Grand Designs (1999–…): Season 18, Episode 9 - East London - full transcript

Looking out at Central London from here,

it's hard to understand how
you could possibly add to it.

Where can you build in amongst
all of that, eh?

But there are some really gutsy
individuals out there

in the cracks and the crevices,

looking for plots of land to build a
home on.

No matter how small those plots are.

London is one of the world's
greatest cities

that has evolved over millennia.

It's an organism which feeds, moves,

and houses a growing population
of nearly 9,000,000 people.



The city's growth
springs from the energy,

the creativity of those
that live here -

like 26-year-old design engineer Joe
Stuart.

I've always been fascinated by
making things,

and seeing how things work.

If you can make something better or
design it better, then why not?

I've had lots of ideas,
but there's always been a...

either a funding constraint or a
priority constraint.

What's great is that this

is really the first opportunity
where the funding's in place,

the timescale's in place, and it's
about just going ahead and doing it.

Joe's now challenged himself to
design a new home,

a house for himself and his Swedish
girlfriend, Lina Nilsson.

It's a chance to own the property in
a housing market



that many believe is out of control.

You don't have to pay rent to
someone else, you can

build something that's not too
expensive, and actually find a place

or make a place that's beautiful,
is good quality, and is yours.

Joe and Lina know both work
full-time, and spend close

to £20,000 a year on renting
a small flat in west London.

The cost of doing the build,

although there is the time involved
in doing it, is still going

to be much cheaper than buying
the equivalent property.

It's a big thing were going to do
together. Yeah.

Building a home together where we
can live. Yeah.

It's going to be exciting.

After a painstaking search,
Joel and Lina scraped

enough money together to buy
an old workshop in east London.

Just three miles from the
skyscrapers of Canary Wharf,

this is an area rife for regeneration.

But their plot is tiny.

That's it, is it? Just the length of
those three fencing panels?

Yeah. Oh, wow.

And a little bit extra at the
moment, while we're doing the works.

Yeah. It's a whole nine and a half
metres by four metres.

Nine and a half by four?
Yeah. That's...

small. What was this place?

It looks like there was a building here?

Yeah, originally it was a coffin
workshop.

We're digging the whole plot down to
about tjhree and a half metres.

I've designed it so it's on half floors.

You've designed it?
I designed it.

We've got what's officially
the smallest two-bedroomed house

possible in London.

Based on the new London regulations.
The design guide?

Yes.

Small does not mean easy,

and Joe and Lina have never
attempted anything like this before.

What do your mates say about this
project?

They say we're crazy sometimes,

but I've always dreamt about
building my own house.

I love creating things.
I mean, in your culture it's normal.

Yeah, it is. But I don't have the
skills,

but luckily enough, I have Joe.
I pretend to have the skills.

You're so passionate about it.

You do so much research, which also
means it takes a little longer,

just to make sure that
it's going to work.

So how do you fit a two-bedroom
house on such a tiny footprint?

To start, Joe's putting a third of
it underground.

He wants a three metre deep basement,

the exact size of the site, poured
in reinforced waterproof concrete.

That'll require high
levels of engineering accuracy.

Joe's designed his own
insulated brackets,

which will support two floating
concrete floors.

The top two thirds of the building
will be made from structural

insulated timber panels,
made off-site,

and then precisely
assembled in east London.

The structure will then get even
more insulation on the outside,

before a covering of cedar cladding.

Inside, this highly engineered,

and insulated building is
a very smart layout.

Basement storage, a workshop,
two bedrooms, two bathrooms,

a study, and a snug, which leads
up to the full-length kitchen

living room are squeezed onto three
floors and three half floors.

The top floor will be a single
kitchen living room crowned

with a full width slanted window to
wash this space in light,

and provide access to
a small roof terrace.

This house might turn out to be
cramped and compromised -

or it might just be a new exciting
model for building on tight

small spaces in one of the most
expensive cities in the world.

So how much is it going to cost,
then? To build.

About 160,000.

Oh, including your basement?
Including the basement.

That's pretty good.

You would do a lot of the
work yourself as well,

that brings down the price.

Yeah, so it could be less
than that, it could be more.

OK, I'm not holding you to it.
An arbituary figure. It's all right.

Yeah. And how much was the site
itself?

It was 73.

Which anywhere is a bargain.

It certainly didn't feel like that
when I bought it, though.

Definitely. It was the biggest risk.

A lot of money for not a lot of
space. Yeah, wow.

Joe's giving himself just one year
to finish this house,

and is investing £50,000 -

every penny he has.

The majority of the funding will
come from his parents,

who have such faith in their son
they've remortgaged

the family home in the Midlands.

We've been quite happy to help Joel out,

because it's easier for us to sport
him in lending in the money -

rather than him getting a building loan.

We trust Joseph to commit to
something he knows he can complete.

It'll be quite an achievement.

Yeah.

Joe has designed this building.

He's done all the calculations.

He's project managing. He's the main
contractor.

He's the client.

He's everything. And he's going to
be labouring,

and working on the site as well.

Now, that is in most circumstances
is a bit of a recipe

for some form of minor disaster.

But here...

I'm not sure.

I mean, never underestimate
the energy, the dynamism of youth.

It's early autumn,
and at last, this shoe box design

on a shoestring budget can
take its first steps.

When I was discussing this with my
engineer,

you were saying the most difficult
part of the build,

of the whole house, was the basement.

The most difficult part of the
basement was doing the excavation.

Basement construction in London will
always present risks.

The risks of damage to neighbouring
properties,

the uncertainty of what lies beneath
the surface.

Joe has entrusted his excavation
to Phil Sacre - a basement expert.

This is a bit of a new challenge to
put a basement the size of a postage

stamp on a piece of land the size of
a postage stamp.

We've normally got a lot more space.

With excavation,

there are a standard methods that
are pretty common practise.

Just have a mile from Joe's site,
these methods are fully understood.

Crossrail is one of Europe's
largest holes.

So this is not how to dig a big
hole in the ground.

Get your mechanical digger and just
start taking big chunks of it out,

cos if you do, the deeper you go,

the more likely it is to
collapse in on itself.

There you go.

So what people do, ordinarily, is to
take a steel ring.

In this case, it's a cake tin.

But, in the real world, it's lots
of sheets of steel interconnected

locked together
and vibrated into the ground.

It's then a fairly straightforward
matter of then digging out

the ground within that ring.

Then build your concrete wall
inside this,

and if you're really clever,

you can take your shuttering and
maybe even remove it.

Ta-da!

But only if you've
formed your concrete walls first.

Because Joe's site is so small,

Joe and Phil are taking the unusual
step of not using steel shuttering.

The site is so tight,

to get the minimum accommodation
required in London, the client

could not lose anything to temporary
supporting of the basement hole.

Phil's worried every inch the site
will need to be excavated to

reach the full 83 square metres of
living space required by planning.

The normal form of constructing a
basement would have prevented the

whole project from going ahead.

The hope is that the dry earth walls
will support themselves.

The soil has been sent
away for analysis and we are told

will be stable for long enough,
but the challenge is going to

be that we keep it stable throughout
the duration of the build.

It can be dangerous. It's one of
those jobs you don't want to be

hanging around, and you get it
done before the weather comes,

because that's
when the sides can cave in.

As the dig to the full depth,
Phil discovers that three metres of

dry earth is sitting on a layer of
wet silt and clay.

We've dug slightly into clay, that
means we've effectively dug a pond.

This could well destabilise
the dry earth above.

Two weeks into this risky excavation,

the exposed walls begin to weaken.

Yeah, if you dig a bit there!

I think we'll leave it like that,
thanks!

By early November, the excavation is
put under more pressure.

This time by the weather.

Phil needs to crack on.

Steel mesh and wooden
formwork are hastily put up,

so the concrete walls can be poured.

THUNDER RUMBLES

By the next morning,
the earth slips have stopped,

but now Phil has a new problem.

The wooden formwork holding
the concrete has been moved.

Unfortunately,
although I'd propped the stop ends,

I hadn't propped
the roof from moving away.

So what's left is out of plum

by 250mm over two metres.

That is a lot.

This is a very wonky wall that needs
to be fixed.

Six weeks since work began,

Joe and Lina are paying a visit to
side with Joe's parents.

Just watch where you put your feet.

It's clear there are more
problems with the walls.

There's a gap here, because this has
gone out in the middle here.

Looks like it's bowed behind.

It's not quite uniform and straight
and...

Yeah.

So the contracter you've
got for digging this hole,

how's he performing for you?

Erm...

I wasn't expecting that.

Somehow, I can't see it being
done in two weeks.

I'm worried that stuff is not going
to plan, but I trust Joe.

It will be fine.

Joe wanted this project to be
a learning experience.

It's just taught him
his first painful lesson.

Urgh!

Joe and Lina have been stuck into
their east London project

for two months now.

Which has meant two months
of headaches with their basement.

The excavation didn't go as we were
led to expect it to go.

We were told the sides would stand
up and they didn't.

And from then on it was a firefight.

Joe and his basement contract,
Phil, have now parted company.

Oh, I was definitely disappointed
that I didn't finish Joe's basement.

So, Er...

My word. I have seen some
holes in the ground but this is...

This is spectacularly shambolic,
isn't it? Yes. And not save.

Can we go down? Yeah. This is
hard hat territory, isn't it?

This is a bit soft and pliable,
this concrete.

This is where they broke it back
because it was so bad.

Another couple of hundred mil...
Leaning right in.

Right to this line here. And that
bow over there that wall,
the Hoover Dam over there.

You can live with that?
I think, if...

My preference would be to start
again but realism.

To rip it all out?
Yeah, the realism is you can't.

When all this is covered up,
you will have forgotten about it,

eventually. The X-ray will
disappear. You will forget.

Yeah, it can be made good.

With so many issues to fix,
and a third of the basement still

to dig, finding a new contractor
will take time and money.

What are the financial consequences
of this? I have paid in stages.

Which is the upsetting side of things.

Because the stages haven't been
completed to spec.

So, I have lost 30 grand on this.
So...

This pregnant wall here.
Who would want that in their house?

All that can be made good,
it can be sorted

and in the end it will be
super-strong and enormously heavy

and well built but it will have just
cost them a lot of angst and money.

And I feel for them.

Joe and Lina search for a new
contractor over a long winter.

I can feel that Joel is feeling the
pressure. He has been very stressed.

For me, it is a bit worrying too.
I feel a bit helpless.

It takes three months of searching.

But in the early New Year,
this project has new energy.

The entire site is different.

Just the way everything is managed,

there are eight people in there working.

It is going to be plum, a correctly
built basement now rather

than something that was going to be
difficult to work with.

It is a nice thing to be involved with.

Joe is a nice guy to work for,
especially

when someone is building their own home.

This is his baby
and he wants it to be right.

Joe is spending
over ?80,000 on this basement

but now with the problems fixed
it will be the right shape and size.

What they will do is lift this
framework up now they have this

to brace against and finish it out
to the top by the middle
of next week.

A plastic sheet acts as a drip
tray and extra waterproof barrier.

Through this, Joe will fix his two
basement floors using

insulated brackets that he has
designed with a structural engineer.

So these are the brackets we will be
fitting those this coming week

so it is interesting times, no-one
has seen these be used before.

In five weeks, Joe's muddy
hole has been transformed.

Complete with two suspended floors.

Joe's ingenious little
brackets will allow him

to fit a layer of insulation
between the wall

and the concrete floor preserving
as much heat as possible inside.

I have been doing
this for about 25 years

and I have never seen
anything like this.

Normally this concrete slab would be
connected into that wall

so what they have got here is five
tonnes of concrete all

sitting on these plates that
balance on these little brackets.

Pretty amazing.

I don't know what it's going to be
like when you have the house-warming

party inside, everybody jumping up
and down at the same time.

After nine months of struggle,
Joe has his engineered basement.

The rest of this project should be
a much simpler prospect

and most of the work has all
ready been done.

In Scotland.

Welcome to the world of
structurally insulated panels.

Otherwise known as SIPS.

Everything is done in the factory,
everything is thought out before.

Everything is cut to the right sizes

and you when you come to site,
it is just a case of putting
it all together.

It is building by numbers almost.

Insulation foam is sandwiched
between sheets of sterling board

and the panels precisely cut
and profiled to Joe's drawings.

I don't know about you

but I am really looking forward
to seeing this. Yeah, yeah.

I have spent 20 years waiting to see
a ready-made house in a factory.

I hope it lives up to expectations then!

Look at that.

Whoa. This must lift your spirits,
doesn't it?

After all those months
of concrete and mud.

You must be relieved to see this.
Yeah.

Yeah, it is a lot cleaner
and crisper and straighter.

Bigger, as well.

We are not just here
to admire Joe's house.

We are also here to learn
how to build it.

F1 11 and F1 12 we are going
to fit them today.

Joe wants to manage
the assembly of the SIPS himself.

Take the top here, locate it
onto the soil plate like that.

A decision could save him
over ?10,000.

And you and I lift up, Joe.

Having no experience of using
these panels before...

You tilt it back on the head a wee
bit. I will pull it in here.

This is an important lesson
from the experts. OK, that is us.

And then you drop
it in like that. It is in. Bingo.

So, this house is
growing in an eruption of foam

and chipboard out
of the plains of Persia.

The thing is it still
has to come its windows, cladding

internal installation, plasterboard,
first fix, second fix, plumbing.

The lot, yeah.
And it is in the wrong place.

It is 444 miles in the wrong place.

With the SIPS panels set for delivery,

Joe and Lina make some domestic
changes east London.

They have moved closer to site
and halved their rent,

a good move financially because Joe
has taken another important step.

In order to focus on the house,

I have left work so it means
I can be 100% house as it were.

It is all on me now.

Time to shine!

He has employed a cheap makeshift
team of mates to help

assemble the SIPS.

This is a house on the back of a lorry.

Yeah, excuse me, ladies.

Sorry, we're just coming around here.

Five tonnes and ?27,000 worth
of SIP panels have journeyed

south from Scotland.

Easy, peasy!

To be greeted by a beefy
tele-handler. Sorry, mate.

You're going that way, aren't you?
Swing it out if you want.

Whoa! Whoa!

What you doing? That's all right.

Stop!

Tip it back. It is damaged
the corner. That is the only one.

That's all right.
We can fix it. It's fine.

The team now proceed with
a little more caution.

To me a bit more, Jim.

Just stop.

To me.

And up. Whoa. Stand up.

That is one way of doing it.
Everyone save? I'm learning.

I'm learning.
Just don't do a third one!

Watch yourself on the steels.

Unpacking done.

It is like a scene from
Carry On Camping or something!

It's summer in the city.

Almost a year into
his East London project,

for the first time
Joe is properly running his site.

Hopefully, a week from now
everything that's here

will be in here.

Relying on what he learnt
at the factory in Scotland,

Joe takes lead in piecing
together his SIPs.

So, glue on this inside edge here
and all of these inside edges.

Mind you, it seems to me experience
isn't always a prerequisite

for working with the system.

Give it a push to the bottom.

He gave himself a week,

and eight days later
he's fixing the roof,

admiring his new view.

Now we're at the top of the house,
you can see most of London, really.

That's not a bad view...that way!

With the full structure up,
it's possible to see if such

a small footprint can really
deliver a comfortable, usable space.

In through the front door
into the lobby of the building.

Downstairs to the semi-basement.

Not a big space,
but big enough for a double bedroom

and down another layer
to Joe's man cave.

This remarkably now looks
absolutely plumb and true.

Up, then, to the...first floor.

And tucked around here, Lina's office.

Now, up to the snug.

It looks very snug at the moment
because it's quite dark.

But there is over there, look,
an enormous window.

Up the metal staircase to the top floor

which is the, sort of,

sofa-eating-cooking
living area, really -

one big space.

And, again, it looks
a little dark at the moment.

That's because the plastic
is covering this opening,

which is going to be one huge skylight.

All of this fitting
onto this tiny, tiny footprint.

This is, sort of...
This is the miniature house

which keeps on giving.

You've given up your job,
you've committed yourself thoroughly

to project, you've moved house.
Yeah.

You're the boss. Or are you the
boss? It says you're the boss.

She's still the boss.

I'm just encouraging
you to follow your dreams.

As soon as Joe decided to leave his job,

he was so much happier just because
this is what he dreams about.

So you're keeping body
and soul together, presumably?

I mean, you're earning money still.

Yeah, but..
At the moment we're all right,

but I'm going to have
to ask Lina to support me

if it takes longer than I expect.

So we're hoping that Christmas,
or just after Christmas,

that we can be moving in and
maybe doing the finishing touches.

It depends how many changes we make.

Just make sure he doesn't change
his mind too often, would you? No.

Simplicity will be key if Joe and Lina

are to finish this building
before the New Year.

But by the end of the summer,

Joe hasn't been able to resist
tinkering with his design.

That is the thickness of the wall
that you bought from Scotland.

I mean, that's a SIPs wall.

On top of that you just stick your roof

and then you can skin the
outside and skin the inside.

What you've done is you've stuck
a four inch timber on the outside

and another one, a three inch one,
on the inside. Yep.

In order to do what?

That's to get to the thermal barriers

we need to be very highly efficient.

So you end up with
a wall of conventional thickness,

which is completely insulation.

It's not just the walls,
Joe's also upgraded his windows,

which are super thick
and triple-glazed.

This new drive for
high performance will have big

implications for this tiny house
and its tiny budget.

Eric here has ordered
his pie with mash and liquor,

which is correct, it's traditional.

It's understood in these
parts of the world.

I, on the other hand, of course

have gone for chips
which is far more controversial.

It's a bit like Joe's project
because he started out with

a scheme which was really
straightforward -

a simple home for him and Lina.

It was small and affordable.

What he's got is a building that's
now being driven by another agenda.

Anything to do with this house,

if you can do it better, then why not?

I think if you're not pushing the
boundaries and trying new things,

then where are you going
to get the innovation

within the building industry
and within design in general?

By early autumn, Joe's design skills
are tested as he grapples with

the engineering of the very big roof
window for the top of the house.

Not happy with it
being triple-glazed,

Joe wants it quadruple-glazed,
which will make remarkably heavy,

maybe even difficult to open for
access up onto the roof.

So, if we were to say we will try
and reproduce this detail...

..like so, I don't think
that will be necessary.

A site meeting with a glazing
supplier might give Joe

his window on paper but it
won't be delivered until December.

This new resolve for high
performance has put an end

to a Christmas deadline.

As much as I'd love to have been
in before Christmas, I've got to

be realistic with the circumstances.
They changed, I have to adapt.

It's not how I would run
a project going forward, no,

but that's because
I've learnt from this project

and because I know more now
than I knew yesterday.

Joe's new ambition
isn't just costing time,

it's costing money, too.

With ?30,000 left
of their 160 grand budget,

he has to pull in favours
wherever he can.

This is George. George is my
neighbour who very kindly

is letting me have power to the site

so we can crack on
and light during the winter.

Exactly, so you can finish it!

A long wait for a complicated
roof window means Joe can focus on

over-complicating other
aspects of this tiny house,

like the cladding.

Hours and hours spent
on the computer boils down to

a small piece of cardboard
with some numbers on it.

With the help of two friends,
Joe's revised his cladding design.

Once made of uniformed pieces,

Joe now wants a pattern made up
of varying widths and lengths.

With this there's more of a process

but it's sort of celebrating the
joint rather than trying to hide it.

A job that could have taken
a week, will now take four.

And for most of that, Joe works alone.

I don't have a very lavish life.

I get up, I come here,
I work, I go home, I sleep.

By early November,
winter begins to bite.

Working 15 hour days, Joe's
learning that ambition has a cost.

Lina's support has never been more
important.

How was your day?

I'm tired and hungry.

What did you do today?

I put some more cladding up.

It sounds like not a lot,
but, yeah, it was busy.

He's very passionate about this project.

I think he's getting a bit frustrated

when stuff is taking a bit
longer than he wants it to.

Every little task takes
usually double or triple the time.

After a gruelling 14 months
since work began,

at long last this building gives
Joe his first glimpse of a finish.

It feels great now the cladding's on.

95% of the nails
I've hammered home myself.

So, it feels like quite a personal
accomplishment, I think, at the end.

Two weeks before Christmas,
and the roof window Joe's been

dreaming of for three
months arrives on site.

That's the opening section...

..coming up.

This glass is about
twice as good as all the other

glass I've got in the house.

And all the other glass is about
twice as good

as the glass in most people's houses.

So, this is the magic glass.

200 kilos of the latest eco-glazing
technology

is positioned with millimetre precision.

Just keep coming down.

Now it means that the whole house
is going to be, like, insulated

and airtight
because all the windows are in.

Six months behind schedule and now
all work has ground to a halt.

It's nice to just design for design

but it's the real world and, yeah,
money is unfortunately a drag

on things and you've got
to find it finish.

I've probably depleted pretty much
the entire original budget

to get where we are now.

But I'll find a solution and I've
just got to be confident in that.

To keep things moving,
Joe turns to Lina for support.

The project starts out as a simple idea,

you two building a home

that's relatively
affordable in East London.

It's grown into something
that's far more adventurous.

You've put some money in as well?
Yep.

So how much is that now? ?25,000.

OK, so you've got an investment
in the project, a stake.

Everything is taking
much longer than we thought.

I try to push stuff
to go faster but it's difficult

because I love him and I can see
it's really painful for him

to compromise on certain things.
So...

You have needs too, though.
Yeah, definitely.

But that will have to wait
till the house has done.

You're putting all that on hold,
are you?

Despite Lina's cash injection,

by April this house is
still a long way from finished.

You were meant to be
living here at Christmas.

Times change. How are you? Not bad.
Yourself?

Yeah, I mean, look,
it's fabulous from the outside.

Beautiful. Thank you.
But it's not finished.

What have you been doing?

It's a little bit harder,
I think, than I thought

just working a bit on
your own sometimes.

So, yeah, things take a bit longer.

"It's a bit harder than I thought".
Yeah.

Inside, this house is obviously
not complete.

The fundamentals are all missing -

electrics, plaster, stairs.

I think there's no excuse
for falling short and if you know

there's a better solution,
what do you have to do to get there?

But I don't want to fall at the last
hurdle, if you know what I mean?

Yeah, that isn't the problem.

The problem is that you keep
making new hurdles for yourself.

Yeah, there's been
some compromises in time

and where we're living and everything.

I think the house that I was
planning to build for 160

is not the house that I've built here.

Two years ago, Joe hadn't planned
to install the latest high-pressure

misting sprinklers or a cutting edge
low energy heating

and hot water system.

Throughout the summer progress is slow,

but still Joe's commitment is steadfast.

Part of the frustration is I can see
what this can all become if it's

all done exactly as I want it,

and I think it's
about staying true to that.

The real question is will
Joe's vision for this house

ever become reality?

It's been just over two years
since I first met Joe and Lina

and heard about their plans
for a tiny two-bedroom house

with a big pioneering spirit.

Now I want a different perspective

on one of East London's
smallest buildings.

Oh.

Will you look at that?

What a skyline.

This part of London in the East End,
200 years ago, it was just fields.

It grew, effectively, as housing
to support the docks as they grew,

and then it was an area
that became heavily bombed

during the Second World War

to the extent that there are big holes

that have since been plugged
with social housing programmes

of the 20th century.

And in amongst all of that,

the occasional little
shining example of something new,

of regeneration.

There's Joe's house.

This is all very tidy.

And neat.

And so is this house.

Very tidy, very polished.

Very nicely detailed.

It may be small,
but this building packs some punch.

The contrast of sleek cedar
against Victorian brick

is genuinely exciting.

This is young, trendy,
sustainable housing,

what you might call box-fresh.

Hey, Joe.

How are you doing?

Yeah, I'm very well.
Good to see you again.

I'm all the better
for seeing you and this place.

Hi, Lina. Hi. Nice to see you.
And you.

Look at this.

I just hadn't expected it to be so
precisely polished in the way it is.

All of this new tarmac,

who paid for this?

this was a collection of, you know,
the landlords... And you.

..and homeowners and myself here.
Everyone.

And then who paid for the wall then?

So, that was done with the council.
So all these guys benefit.

Exactly, yeah.

I think it would have been quite
rude to have just done my place

and not really look at
the residents and surrounding area.

It feels safer to come in here and
we all get to know each other now,

we talk to each other,
so good community.

Well, regeneration always starts
with individuals. Yeah. Yeah.

So, well done. Nice job. Thank you.

From the outside, it's actually shrunk

cos it had scaffolding on it
for so long.

It's shrunk back to
its correct perimeter, hasn't it?

Yeah, it was almost
on the same land again borrowed.

I really want to know how big it is
on the inside.

Come and have a look, then. Come on.

Or small for that matter.
THEY LAUGH

Come on in.

What a light building.

White walls, open staircases
and natural light

make this building seem to expand
as soon as you cross the threshold.

No longer a drawing or a building site,

Joe and Lina have made a real house.

It's funny, every time I've stood
on one of these mezzanines,

I kept thinking to myself, "Surely
this isn't big enough to live on,"

and yet, actually, we are in
a really generous-sized hallway.

And your staircase, it's
very minimal. Do you like it? I do.

It's very white too.

It's also got holes in it
to let the light through.

The open, flowing interior fools you
into thinking

this building is much bigger
than it really is.

An illusion that continues upstairs
in Lina's office.

That is very clever.

The area that's defined is
about five feet by four feet,

it's titchy, but it's great.

There's plenty of space, yeah.

It's almost suggesting more space
than there is.

And ceilings that you can't touch.

The master bedroom is
also tall, full-width

and just big enough to be civilised

thanks entirely to the way
Joe's designed the storage.

That's a key thing, isn't it? Yeah.

Make your fitted furniture
full-height for storage... Yeah.

..but also, then, make it a wall.

For all the complications
Joe has brought to this building,

the finished space is
elegant, simple and even generous.

As though it could have been
slotted together

with a rubber mallet
and an Allen key in just a few days.

I just love the choice of spaces,
and choice of views, really.

Do you know what? It is -
it's not uncomfortably warm,

it is just really, really pleasant
this building. It's not...

It keeps the heat in it, doesn't it?

Yes, I mean, the maximum
heat demand, I think, in the winter,

is about 650 watts
which is almost nothing.

That's very... Yeah, exactly, very,
very low and super insulated. Yeah.

Wow.

That is one complicated view, isn't it?

As you come up the building,
the views get less constricted

and it sort of takes you
somewhere else, you know?

Yeah, the most, I think,
dramatic view is probably
the one on the next floor.

Oh, yeah, yeah, from the sky.
The skylight, yeah.

But meantime, there's a room
which is remarkable.

Great, isn't it?
Really generous kitchen.

This is the point in the house,

the only point where you get to
sort of really see the full width,

almost the full length of the place.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's not subdivided.

What's interesting is
that as you come up,

the spaces get more interesting.

They get bigger, each one gets bigger.

That is bigger than the two rooms
on the previous landing. Yeah.

And, at the same time,
the windows get larger,

they take in more sky

until you end up with this view,

which is like tiny house,
view to infinity.

The whole idea was that it was
a crescendo to this space.

That's one of the beauties of
this house,

is that it's all bespoke.

It means it's everything we want,
really.

Wow.

This small house has two bathrooms -
one off the hall

and a wet room in the basement,

the basement that was such a challenge.

Down here, hides the subterranean
spare bedroom,

and in the depths...

The hallowed ground of the workshop.

This is a place with potential,
creative potential. Exactly.

Are you past the horror?

I've moved positively forward from it.

It was horrible at the time.

Yeah, you can dwell on it or you can
build the rest of the house.

Both inside and out,

Joe's fastidious eye for detail

and uncompromising attitude
to quality is in evidence.

There's no hint this is the work
of someone learning on the job.

The impact of this house
will not only make itself felt

on the local community,

but also undoubtedly on the future
of the young man that built it.

You started out with kind of
a whole different agenda here.

It was about making yourself
a simple house

that you could both enjoy and live in.

You thought you'd carry on working

and who knows
where the future would lead you.

You gave up your job, you became
entirely focused on this project,

you altered what it was meant to be.

It's all been reactive,

so it has been designing it
as we go along

rather than having
this predefined design.

There's also, though,
the element of overcompensation.

Having not got the groundworks
where you wanted them to be,

with the rest of the project
it seemed to me

you really wanted to, kind of,
super perform.

This is a project where
I've compensated for the issues

and also then been rather creative

in going, "Well, how do I find
what I want?"

And I think it had to be in this
sort of detailed and sort of
long-winded approach.

So, yeah, it's been tiring at times,

but every time I look at it
and try think, "Was it worth it
or was it not?"

It's a resounding
"Yes, it was worth it."

Joe was always saying this is about
him learning how to build a house,

and there's more layers to it
and there's more things to do

and you feel like the list is
just becoming longer and longer,

but we managed to get here in the end,

we managed to finish everything.

Lina, you're the partner in this,

but you're also the investor,

you're the backer to an extent.
Yeah.

As are your parents.

Do you feel that you have supported
an indulgence?

Joe has worked so hard on the house.

It hasn't felt like it's an indulgence.

I sometimes turn around and say to him,

"You don't have to do this
if you don't want to.

"We can find another solution,"
but he wants to.

Do you feel an equal sense of ownership?

LINA AND JOE LAUGH

I think because Joe has put
90, 95% into the house,

I will say it's Joe's house
but it's our home.

How much did it cost in the end?

We probably...

It's probably about 250 all in.

As opposed to 160, which is
90,000 over which is...

Well... Come on, yeah, it is.

I was expecting I was a bit low,

but I wasn't expecting to stretch
quite so far.

This way of building isn't
the most affordable way of doing it,

but for what we've got here,
could we afford to buy it?

Absolutely not.

It's been a longer journey
than we both expected,

but I think it now gives us
a bit of a framework

to look at what we want to do.

With this house we managed to create
a dream together... Yeah.

I think it's galvanised
our relationship.

It's really sort of added
another layer. Yeah.

And, yeah, I'd do it again with her
if she wanted to.

Would you?

If I can stay here whilst
you're building the other house.

You know, we should
stop measuring houses by

the number of bedrooms
and bathrooms they've got

and measure, instead, their energy.

By which I mean the human energy
that goes into making them.

Cos this place, you see, is only
the powerful little space capsule
that it is

thanks to all the genius
and the design ideas

and the passion and the commitment

and the time spent building it
by Joe and Lina,

by their collaborators, their friends.

And now this place is poised
to give it all back,

to change Joe and Lina's lives,

to improve where it is,

to actually, perhaps,
make a contribution

to the wider regeneration
of this part of London.

What an extraordinary potential it has.

Powerful, big ideas can come
in small packages.

A friend came round and said,
oh, he's building a cathedral

cos cathedrals take
more than one generation to build

and I thought, "Oh, nice."

HE LAUGHS

Ed is very much at the hilt of the house

and mine is very much more the land
and the animals.

I just can't resist experimenting
with pretty well everything,

that's sort of my nature.

Do you think that
Ed is going to deliver? Yes.

Absolutely. You say that very
confidently. I am very confident.

Wow. This is spectacular.