Grand Designs (1999–…): Season 2, Episode 11 - The House of Straw: Revisited - full transcript
It's been five years since Jeremy
and Sarah started this project.
And do you know what? They've finished.
Hello, you two gardeners.
Hello. Nice to see you.
How are you? And you. Are you well?
Yes. Good to see you.
Hi. It's been a few years, hasn't it?
Five? Yeah. Six?
Yeah, something like
that since you started.
And what a garden. I mean, I didn't
expect to see this when I came here.
This is glorious, this bit.
But also you have a potager
and you're growing your food.
Yeah, yeah. As you planned.
Yes. Well, you just
need the chickens and...
That's right. They're
coming your way.
And you'll be entirely social.
But this is a real antidote
to the railway and, well,
the intense sort of urban quality
of where you are, you know,
right by the railway. Yeah.
So it's... Well, it's
probably the most
conventional part of
anything we've done.
This looks fantastic, I
think, this wall, doesn't it?
What do you like about it?
I like everything about it.
And the concrete has all the texture.
It's gone slightly quicker
than we imagined.
We wanted it to
happen in about five
years and it happened
in about two years.
Really?
Sort of an intermediate
bit where you just
have the concrete
coming through the rips.
What, where you're flapping about a bit?
Yeah.
But it's... It looks very tidy.
It looks so tidy.
It looks almost as
though it's been dressed,
as though you've gone
and cut them all back.
But you haven't.
It was weathering quite unevenly
because the bags
decay under ultraviolet
light, but now it's
taken on an evenness.
Do you like it?
I do. I think it's lovely.
I'm very pleased with it.
And the gaviers look just
as epic as they always did.
Solid, sturdy.
This one's leaning
a bit, but they're still
actually really, really
straight, aren't they?
How's the quilting, the nappy?
How's that performing?
It's keeping it dry, yes.
It's working well.
I'm fairly worried
about it getting dirty,
because buildings
aren't meant to be dirty.
And I think that
actually it's working very
well, because it
kind of shrugs it off.
I think it would be nicer if
it was just a bit more puffy,
like a puffer jacket.
It's a bit understated.
Do you think so?
I think it's just fine.
Do you? Good.
I think it's just fine.
Because part of the idea of using
the sandbags and the dampers
was to reduce the
vibration, reduce the noise,
and the general intrusion from the railway.
So does that work?
That really works.
That's actually not a problem at all.
But it's perfect. It's working really well.
And our builds are very low, which is nice.
When I first saw this finished bit here,
I thought that it was a sort of a
bit of an architectural mishmash.
But it's not that, is it, really?
I mean, it's... Kevin,
it's not that at all.
It's much more... It's been
very carefully thought out.
It's intentional.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I'm just wondering whether or
not, when you're an architect,
when you design your own house,
whether or not there isn't the
temptation to put every idea
you've ever had into the mine building,
and how you were able to edit out
things that you felt weren't appropriate.
If you rework things over and over again,
you're gradually
getting towards what you
want to do, and you
do edit in the process.
It is a refining process, I think.
Yeah.
And some of the editing is
out of your hands. It is cost.
Yeah.
You know, you just have to take stuff out.
And the straw bales, are they?
They look very fresh.
Really perky?
Yeah.
I mean, those have been
in three and a half years.
And they're fresher stasis.
Don't they just?
They look all good.
Yeah, they're kind of fantastic.
Come on in.
This is your room.
Onto our shiny floor, which
goes out into the pond.
Oh, yes.
Very beautiful.
And then shine, shine.
Watery colour.
This is fantastic.
This is our puddle.
Yep.
Beautiful thing.
Come on up before you drown in it.
This is all very sharp, isn't it?
I mean, it's not like a hairy straw bale.
It's not a hairy straw
house, not at all in the inside.
It's slick, Kevin. That's the word for it.
This is very slick.
This was a building site when I saw it.
Sarah and Jeremy have divided their
huge open plan living area into zones.
A cosy library.
A music area.
Mezzanine.
And separate formal dining room.
This central body of the building
acts as a link between what could
otherwise be two
completely different buildings.
The calm, minimal bedroom block
that is the straw bale part of the house
and Sarah's functional, nappy-clad
office on top of the Gabions.
Do you ever kind of orientate
things around the garden?
Because you get to see
it from here really well.
Yeah.
So what, you turn the sofa
around and let the world in.
That's nice.
This is terrific.
Very nice.
It's kind of quite compact.
Convenient.
Very efficient.
Size kitchen.
Great.
Yeah, efficient.
I mean, you know, simple galley kitchen.
This is your larder.
That's the larder in there.
Yes.
Have a look.
This is your great kind of host house
in the middle of the... your granary.
Yeah, it is the storehouse on the granary.
Well, there's a grill in the floor.
That's it.
So your cold air is
what is bent up through...
Comes in through the base and up
through the top and out above the roof.
The storehouse is the
heart of the building.
And then we have this table
which is made of recycled glass.
Oh, yeah.
Very beautiful.
And that goes all the way through
to the outside of the building.
Yes.
Isn't that lovely?
And the shelf above the table brings
the scale down as you're sitting there.
So it makes for a
nice little sort of...
It's a cosy little...
...dining mist.
That's right.
This whole building is finally
finished and that includes the mad folly.
Sarah and Jeremy's five-storey
train spotting tower that rises out of a
rooftop garden, which, they tell me,
will soon be sown with strawberries.
How do you describe
the character of this
part of the building,
the middle section?
I think it's mainly defined through
the way that the light falls on it,
so that it changes and that's
one thing I really like about it,
that in the winter
you kind of shut down
around the fire and
it's quite intimate.
Whereas on a
summer's day it feels like
you're almost kind of
walking around a park.
I mean, I think, you know, there's a
sort of tension between the openness of
certain other spaces
and then the kind of intimacy and
really closed-down nature of the others,
and I think, why not?
You can't put the
complexity of kind of
domestic dwelling
into... A simple statement.
...a single way.
And I think that that's one of the
things I think's successful about it,
is it does accommodate all
those different ways of living.
How do you define your
relationship with this building?
What kind of relationship
do you have with it?
Well, for a long time I think I had a
really love-hate relationship with it.
I mean, I thought I was
going to hate living here,
because it had been
so traumatic building it.
But now I absolutely love
living here and it's a real haven.
So have you forgiven the
building for what it's done to you?
Just.
So is there a favourite bit of the
building that you treasure here?
I think it's where we're sitting now.
Really? The kitchen?
Yeah.
Really?
For me, I think it is, yeah.
I always gravitate to here.
I think it's lots of little bits.
It's like just these little moments,
like lying in the bathroom,
seeing the daisies on the roof,
or just coming through the
gate and smelling the roses.
And climbing the stairs
and seeing the view
back down to the
pool as you've come in.
Or the view from
the tower across the
railway lines and
the view over London.
So do you feel that you've
arrived, that this house is finished,
that you've concluded it?
Yeah, at the moment, yes.
I think it's always going to evolve.
We've always said this is an
ongoing project, haven't we?
Yeah, you have.
I think also we've always said it
was a bit of a plaything, haven't we?
That it would change over time.
We'd probably change
our minds and then
alter a few things
and so on and so on.
Do you have any idea how
much it's cost in the end?
Yeah.
You're going to tell me,
do you know, roughly?
But roughly, the house is about
375,000 and the office is about 260,000.
That sounds all right.
I think that's remarkably good value.
Sarah, would you have
done anything differently?
I think if I were to
do it again, I might
make the house
a little bit smaller.
What about you, Jeremy?
If you could change
something, what would it be?
I'd do the whole
thing differently
because I think that
it's a house is just.
a kind of moment in time.
of what you're thinking about, what
you're reading, what your personal
circumstances are, how
much money you have.
The idea of replicating this is monstrous.
So there's a sort of knowing
naivety about the project.
Yes, exactly.
It's to kind of walk into things and if
we now knew what we were walking
into, we probably wouldn't have.
And what does the house
give you back in return?
Just an amazing sense of wellbeing,
I think, to shape your environment in
the way that you want to live.
It's absolutely marvelous.
A living house like this isn't
for the faint-hearted, is it?
You have poured your life and soul
into this place and I just wonder if it's
for every mortal,
whether or not your friends would, you
know, whether you countenance them
against doing it.
I'd recommend anybody
to build their own house.
I would, yeah.
I'm not sure I'd recommend
anyone to build this house or with this
complexity or this momentation,
but I think that people who live in
new purpose-designed buildings have a
better quality of life.
I think so.
I wouldn't ever want to live in a,
quote, normal house again after having
this sort of space
and, you know, the opportunity to make
your environment exactly the way that
you want to.
I can't think of any nicer
luxury in life than to do that.
I can't see us moving out.
Ever.
Not really.
It would be a wrench to leave it now.
Sarah describes this building as a
sort of research project and I have to.
say, for the last five years,
I've been wondering whether it isn't
a mishmash of all the architectural
ideas that she and Jeremy
wanted to put into one building.
But I was wrong.
This place isn't a hodgepodge.
It has a real energy
about it, a life of its own,
and that's because it has all the depth
and interest and idiosyncrasies that
human beings have.
It reflects the passions and the
interests and the foibles of its owners.
Now, that is a proper home.
and Sarah started this project.
And do you know what? They've finished.
Hello, you two gardeners.
Hello. Nice to see you.
How are you? And you. Are you well?
Yes. Good to see you.
Hi. It's been a few years, hasn't it?
Five? Yeah. Six?
Yeah, something like
that since you started.
And what a garden. I mean, I didn't
expect to see this when I came here.
This is glorious, this bit.
But also you have a potager
and you're growing your food.
Yeah, yeah. As you planned.
Yes. Well, you just
need the chickens and...
That's right. They're
coming your way.
And you'll be entirely social.
But this is a real antidote
to the railway and, well,
the intense sort of urban quality
of where you are, you know,
right by the railway. Yeah.
So it's... Well, it's
probably the most
conventional part of
anything we've done.
This looks fantastic, I
think, this wall, doesn't it?
What do you like about it?
I like everything about it.
And the concrete has all the texture.
It's gone slightly quicker
than we imagined.
We wanted it to
happen in about five
years and it happened
in about two years.
Really?
Sort of an intermediate
bit where you just
have the concrete
coming through the rips.
What, where you're flapping about a bit?
Yeah.
But it's... It looks very tidy.
It looks so tidy.
It looks almost as
though it's been dressed,
as though you've gone
and cut them all back.
But you haven't.
It was weathering quite unevenly
because the bags
decay under ultraviolet
light, but now it's
taken on an evenness.
Do you like it?
I do. I think it's lovely.
I'm very pleased with it.
And the gaviers look just
as epic as they always did.
Solid, sturdy.
This one's leaning
a bit, but they're still
actually really, really
straight, aren't they?
How's the quilting, the nappy?
How's that performing?
It's keeping it dry, yes.
It's working well.
I'm fairly worried
about it getting dirty,
because buildings
aren't meant to be dirty.
And I think that
actually it's working very
well, because it
kind of shrugs it off.
I think it would be nicer if
it was just a bit more puffy,
like a puffer jacket.
It's a bit understated.
Do you think so?
I think it's just fine.
Do you? Good.
I think it's just fine.
Because part of the idea of using
the sandbags and the dampers
was to reduce the
vibration, reduce the noise,
and the general intrusion from the railway.
So does that work?
That really works.
That's actually not a problem at all.
But it's perfect. It's working really well.
And our builds are very low, which is nice.
When I first saw this finished bit here,
I thought that it was a sort of a
bit of an architectural mishmash.
But it's not that, is it, really?
I mean, it's... Kevin,
it's not that at all.
It's much more... It's been
very carefully thought out.
It's intentional.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I'm just wondering whether or
not, when you're an architect,
when you design your own house,
whether or not there isn't the
temptation to put every idea
you've ever had into the mine building,
and how you were able to edit out
things that you felt weren't appropriate.
If you rework things over and over again,
you're gradually
getting towards what you
want to do, and you
do edit in the process.
It is a refining process, I think.
Yeah.
And some of the editing is
out of your hands. It is cost.
Yeah.
You know, you just have to take stuff out.
And the straw bales, are they?
They look very fresh.
Really perky?
Yeah.
I mean, those have been
in three and a half years.
And they're fresher stasis.
Don't they just?
They look all good.
Yeah, they're kind of fantastic.
Come on in.
This is your room.
Onto our shiny floor, which
goes out into the pond.
Oh, yes.
Very beautiful.
And then shine, shine.
Watery colour.
This is fantastic.
This is our puddle.
Yep.
Beautiful thing.
Come on up before you drown in it.
This is all very sharp, isn't it?
I mean, it's not like a hairy straw bale.
It's not a hairy straw
house, not at all in the inside.
It's slick, Kevin. That's the word for it.
This is very slick.
This was a building site when I saw it.
Sarah and Jeremy have divided their
huge open plan living area into zones.
A cosy library.
A music area.
Mezzanine.
And separate formal dining room.
This central body of the building
acts as a link between what could
otherwise be two
completely different buildings.
The calm, minimal bedroom block
that is the straw bale part of the house
and Sarah's functional, nappy-clad
office on top of the Gabions.
Do you ever kind of orientate
things around the garden?
Because you get to see
it from here really well.
Yeah.
So what, you turn the sofa
around and let the world in.
That's nice.
This is terrific.
Very nice.
It's kind of quite compact.
Convenient.
Very efficient.
Size kitchen.
Great.
Yeah, efficient.
I mean, you know, simple galley kitchen.
This is your larder.
That's the larder in there.
Yes.
Have a look.
This is your great kind of host house
in the middle of the... your granary.
Yeah, it is the storehouse on the granary.
Well, there's a grill in the floor.
That's it.
So your cold air is
what is bent up through...
Comes in through the base and up
through the top and out above the roof.
The storehouse is the
heart of the building.
And then we have this table
which is made of recycled glass.
Oh, yeah.
Very beautiful.
And that goes all the way through
to the outside of the building.
Yes.
Isn't that lovely?
And the shelf above the table brings
the scale down as you're sitting there.
So it makes for a
nice little sort of...
It's a cosy little...
...dining mist.
That's right.
This whole building is finally
finished and that includes the mad folly.
Sarah and Jeremy's five-storey
train spotting tower that rises out of a
rooftop garden, which, they tell me,
will soon be sown with strawberries.
How do you describe
the character of this
part of the building,
the middle section?
I think it's mainly defined through
the way that the light falls on it,
so that it changes and that's
one thing I really like about it,
that in the winter
you kind of shut down
around the fire and
it's quite intimate.
Whereas on a
summer's day it feels like
you're almost kind of
walking around a park.
I mean, I think, you know, there's a
sort of tension between the openness of
certain other spaces
and then the kind of intimacy and
really closed-down nature of the others,
and I think, why not?
You can't put the
complexity of kind of
domestic dwelling
into... A simple statement.
...a single way.
And I think that that's one of the
things I think's successful about it,
is it does accommodate all
those different ways of living.
How do you define your
relationship with this building?
What kind of relationship
do you have with it?
Well, for a long time I think I had a
really love-hate relationship with it.
I mean, I thought I was
going to hate living here,
because it had been
so traumatic building it.
But now I absolutely love
living here and it's a real haven.
So have you forgiven the
building for what it's done to you?
Just.
So is there a favourite bit of the
building that you treasure here?
I think it's where we're sitting now.
Really? The kitchen?
Yeah.
Really?
For me, I think it is, yeah.
I always gravitate to here.
I think it's lots of little bits.
It's like just these little moments,
like lying in the bathroom,
seeing the daisies on the roof,
or just coming through the
gate and smelling the roses.
And climbing the stairs
and seeing the view
back down to the
pool as you've come in.
Or the view from
the tower across the
railway lines and
the view over London.
So do you feel that you've
arrived, that this house is finished,
that you've concluded it?
Yeah, at the moment, yes.
I think it's always going to evolve.
We've always said this is an
ongoing project, haven't we?
Yeah, you have.
I think also we've always said it
was a bit of a plaything, haven't we?
That it would change over time.
We'd probably change
our minds and then
alter a few things
and so on and so on.
Do you have any idea how
much it's cost in the end?
Yeah.
You're going to tell me,
do you know, roughly?
But roughly, the house is about
375,000 and the office is about 260,000.
That sounds all right.
I think that's remarkably good value.
Sarah, would you have
done anything differently?
I think if I were to
do it again, I might
make the house
a little bit smaller.
What about you, Jeremy?
If you could change
something, what would it be?
I'd do the whole
thing differently
because I think that
it's a house is just.
a kind of moment in time.
of what you're thinking about, what
you're reading, what your personal
circumstances are, how
much money you have.
The idea of replicating this is monstrous.
So there's a sort of knowing
naivety about the project.
Yes, exactly.
It's to kind of walk into things and if
we now knew what we were walking
into, we probably wouldn't have.
And what does the house
give you back in return?
Just an amazing sense of wellbeing,
I think, to shape your environment in
the way that you want to live.
It's absolutely marvelous.
A living house like this isn't
for the faint-hearted, is it?
You have poured your life and soul
into this place and I just wonder if it's
for every mortal,
whether or not your friends would, you
know, whether you countenance them
against doing it.
I'd recommend anybody
to build their own house.
I would, yeah.
I'm not sure I'd recommend
anyone to build this house or with this
complexity or this momentation,
but I think that people who live in
new purpose-designed buildings have a
better quality of life.
I think so.
I wouldn't ever want to live in a,
quote, normal house again after having
this sort of space
and, you know, the opportunity to make
your environment exactly the way that
you want to.
I can't think of any nicer
luxury in life than to do that.
I can't see us moving out.
Ever.
Not really.
It would be a wrench to leave it now.
Sarah describes this building as a
sort of research project and I have to.
say, for the last five years,
I've been wondering whether it isn't
a mishmash of all the architectural
ideas that she and Jeremy
wanted to put into one building.
But I was wrong.
This place isn't a hodgepodge.
It has a real energy
about it, a life of its own,
and that's because it has all the depth
and interest and idiosyncrasies that
human beings have.
It reflects the passions and the
interests and the foibles of its owners.
Now, that is a proper home.