They just don't like it.
They just don't like it.
It's good to have a challenge,
isn't it?
'God is in the detail,
said Mies van der Rohe,
'and that's certainly true here.
'It suggests this building might
just soar architecturally.'
The sooner we cover up all these
red bricks, the better.
'They might hate the look of the red
bricks but they do serve a purpose.'
These bricks are the old wall
of the old building
and they used to leak heat out
into the atmosphere.
Now, what they're doing is sticking
a layer of insulation on the outside
of this brick skin,
slowing down the heat loss,
keeping the heat within the bricks,
which will then slowly radiate
the heat back into the house.
The old building
is being turned into
one giant night storage radiator -
a heat battery.
'On a freezing March morning, three
months before they hope to move in,
'the flat roof is nearly finished
and, after five solid weeks
'of laying tile bricks,
the final one is about to go in.'
Ben's been itching to do this.
The last brick. Yay!
'It's been a thoroughly
miserable task, by all accounts,
'taking twice as long
'and costing the contractor
twice as much as expected.
'In addition, they've suffered
their first significant delay.
'A roofing contractor let them down,
putting them back four weeks.'
Does that upset you? It doesn't
upset us as much as it's probably
upsetting the builders
who have got a contract of work.
It's probably going to cost them
more than us, really.
They're under a bit more stress.
Yeah.
'This is where a fixed-price
contract is working in Ben
and Rachel's favour.'
I think they gave
a really keen price
and so, because of that,
their margin's very slim
and they have to make sure
they can deliver on that.
There have been elements
like the brick laying taking
far longer than they anticipated,
the roofing being a bit of an issue
and now with the time for them...
I think the bricks were meant to
take two weeks and they took five.
When does the glass come to get
it enclosed? In a couple of weeks.
It's arriving in the UK today.
Ta-da!
And then it comes here
in a couple of weeks.
And how are they going to
get it onto site?
We've got a crane to come
and lift it over the fence.
From the park? Yes.
The driver... Have you got
permission to do that?
Not yet. We're speaking to
the park about it. OK.
'Oh, I do admire the optimism.
'After all the trouble with steel,
the brick and the roof,
'I'm sure installing the glass
will be just fine.'
Ben and Rachel have taken advantage
of other people's inability to see
what might be possible.
The genius of this project
is that it re-imagines
a faceless 1940s home
as a crystalline modern mini-wonder.
The first fix is well under way,
and Ben, who works in media
and communications,
is on-site to oversee the
installation of miles of cabling.
You've got some very pretty cables
here.
Yeah, the pink is especially...
What are they?
Pink ones are audio. Is it going
to be a very, very techy house?
The idea is not to be
too over the top.
I don't see the point in being
able to open the gate
while sitting on the toilet
in your en-suite bathroom.
Really?! Oh, what a shame!
So it's just future-proofed,
is the idea.
Upstairs, Zack's design is taking
advantage of the new flat roof,
and adding some large overhead
openings for more light.
The rooms are being transformed.
This is the guest room.
It'll have these amazing doors that
just... Fold and slide. That fold.
This is the...cantilever.
I am standing above...
This is new space. Yes.
Carved from fresh air.
Yes, this is the old external wall.
Yeah, yeah.
So this is all new. Bathroom in here
and everything. Yeah.
However, buried behind their
beautiful blue-tiled brick coat,
lies the red brick skeleton of
the old vicarage.
Their builders won't have thanked
them for keeping it.
Mark, the builder, says about this -
"Easier to start from scratch."
Yeah.
Of course. Because look, you've
got to chase in these boxes,
and then you've got to mortar...
If you just did it all in studwork -
bing bang bish bosh -
up goes the timber frame,
it's done.
Here, instead, you've got
old plaster,
you've got modern block-work,
you've got a bit of concrete,
you've got brick, and old
stuff, and timber frame,
and it's all has to slot and fit,
match and mix.
But that was a decision
we made at the beginning,
and very consciously so,
that we keep the building.
That we don't just knock it down.
That there is a sustainable element
to working with it.
And renewing it.
Sure.
It's a noble thing to re-use
the building, although personally
I'd like to see a bit more
of it on show.
Are you not tempted to somewhere
keep a bit of the old...
The reason I mention keeping this,
is because this is the exterior
of the old building
and yet you're in a room.
So there's a kind of dressed quality
to this wall with the pointing,
and a warm quality in the patination
that you get.
I'm not sure it's necessarily what
you want to look at in your
bathroom. No.
I was thinking more of a digital
print mural on that wall.
I don't know, I'd be tempted to try
and explore at least,
whether there was a way of keeping
a little tiny slice of
the old building.
No!
Rachel's not having any of it.
She and Ben don't share my
romanticism for old bits of wall,
perhaps for good reasons.
When I first visited Ben and
Rachel's house
I remember saying, "Oh, you've
got to keep the handrail,
"you've got to keep that banister,
"because it's a part
of the old building."
And today I found myself saying,
"Oh, you've gotta keep a little
bit of that brick wall exposed,
"because it's beautiful pointing
and part of the history
of the place."
I keep saying these things because
I am a bit of a die-hard
conservationist,
but I have got to stop.
Because the project isn't about that
at all.
The old building simply serves
as a technical vehicle
for achieving something new,
something of the imagination,
something much more powerful
than the old building.
This project is all about
giving that place an entirely
new personality.
It's May and they're a month behind,
due mainly to the delay with
the roof.
But they've another problem.
Their giant triple-glazed panels
are still to arrive on site.
They've failed on three occasions
to have them installed.
It's just because so many people
are involved.
Masses of different people,
and, you know, involving
the park, as well,
and the people at the lido
to open the gate,
and then making sure the wind
conditions are right...
It was all a bit "Argh!"
So here we are.
The family wanted to be in
within a month,
which is not looking very likely.
The glass prism is the final and
most powerful of the three blocks.
Its detailing will be fine
and elegantly thought through.
It should add a transparent,
almost weightless quality,
to the ground floor
and it should be here by now.
It is very much worth it.
We are utterly convinced
that it's deserving of as much
effort as we can put into it.
It will be such an incredible house
when it is finished.
The views out of the bedrooms
- bedrooms aren't huge and the
bedroom windows are not enormous -
but the views are incredible.
The views are framed by trees
onto a park.
They all get fantastic light.
Everything about the volume
of the light that is pre-existing
is enough to make it exceptional.
So I think it's not going
to be easy,
by any stretch of the imagination,
but it never is.
After a wait of nearly three
months, 60 square metres of triple
glazing are crossing the capital.
For the final part of their journey
there's no option but to go through
the park itself.
Whoa! Whoa!
That's in the tree now. Just have to
get up there and...
Want a leg up over?
No, look at that!
With such a precious cargo,
Ben's decided to take charge.
Once installed,
their fine glass prism
could elevate this building
architectural status
from interesting to outstanding.
Well, if you want something amazing
I think you have to go through
a bit of hassle.
It must have cost more than you
thought, then. Just logistics.
Everything's costing more
than we thought.
But right down to,
I've had to give the park ?5,000,
just in case
I damage anything in the park.
I then had to sign a disclaimer
for the truck today
if anything gets scratched
or chipped,
or the exhaust falls off the truck,
I'm going to have to pay for that.
The glass is not
in the fixed-price contract,
so the logistics and the cost of
installation fall to Ben and Rachel.
I think there's 25 people here today
working on this project.
Do you know how much
it's going to cost?
What, the overall glass...?
Mm, everything. Erm...
The glass itself is somewhere
around the 60 mark.
60?! Yeah.
60 what?
Pence.
60,000...
Yeah.
Pounds?
And then... But then, the...
For the whole building, surely?
No, no, no, just for the...
Just for the glazing sections
at the back.
60? Something like that. You could
build a house for that. You could.
The glass walls are constructed with
five giant triple-glazed panels,
the largest of which weighs
nearly a tonne.
It's taken months to organise,
and with so many people involved,
heaven knows what the overall bill
will be.
When we initially scoped
the whole thing out,
I was under the impression, and I was
told,
that we could just roll them in on
these trolleys
and bring them around the side
of the house.
KEVIN LAUGHS UPROARIOUSLY
Using this much glass is daring,
possibly a little predictable,
but actually a decision
perfectly applied here.
It elongates the building,
adding no little elegance to it.
Isn't it amazing? Wow.
You can see the whole park behind us
there, look.
The trees and everything. You do
get a reverse view of the entire
park!
It completely changes the way the
house looks. A mirror image of it.
Wow. It's beguiling, isn't it?
You can't really tire of it.
I know it's all slightly cliched,
the idea of a glass box
a glass wall, a glass building,
but it does deliver.
I've never seen an old vicarage that
looks like this. No.
We still get mail.
If there was a vicarage that looked
like this, I think I'd become
a holy man!
This is more of a pavilion,
in the park, isn't it?
It's the pavilion in the park.
Now I know what you're thinking,
you're thinking this kind of
building is commonplace now.
But, you know, modernism,
which was sort of invented in the
1920s by people like Le Corbusier
was all about glass-walled buildings
and light and space and white
emulsion.
When they tried to do it in Britain,
they were doing it in buildings
with no insulation,
and no double glazing,
which were cold and damp
and they ran with condensation.
Nowadays, we have insulation.
We have triple glazing.
It's as though Le Corbusier's
modernism has finally come of age.
Nearly a century later.
The delights of all that glass -
the light, space,
and visual connection to the park,
must be tantalising Ben and Rachel
now.
Their finished home is within
sight,
although they are keen - more than
ever now -
to work through every junction
and detail with their contractor
to finesse their ?400,000 budget
to the finishing line.
The iroko?
So some of it's substandard?
Are you happy with it?
I don't know yet.
Timber's a timber.
But surely they would change it
if that's split.
Well, if it's split, then, yes.
There's also a ton of decisions
to be made about cladding,
paint colours, tiles, flooring,
and every tiny detail.
Why is there a hole in the wall?
Because you have a switch of
some sort there.
Will that be green? That'll have
to be made Pigeon. Oh, Jesus.
Well, what's the radiator colour?
Going with the Dulux Jasmine thing,
please.
That's how the planner wants it?
Yes.
The builders want to be out,
and Ben and Rachel want to be in.
But everyone needs to be happy
that the work's been done
as agreed in the contract.
Why are the lights set at different
sort of spacing?
I'm just having a look at them
myself.
And have we allowed for wall units
coming out?
And we don't have - I know it's
a bit late in the day now -
an electric point here.
A socket point.
For?
The kettle?
I've got to go.
You've got to go?
I'm perfectly happy for you to...
It's an almost predictable wrestle
over the grey areas.
What's included in the fixed price,
and what's an extra.
Now it's quite stressful for us
because we have to make decisions
about tiles and paint...
I wake up in the middle of the night
thinking carcass interiors,
colours...
So there's quite a lot going on.
A month later at the pavilion in
the park,
Ben and Rachel are still negotiating
the tricky end-stage of the project.
OK, shall we move it over then?
Because then I can roll this
one out that way.
One job that's not included
in the fixed price,
is the landscaping
and laying of a queen roof.
So Ben and Rachel are now having
to get well and truly stuck in.
Sedum with wild flowers.
So, we don't just get the benefit of
having this plump green mat,
but we also have flowers that
will grow up every now and then.
Beautiful!
Beautiful, yes.
But they've got to lug three tonnes
of the stuff onto the roof first.
LOUD GRUNTING
That one smells of dog do.
You look like a miner.
It's nice, literally
getting your hands dirty.
Rather than just swanning in
and pointing at things and paying.
I'm so sweaty and dirty.
This building is making its first
big gesture of friendship
with the park.
I think this green roof is more
important than a second bathroom.
Because it's so much part of the
transformation of this property.
And also so integral to the view
as you look out from these bedroom
windows and out into the park.
This is where the park starts
as far as I'm concerned.
The seeds of ladies bedstraw,
kidney vetch, birdsfoot trefoil
and South London dog's-do,
have all been sown into the
substrate of their green roof.
The vicarage is undergoing the nips
and tucks of its full body
make over.
I mean, I still walk in and suddenly
all the glass has gone up
or the bathroom's been fitted.
Now it's feeling more like a home,
and the colour's going on
the wall...
Although money is tight, they have
allowed themselves an extravagance
- a handcrafted, 4m long,
concrete-topped kitchen island.
This is the kitchen island.
This is the beautiful carcass.
There's going to be two sides
to these.
Dishwasher, wine fridge,
beautiful polished concrete top.
It really feels
like we are almost there.
Although this looks like
a building site,
to me, it feels like we are not
very far away.
Very close.
(It's very exciting!)
It's a year since Ben
and Rachel Hammond began work
on their ugly duckling house
in a south London park.
It's very hidden, this building.
Very unusually for something
in the middle of a city,
it, sort of,
snuck in behind the trees.
Well, what a change, eh?
It's like a toasted, caramel
wafer, ready to eat.
Hello! Hello! How are you?
Very well, lovely to see you.
Nice to see you again.
I feel as though I've stepped over
the threshold.
You have. The threshold
is right here.
You know, cos it's marked out
underneath this extraordinary
cantilevered awning. It's beautiful,
isn't it? It's very generous.
It's a grand entrance. Well, it sort
of suggests more to come. Yeah!
Come and have a look.
Beautifully detailed,
all of this.
Eh, what happened to your 1940s'
building? We worked around it.
That hand rail. We were never going
to keep the hand rail, were we?
I think it's in a skip in Chiswick.
This is just... You know, it fits
the modernisation of this house.
Come through. Oh, it beckons.
Oh, this is achingly...
..blisteringly...fashionable
and contemporary!
Wow! This is...
rather fabulous.
This is like a Danish festival
of concrete.
SHE LAUGHS
We do like a bit of polished
concrete. Don't you just!
Downstairs, this building was...
There were three lounges along here
and they were all pretty small.
The big difference between the 1940s
and now is the fact that
there is now a taste for this open
plan, or semi open plan...
Yeah, it's the way people
live now, isn't it?
Having this space just to roam
is wonderful.
Yeah, because the glazing is so big
and disappears into the floor
and up behind the ceiling,
I can't tell whether
there's actually a piece of glass
in that hole.
I mean, there is, isn't there?
There is! Yes...it's there.
Glass gives you that link out to
the sky over there and the trees
on three sides, as though you were
in the middle of a woodland.
You wouldn't think you were in the
city at all. I know.
Just maximum contact.
The roof of their glass box
is skilfully supported by just
four steel posts.
They've been fireproofed
and re-clad in an alloy skin
and still appear almost
impossibly slender.
Delightful!
It's hard to imagine, isn't it, that
these are holding the building up?
It represents some feat of
engineering. Yeah.
A little magic trick.
What lies behind that wall,
or door, I should say?
It's a sliding wall, isn't it?
It's a rolling wall.
You see, every open plan space needs
one of these, doesn't it?
Oh, I like the fact that
it's dark inside.
You can open it all the way,
if you want it open.
But then you can also shut it,
that's what I like.
Cos, then you shut
the kids in here,
with their mates.
Or you can come in here.
Or we can be here as a family.
Occasionally, yeah.
THEY LAUGH
Yeah, good to see it dark and snug.
Yes.
The dark colour just makes it
loads more comfortable.
Yeah, I'm in favour
of a bit of gloom.
That's what you need for
this kind of...
Well, it's a room to hunker down in,
you know, that's what it is. Yeah.
'In my view, you need the odd
gloomy and cramped corner,
'to appreciate the modern mantra
of light and space. And Ben
'and Rachel have been mature enough
to form some contrast of scale
'and colour here, in what is
not a large building.
'But as you rise up through it, the
light levels increase, provided
'by large, overhead apertures,
slotted into the flat roof.'
Your room, with another
fabulous view to the park
and a wall of greenery.
And a skylight that is
the full width of the house.
The full length, yeah.
Wow, a very, very good idea.
If you walk up the driveway,
that slit window there,
lines up perfectly with all
the roof lights.
So, you can see in and out again?
You can see through and then out
to the sky again... Lovely.
The window reveals are very deep,
thanks to the wall thickness,
made up of the old building's
red brick skin,
the added insulation and the new
outer coat of blue-grey brick tiles.
Really big thick walls like
that are quite unusual.
They're very comforting, aren't
they? To have a deep reveal,
it's as though you're being really
protected by the house.
It's a good feeling.
It really is. Home. Yeah.
The upstairs layout is pretty much
that of the old vicarage.
The bedrooms all look out
over the park.
Whereas the bathrooms are absorbed
into
the timber clad cantilevered box.
God, with a great wall of glass...
I'm really chuffed with it.
..it's terrific.
And you're back in London. Yes.
Aren't you just? With the buses
going past and the traffic -
it's a different kind
of thing again.
I've just noticed the spire,
out there.
The super generous landing is
not just a landing,
it's a first floor living room
and a bedroom.
So, this is... Oh, I like that,
there's storage behind it, as well.
Yes. It's good.
And that's it - there's a room.
It's what you pay an architect for,
isn't it?
Mm...
So, I remember standing here,
I think it was by this window...
I think it was this window.
..with the roof off... Yeah.
..saying, "This is what it's all
about."
It looks like wilderness out there,
it's trees and long grass
and mounds and, you know,
where does that go?
I mean, that's Brixton
somewhere...but it feels like
you're in the country.
Maybe Brixton in the 18th century.
Yeah, exactly!
This house is, obviously,
now a time machine
and a place machine, thoroughly
adapted to its setting.
From the street, trees camouflage
a facade that's broken up,
like sticks in a forest.
Meanwhile, out back, the opulent
glass walls reflect the park.
And the blue bricks just melt
the building
into the surrounding architecture.
But to reinvent this home
in the park,
they've had to spend
over ?1.2 million.
What we've spent combined with buying
and then the doing up of,
we could've bought just a normal
five bedroom house around the corner
and we wouldn't have had the quality
of living that we have now -
that I couldn't have anticipated -
you know, this calm and stillness.
Put into that context,
it's phenomenal!
This was a brutish,
brown lump of a box.
I have to forgive Ben and Rachel for
going ?50,000 over their budget -
that's just 4% -
because they've made a valuable
contribution to this place,
improving the park
and producing
an outstanding building.
When we first bought the place,
we were just going to knock
it down and start again and it
actually felt, emotionally,
felt better to do the conversion.
It's a challenge to work with
an existing building
and certainly from a builder's
point of view... Yeah.
I can't quite believe it. I can't
quite believe A, we've got
through all that and we're here...and
what an amazing home we've created!
I've been looking for the ghosts
of the previous building
but I can't find any. I mean...
There is a ghost, actually.
The footprint of the old building,
very much
is here, but it's a very good
re-model, you know,
because it has completely transformed
it from the ugly duckling that
was to...well, in our opinion,
a complete triumph of a modern
building, that we love.
This started out as an ambitious
recycling project.
It is, of course, now completely
transformed, it is a lot bigger,
better, greener and much, much more
beautiful than the old place was.
I think, also,
Ben and Rachel are pointing perhaps
to a transformation on a wider scale
here, because, as I've
said before, out there,
there are tens of thousands of
interesting, adaptable, 20th century
homes, masquerading as mediocre
semi-detached and detached houses.
If we want more of this
kind of architecture,
then we just need to open our eyes
to see what's possible.
Looks like they're building
a bloody bypass, look at it.
I reckon it's going to be the largest
cob building on the planet.
Sounds like a recipe for insanity!
Only another 1,900 tonnes to go.
Kevin is really determined,
he's quite demanding.
It's just relentless.
BLEEP!
If it was easy, it wouldn't be worth
anything, would it? Good point.