Grand Designs (1999–…): Season 4, Episode 8 - An Idiosyncratic Home, Avon Tyrrell, Dorset - full transcript
Pink, pink, pink isn't
quite what we expected.
Let's see it. Let's try it.
Let's try it and see what you think.
I.E. I'm not changing my mind.
I thought that was a window, actually.
Mike, isn't this going to be a window?
If you're going to build your own house,
then you're going to want it
to reflect everything about you,
to mirror every aspect of your life.
The couple I'm going to meet
this week have travelled the world,
and they want to take all the
ideas that they've garnered
from the four corners
of the globe and
put them into one
extraordinary building
in a remote and spectacular
part of the New Forest.
Mike Thrasher and Lizzie Vann
live in the middle of 55
acres of organic farmland.
Home is a New England-style
converted chicken shed,
but for 16 years they've dreamt
of building their own house,
and now they're about to do it.
The yellow chicken shed
is going, and in its place,
they want a house that sits
comfortably in its surroundings,
but one that's also a very unique design.
So, this is your first day?
Yes, it is. Yeah? Yeah.
And what happens where, then?
I mean, this house is going to go...
Yeah...where you're currently living. Yeah.
And what's going to be here, then?
Three different buildings.
Three different buildings.
So, we've got this area here,
which is the living room. Right.
Then over there we've got a bedroom wing.
Right.
And then at the back we've got
this really exciting romantic notion,
which is the tower, which I
know is totally impractical,
but I really like the idea.
It's a useless living space, but...
I know.
It's very romantic, though, isn't it?
And who's building it for you?
We're building it with all
kinds of different contractors,
different specialist skills
for each of the facets -
the glazing, the
superstructure, the
substructure, and
the interior fittings.
But we've brought all that together
with a project manager. Right.
And I'm helping him on the
aesthetic side, cos I'm the designer.
And I'll be doing the interiors,
the kitchens and the bathrooms.
Together, together.
We're doing the interiors together.
The kitchen, the kitchen...
Oh, you're going to go...
Don't even start. No, I'm the finance.
So, I'm arranging the
finance and making
sure that the whole
thing comes in on budget.
How long does it take to
get planning permission for it?
About three years. Wow.
From... A long time.
We wanted to build a
Hayeku house, which is
this wonderful Japanese
wooden-style house.
We really, really wanted that.
And we thought it would be quite easy,
because here we
are in the new forest,
wooden houses, and
we've blended wonderfully.
And they said, "No, come back again."
And it's taken us three years of
refining and refining and refining,
and now we have the English
version of the Hayeku house.
We've had to make a few compromises,
but nonetheless, we think we've
come up with a great design.
With a design that works. Yes.
The ground plan comprises
three separate linked structures,
which keep to the scale of
local agricultural buildings.
But the whole house will
be built and clad in timber,
as a way of rooting it into the forest.
The main building will sit on stilts,
and it'll be faced with
floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors.
This is an open-plan
living/dining/kitchen space,
and the timber frame and
trusses will be visible throughout.
A glass walkway leads to the
second building, the bedroom block,
which holds a bathroom, dressing
room, and the house's only bedroom.
The third building is Liz's
romantic three-storey tower.
Its basement houses the laundry,
services, and a shower room,
while the two floors above give
Mike and Lizzie a study each.
The upper one, surrounded by glass,
giving fantastic 360-degree
views across the new forest.
This place doesn't look
like a typical British house.
This looks as though it would
be at home in, I don't know,
Australia or America or even West India.
It's somewhere like that.
And for that matter, of course,
neither is the one you're going to
build going to be typically British.
So where do these ideas come from?
Where does that all come from?
Well, we travelled into those
parts that you mentioned,
and we've been
influenced by staying in
bed and breakfast
and those sort of places,
and some of our greatest times
have been sat out on decks,
looking at sunsets and enjoying
the wildlife and the surroundings.
And I used to live in Australia,
and I wanted that outdoor
living to bring it back here.
And when I met
Lizzie, we both had the
same sort of feelings
about outdoor living.
16 years ago. 16 years ago,
this guy promised me, he said,
"One day, we'll build a house together."
That's just a romantic gesture.
This is the way of picking you up.
It started today.
It actually happened today.
What does it mean to you, this building?
Oh, I just want a really
nice house to live in.
And I think in the way that, you know,
sometimes you can
crave food cooked
just for you or
clothes that fit just you,
to have a house that
we've designed that
meets exactly what
we need is a real luxury.
So to have a house that meets, you
know, just who you are and who I am,
and fits around that rather
than the needs of others,
or just the needs of some sort
of amorphous family is great.
So how much is this
perfect dream going to cost?
I will have the money, person.
Ha-ha!
Well, it's going to cost
more than we've got.
We're going to get
a large mortgage and
we have some funds
that we put to one side.
Maximum budget that
we can afford to spend
on the initial build
is 300,000 pounds.
Have you got anything kind of
put aside to cover eventualities?
Unforeseen?
No, but we have confidence.
Well, that'll pay for it then.
It's a great currency.
Mike and Lizzie's budget
is medium-sized and fixed,
but their vision is ambitious and complex.
Even the foundations are complex.
This wooden house is going
to be built on a concrete plinth,
supported by concrete pillars.
Now, I know this house is meant to
be a forest-friendly wooden building,
but there's an awful
lot of concrete around.
And the reason for that is
that Mike has been persuaded
that to sit his wooden building
on top of all this damp earth
means that the timber would
just rot away really quickly.
So, instead, they've pulled this
enormous great concrete plinth
supported on all these
great concrete pillars.
The structure will certainly do the job.
From now on, Mike is going to be
taking a leading role on this project,
interpreting and adding
to his architect's drawings
and supervising the
design of this building.
I'm very excited and
concerned at the same
time because there's
no going back now.
This is 60 tonnes
of concrete, so
hopefully everything
is in the right place,
and this is very final.
Mike's fulfilling a
16-year-old promise to Lizzie
to deliver a house
tailor-made for the two
of them, and he doesn't
want to disappoint.
It's August, and 11 weeks in,
the foundations are complete,
walls are emerging, and the
structure of the house is taking shape,
come rain or shine.
Well, it's really started to move now.
They've started to put
up a timber framework,
and it's just every day,
up another 6 foot, 12 foot,
which is exciting because
you can begin to see the tower,
which I think is going to be
my favourite part of the house.
I've been clambering up it every night
to try and get that sense of
height that we're going to get from it.
Lizzie only gets to see
progress each evening
when she returns from running
her very busy organic food company.
She's earning the cash.
Mike is taking time out of
his graphic design practice
to supervise the design of the project.
It's a huge
responsibility, but he's got
project manager Graham
Davies to help him.
It is unique, and it has
required an awful lot of work.
Although it's just a timber
building, a timber and glass building,
everything is special,
everything is one-off.
You can see here
the amount of detailing
that we've had to have
done by the architect
to make sure that
everything actually works.
We've had to produce about 30, 35 drawings,
which is unusual for a
house of 175 square metres.
I guess in a normal
four or five bedroom
house, a slightly
bigger house even,
you'd only produce perhaps a dozen 15.
Of course, drawings are cheap
relative to the cost of a house.
The risk comes in
translating one into the other.
When you've had the image of a
dream in your mind for a long time,
it's hard for the
reality to match up to it.
When we were designing
the building, there
was a point where we
had to suddenly lose,
I think, 10 square metres
or something like that,
and the compromise we made
was instead of having to redesign
all of the living room area, which
would have been really difficult,
we just cut the bedroom
down, bedroom and bathroom.
And now when you see it
on the ground, it's very small.
It's very small.
I'm not sure that it's...
I think it may be disappointing
when we get to live in that bit.
I think on this side we've got the bath,
then we've got the
sink area, and that
must be where the
window's going to be.
So we're going to
get the morning light
coming through there
and a big mirror here,
it will make it look a bit bigger, I hope.
We're going to need that.
And then toilet, shower,
which looks quite small,
but everybody tells me that it gets
bigger as you kind of finish it off.
And then in this area
here, the dressing room,
where we have to fit in many
pairs of shoes and a lot of clothes.
And at the moment we've got
about twice this area in the old house.
I've decided to be very hands-off with it.
Mike is there on the detail every day,
discussing it with the surveyor
and the architect and the builders.
But that means a lot of decisions get made
that Mike can't remember
if he's told me or not.
I thought that was a window, actually.
Mike, isn't this going to be a window?
We haven't exactly fallen out about it,
but I have had a few
questions every now and then.
But there is a window here, isn't there?
Yes.
At eye level?
When you're in the bath?
Yes, in the bath. So it's about here.
I'm just looking at this and wondering
whether we raise the bath up.
And just slide that window up a bit.
Mike is under pressure to
deliver their dream home.
He's passionate about
detail, colour and materials,
and he and Lizzie really want this place
to relate to the natural
woodlands surrounding it.
Before choosing his wood,
Mike's revisiting an early inspiration,
the Hayeku House in Cambridge,
to see what makes it work so well.
The last time I came here was with Lizzie.
We'd only recently met.
As soon as we saw it, we thought,
this is what we're going to have one day.
It seems very honest, the structure.
You can see all
the construction, the
bolts, the metal bits
that join the wood.
It feels very comfortable.
It feels like I want us to
be in five, ten years' time,
and it feels really as
part of the landscape.
Hayeku design rests on the
principle of oneness with nature,
and that means a great deal of wood
in the building, on show, everywhere.
Mike's choice of
timber will fundamentally
affect the character
of their interior.
And after weeks of agonising,
he decides on Douglas Fir,
which grows locally in the New Forest.
That's the raw stuff, Mike.
What do you think?
Pretty good, eh?
Perfect rings.
When they turn that, the grain on
that is going to be tremendous, isn't it?
Look at that. Just the job.
Fantastic.
I'm amazed that we're
taking New Forest,
Douglas Fir, back
to the New Forest.
What a great idea.
Ten columns will hold up the roof trusses,
defining the internal
shape and look of the house.
The columns are
unusually large, three and
a half metres high and
38 centimetres thick,
to prevent distortion.
If he sinks, how round it is?
Yeah, just being, what you do
is you run the tip of your finger,
and if you feel a slight
vibration, you know it's not round.
They turn on a lathe, and as each
pass of the blade makes them smoother,
so their individual wood
grain pattern emerges.
I'm mesmerised by the
figuring on this, it's so beautiful.
I can't wait to see them in the house.
It's September, three months
since the first pilings went in.
Today is the day Mike's been longing for.
The beautiful Douglas Fir
columns have arrived on site,
and a team of carpenters are
preparing them and fitting them into place.
Unusually, this house is being
built anywhere in the world.
It's a very small house,
but it's a very small house.
It's a very small house,
and it's a very small house.
Unusually, this house is being
built entirely by carpenters.
But they are using
other technologies,
such as these bespoke
steel fixing plates.
That way, they reckon they can get
the whole frame built in just two days.
There are lots of complicated
joints in this building,
between timber and timber, timber
and steel, and timber and concrete.
They're achieved not with
the traditional method of using
complicated timber joints and wooden pegs,
but by using a thing called a flitch plate,
which in this case
has five fingers, one
piece of steel pointing
in all directions,
locking these pieces of timber together.
The timber slots over that like
that, and then it's bolted together,
and it's the bolts that take the
load, if you like, and stiffen the whole
structure up.
And that way, the joint really
can't move anywhere at all.
They're going to look
really fine, aren't they?
I mean, they look great just
lined up over there, as it is.
Yes, they look great.
They're part of the furniture inside.
Yeah, for sure.
And do you need to protect them
from the wet as the building's going up?
That's something I'm wrangling
over at the moment, how to finish them.
Because two are
outside, the rest are inside.
Right.
I don't really want to change the
colour, so I don't want to stain them.
I need to protect them.
And do the ones
outside go silver naturally,
or do we stop that
happening somehow?
I don't know the answers to that yet.
No.
But you will.
That's what keeps me awake at night.
With all ten Poles lined up in their pairs,
the five Douglas fir trusses
can now be positioned on top.
Look at that.
It's like a big delta wing aircraft,
that, flying through the air.
I'm reliably informed each one
of those weighs half a tonne.
What, the trusses?
The trusses, yeah.
Really?
Given the fact they're working
with these different materials,
means that, and particularly
with the steel work in the box,
means that they can put a
section up really quite quickly.
Yes, oh yes, yes.
I mean, you're not
waiting for glues to
dry, you're not having
to fiddle around.
No glue.
And is there any flexibility in the frame,
or in the whole of the
frame's construction,
that allows you to
move stuff around?
Yes, because what they're going to
do now, once all five trusses are up,
is they're going to square
it all up and adjust it,
and then just tinker with all the
angles before they tighten the bolts.
So everything's absolutely true.
I see.
So that's why you've got these
spaces between the bottom plate
and the concrete and the
bottom plate of the tiller,
to allow you for some
flexibility of movement.
That's right.
To basically line
everything up when it's all in.
That's right.
They seem very nice there.
And they're now on number three.
Yes.
You're done by lunchtime, aren't you?
What do they think of it, these boards,
because these guys are carpenters.
They are indeed.
Not steel workers,
and here they are having to marry
the timber into all these other materials.
Yes, it's a challenge for everybody.
So do all those nuts and bolts, do
they all remain in the stainless finish?
Either that or black, and I've decided
it as to which way they're going.
OK.
I'd do stainless, mate.
Yeah, you're probably right.
Slightly temperate, isn't it?
Yes.
That bothers me a bit, because
this is not what I was after.
If Mike's bothered, I wonder what
Lizzie'll think when she gets home.
For the first time, she'll be able to
see the design leap from the page
into three dimensions.
When were you out last?
This morning?
I saw the columns, but I
haven't seen the trusses.
It's got a shape, all that
crisscross all the way through.
Such a strong pattern
going through the house.
It's like a pink sandstone temple.
No, pink, pink.
Pink isn't quite what we
expected, but pink we can work with.
I'm sure we can work with lots of neutrals.
It's a good pink.
So this is what? This is the bedroom?
This is the bedroom wing.
So we've got a bathroom and a
dressing room, but this is the bedroom.
Right. Not huge, is it?
Not huge, no.
Bit of a compromise here we
had to make at the last minute.
And in fact, because Mike is six foot four,
we've had to push the end wall
back a bit just to get the bed in.
And then this is the dressing room.
Yeah.
And the bathroom through there.
Through there, right.
Into this bit, which is a glass walkway.
Right.
Completely glass.
This connects the two buildings here.
Glass, both sides, sheer glass.
Great.
Yes. And then library here.
Right, and the main living area.
And the main living area. Wonderful.
That's amazing, isn't it?
Something on site.
Thank you.
Isn't it big?
Does it seem big?
It feels smaller because
we've been used to
walking on this concrete
pad with nothing.
But we've always wanted it to be bigger.
We've always wanted it to
be sort of... I think it feels huge.
The benefit was bigger.
I think only for one living area.
It's one big open plan area.
It is, yeah.
And then... You go through.
The tower.
The tower.
My favourite bit.
This is your baby, isn't it?
Yes.
I'm so excited by this.
It must be something in my psyche.
It's really sort of
romantic about
princesses and
towers, but I really like it.
It's quite Harry Potter-ish, isn't it?
Have you been out the top?
No, I have not.
Shall we go up?
Yeah, yeah, come on. Show me your tower.
Just take a run up. Go on.
OK.
See, this is where the staircase is going.
Just here.
Yep.
My bit's not as steep as this one.
No.
I love this room. I love...
I want this room.
What do you mean? It is. It's your...
What do you mean, it's
your whole house is yours?
What are you talking about?
No, I had to do a deal
with Mike on this one.
Did you?
He wants this room. He's got a telescope.
And it's going to be
windows all the way round.
And the view. The view is wonderful.
It's going to be epic.
It's going to be like some great
lookout tower in the African...
It's going to be wonderful, isn't it?
...plane, isn't it?
It's a tower.
It's one... No.
That's why I'm growing my hair.
The frame goes up in the
two days they had hoped.
It's a good start.
But it is just the start.
Whichever way you look at it,
this house is really complicated.
It's made out of poured
concrete, blockwork, bricks.
It's got timber softwood stud framing.
It's also got glass walkways here.
And it's got a Douglas fir timber frame.
Not only that, but it's not one building.
It's three buildings, all of
which are joined together.
And bits of it like this place are
single storey jutting out of a hill.
And the tower over there, meanwhile,
well, that's three storeys high.
The design is complicated, highly
detailed, and it's also dynamic.
If they can pull this off, it means
that this space is going to be a
stimulating, exciting place to live.
And if they don't, it's
going to look a mess.
It's early October, and
Autumn is well set in.
It's crucial that this
timber house gets a
roof on before the
weather gets worse.
Softwood purlins and
rafters are fixed to the trusses.
And then the whole
grid of timber is
held rigid with a
stressed skin of plywood.
The studwork walls have been packed
with insulation and also boarded over
ready for the cladding.
Mike's decided that
he's not going to leave
the cladding in the
natural wood finish.
Instead, he's going to paint it.
This is a big departure
from the Hayeku idea
of blending effortlessly
with the forest.
And looking at how much they
love bright, bold colours and all things
American, I'm quite worried
about what he's going to choose.
Yes, let's drop that in.
He's put an image
of the house into his
computer at his
graphic design practice,
so he can try out
different looks before
committing himself
to the real thing.
That looks vile.
Let's try that New England red.
It doesn't look too bad.
I don't think I could have done it
without this sort of system to visualise
what six months worth
of building would look like.
And it's been really helpful for
Lizzie as well, for us to discuss the
options of colours and door designs.
And it's just been
something to fall back
on every time a
decision has to be made.
What's it going to look like?
One thing's for sure.
In a setting as beautiful
and unspoiled as
this, Mike's choice
of colours is critical.
These are striking buildings
with big surface areas.
And I think the
eventual success of
their design will
depend utterly on colour.
If you're building a commissioned
piece of architecture like this house,
when it comes to the detail, it's like
having a blank piece of paper really.
There's very little in
the way of precedent.
If you're building surrounded by
other buildings, then you can take a cue
from other materials.
You can match a brick colour or match
a tile or maybe match a paint colour.
But here, what are Lizzie
and Mike going to do?
They're surrounded by woodland.
Their neighbours are trees.
Every time I come here, the
landscape seems to be a different colour.
Yes, the woods change
colour with all the seasons.
This house of yours has got
to sit in a most all this, hasn't it?
It's a constantly changing
palette of colours.
That's right. The ideal would be some
sort of chromatic paint that changes
with the seasons.
Comedian paint.
Yes. As we've got three separate
structures, three separate buildings,
we're going to choose a
different colour for each.
Right.
And the main house,
we've chosen to use
a wood stain which
matches the bracken.
And this is the chosen colour.
Oh, my.
Which is inspired by our original colours.
It's brilliant. It's exactly the same
colour as the bracken when it's lit in
the sunlight.
That's right.
I mean, is that
straight out of the pot
that we just poured
a propionate stain?
No, no. This is three coats. This is
one coat of light oak stain, followed
by two coats of teak.
So you've had to mix and
match, like around the house.
We've experimented to.
And the other colours in the
building then are coming from where?
And the other colours, we've
got a green for the bedroom wing,
which we're getting out of our
evergreen plantings, tropical plantings
around the house.
And the purple for the tower, we're
getting from the purple header at the
end of August on the Heath.
And the rhododendrons
that we get in the spring.
So at any time of the year, the
house will match something around it.
Yeah, it's great. It's great.
It's a really, really wonderful piece of
research, really.
I've enjoyed every minute of it.
I love colour and it's just been fun.
Mike's done an enormous
amount of work here.
He's obsessed to the point that
this project has consumed him.
But although he's taking his
colours directly from the landscape,
what on earth will they look like as
huge areas of flat colour on buildings?
Is this the purple for the outside?
This is the Heather
purple that we've ended
up with on the soil
of the tower cladding.
It's the inspirations from the Heather
in the field and the rhododendrons
that are here every June.
In fact, I've got a photograph of that.
What are these pots of Heather down here?
They're not out of the field, are they?
No, but that's... They're
from the garden centre.
That's from the garden centre.
But that's the sort of effect.
Is it the same colour?
Across on the Heath, yes, exactly.
It is, it is.
You can see how that...
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
It is actually. It's
the tint of that...
And this is what the surroundings
look like in the whole of June, which is
the rhododendrons.
Yeah.
And these are very much the
final colours and they look great.
And what about this one
over here, the green one?
That's horizontal cladding
of the bedroom wing.
Oh right, OK.
And this is just one coat on there.
So when you combine them all together,
they have sympathy with each other.
Yeah. It makes for, overall, a very
adventurous combination, doesn't it?
It takes us back to... it always
matches something in its environment.
Yeah.
Which I think is nice.
Yeah. But there is a risk, isn't there?
Absolutely.
It's not off-white and cream.
No, it's a risk. And
it'll look odd until
we get all our
landscaping correct.
Yeah.
And it comes up to it.
Yeah. So you hope it's going to work.
So I hope it's going to work.
And there is another
big colour on this build.
The roof is made of zinc, which is a
cool grey colour, and there's a lot of
it.
It's expensive, but Mike
likes it because it's modern,
and it reminds him and Lizzie of
the tin roofed houses abroad that first
inspired them.
It also comes pre-patinated, so
whatever time and bad weather throw at it,
the colour won't change.
It's prepared on site.
The zinc comes on a huge roll, which
passes through a machine to be cut and
shaped into individual
trays ready to be installed.
You've got two separate profiles on this.
Yeah.
And that's presumably because
they overlap, is that right?
They interlock.
We lay it down on the timber decking.
Yeah.
And then hook the clip over
the top, nail it to the deck.
Yeah.
And then the next tray
goes over the top like that.
Yeah.
And then you seam the whole thing together.
How do you do that?
Well, there's an electrical seaming
machine that we would then sit on top of
that, which runs up
the roof and turns at
360, so you end up
with a very thin joint.
How beautiful. And that's effectively
an airtight, moisture-tight gap.
That's a waterproof joint.
And on this job, you must have
quite a lot of complicated little details.
Seams, gutters, edges and so on.
Yeah, the details are where the time
goes and where the craftsmanship has to
go, either at the eaves or
on the cores of the roof lights,
or where you have to solder the
gutters because all the guttering here is
all done with zinc.
But that makes for a very beautiful job.
It does, yeah.
As opposed to something which
is constructed out of different
materials like, you know, flashing
and tile and guttering material.
And this you can form the
whole thing in one material.
You're mixing a modern
product with modern
machinery techniques
with craftsmanship.
Yeah, old-fashioned plumbing, in fact.
Yeah, it is.
With the roof in place, the
skylights are inserted along its Ridge.
Now the building is reasonably
watertight for the winter, and work can
really get moving inside.
The interior walls are being
boarded up, ready to be plastered.
And Mike's high-tech systems can now go in.
In the tower basement, he's got a
top-of-the-range, energy-efficient boiler.
For the electrics, he's gone for a
very clever and highly technical system,
requiring two kilometres worth of cabling.
Everything is to be controlled
from a central computer.
Lights that change colour.
A music system of 12,000 CDs, which
can be heard and controlled from every
room, even the bathroom.
And a state-of-the-art television system.
We started two weeks ago.
We've spent a week putting all the
trunking in and all the conduits, getting
every box fixed.
The floor goes down on Friday, so
we've spent the last two weeks working
until half-eight, ten o'clock sometimes,
just getting
everything in, because
once the floors go
down, that's us stuffed.
This 21st-century technology sits
alongside old-fashioned wooden carpentry.
The large sliding walls are inspired
by traditional Japanese screens.
But these wooden frames will be
glazed to introduce light and provide the
essential views.
But building with
timber is giving project
manager Graham a few
engineering headaches.
The design aspects with the challenge,
you have to keep that big structural
opening true, so that we don't jam
doors in a year's time, and so on.
I mean, timber moves. We've noticed
that the building structure has moved
over the last couple of weeks.
It's relaxed and it's settled down,
so we've had to adjust things.
And it will continue
to move for another
year or so, at least
I would imagine.
I think we've got the
details to accommodate that.
One solution has been to hide a
steel beam that won't shrink or expand
behind timber cladding.
It's a bit of a cheat, but
worth it to avoid problems.
It's quiet and down now, isn't it? Look.
In the end of the working day.
Oh, there's a door.
This has got a little
bit of a shaft, doesn't it?
That looks lovely.
So it's the idea that these windows
will also travel all the way down the
building. Is that how it works?
Not quite all the way, but they pass
each other, so that we can open it
right up to the fixed ones either end.
Blimey, isn't that nice?
I did not realise that. I just wanted
them to be stuck between the poles.
No, no, no, they pass it. Hence the
three tracks, because they can all pass
each other.
How much do you know about this project?
A lot, obviously.
This ducting here, though, very, very wide.
I was surprised, looking at them
laying all these
cables in, how much
electrical cable they
needed in this building.
I thought the ducting
was far too big, but
now they filled it
with cables, it wasn't.
It's surprising. And that's going
to get screeded over, isn't it?
Absolutely.
So how on earth will you access?
It won't be accessible. You'll have to fish
afterwards.
Correct, yeah.
And hope that
rats don't use it as a run
and chew their way
through all that PVC.
Thank you, thank you.
That's very reassuring.
Wasting that small points.
What's this thing?
Computer cables, telephone cables,
electric cables, back to the control
system in the tower.
I thought we were running books here.
We are, all in front of it.
It's like the human body, isn't it?
And the nervous system.
What, what, what, what is what? I
mean, I've been to see those and I've seen
a lot of cables, but
this is, these, these,
there are so many of
them, they're a bundle.
I'm a bit of Banjax myself.
Godfathers.
What about the colours on the outside
of the building? I mean, you've been
quite involved with most
experiments, haven't you?
I really like the mauve-y purple colour.
Yeah, for the tower.
The greeny colour, I can see where
we're coming from with it because it
matches this area. But I don't like
that green. But I'm sure in its context,
I would have gone for darker green.
So it is on the lighter end of the tower.
But that's only one coat out of
three, so I guess it'll deepen a bit.
But let's see it, let's try it.
That's the architect's solution.
I've noticed this. The architect's answer
is, let's try it and see what you think.
i.e. I'm not changing my mind.
They don't have to wait long to see.
We're six months into the build and the
painted cladding is going on, starting
with the rather light green that has
worried Lizzie.
It's pre-painted and there's a lot
of it, so I do hope it works for her.
The exterior timber of the main
building is being stained as opposed to
painted. Again, they'd better have
got this colour right because stain on a
wood is irreversible.
The end is in sight, but
for Mike, the responsibility
of all the decision-making
is taking its toll.
The project, as I call it, has begun
to bite me a bit. It's taking me over
and there are moments where I sort of...
it's a big chain around my neck.
But is that a problem of simply the
quantity of decisions you have to make
or is it a question of time?
No, it's the quantity of decisions and
where are the materials coming from,
what colour are they, how do they
interface with each other and what is the
cost of it.
But that's what this whole project
is about, isn't it? This is not a house
of one colour.
Oh no.
This is three separate buildings,
jointed in very complicated ways, in three
different colours,
three different finishes.
I find myself thinking of it as a
project, as if I had a client and then I
scratch my head and
think, well, one day
I'm actually going
to be living in there.
Yeah, but to an
extent Lizzie's sort of
assumed the role
of clients, isn't she?
Yes, very much so.
Are you still on budget?
Is that all working out fine?
I wouldn't say we're on budget.
It's slipped a little.
How much is a little?
Probably about 10%.
Really, that much?
Yeah.
And is that just on everything?
Unforcains and the implications that
some of our finishes are bringing to
bear, the tiles and that sort of thing.
So it's crept up a bit.
Yeah, are you OK about that?
Yes, it's a constant battle, keeping
the cash flow going with Lizzie.
With the house on the
way to being finished,
I hope Lizzie will
be a satisfied client.
I've always felt that this build was
very complicated. A lot of ideas, a lot
of materials, a lot of buildings even.
And the risk there was that this
place would not be one coherent house.
Having said that, Mike and Lizzie
have finished on time. They've moved in
this week.
So I can't wait to see what it's like.
This is unlike any other house I've seen.
There are so many ideas in it.
From a contemporary take
on New England clapboard,
to the big eaves and
stilts of Japanese Hayeku,
to the influences of the American
architect Frank Lloyd Wright, especially
in the grouping of the buildings.
And it's all been shaken up
and painted bright colours.
The whole house is a sensitive response
to the landscape, but it is also an
exciting one.
Isn't it beautiful? It's very, very,
very impressive. I like it, I like it.
Are you pleased?
We've just come to terms with it really.
We're not sure that we
should be living here.
How long have you been living here?
Two days.
Really? Two lives we've spent here?
It doesn't feel like we deserve to
live there. We keep waiting for the
owners to come home and throw us out.
So you're pleased with the colours?
Absolutely. I love this Brecon
coloured stain that we've used.
I love the purple. I think the purple
is really great because it has lots of
different shades.
But it was the green of the bedroom
wing that was always the biggest worry.
And even now Lizzie remains unconvinced.
It looks too new at the moment. Whether
it works in the landscape, I reserve
judgement.
Well it's going to be a bit difficult
to tell until you've got the planting
around it and more grass.
You've got to knit it to landscape.
You've got a lot of mud
there at the moment.
Yes.
I did wonder at one point near
whether there was going to be any Hayeku
influences left in this house at all,
but from this side it looks
very, very Japanese-y.
I think it's there but it's a
modern interpretation of it.
I was a bit worried about it being
a bit Swiss, a bit Swiss chalet-ish.
It doesn't look like a Swiss chalet.
I've never seen a Swiss chalet with a
purple tar next to it.
Inside the spacious open
plan room is bathed in natural
light from the skylights above
and from the wall of glass.
And these windows work
magnificently at framing
the views that Mike and
Lizzie have always craved.
The space flows seamlessly from one
area to the next, shaped by the organic
curves of the kitchen furniture.
But this sexy interior is still contained
within a very agricultural looking
timber frame.
And those timber columns really
are a little bit of the forest inside.
Now that the walls are all painted, the
structure becomes much more obvious.
We can hug a tree.
We can hug a tree.
The concerns about
them being too pink,
that's all gone now
because they've mellowed.
Yes, yes.
And the view.
There are so few places in Britain
where you can look at and see nothing, no
one but trees, forest and landscape.
All the different Greens.
I just want this place
to know what that is.
Yes, this was the dream, very much so.
Show me your toys,
what have you got
in your kitchen that
you show off to me?
Oh, just loads of stuff.
We've never got married, so we've
never had the wedding list and we've never
had the kit and everything that matches.
So over the years we've actually been
accumulating our own kit for the new
house and it's all come out to play.
Yeah, this is some kind
of wedding presentation.
What I really like is the way
that it's kind of jauntily arranged.
I've listened to what Lizzie's requirements
were and tried to feed them into
this design and keep it fresh and
low level and airy and free flow.
To keep this space clear of
extractors and things like that.
Extractor.
And it sucks all the cooking smells
down through this cupboard and out
through the floor.
Up periscope.
Up periscope.
And what is this thing?
It's not a tap.
Well in theory it's a tap, but I
like to think of it as a work of art.
It's the nodding tap.
We've not worked out how it works yet.
I think it kind of goes like that or
it kind of goes like that.
But what we keep
doing is this and then this.
What a nightmare.
That's not a tap, it's a ridiculous thing.
It's like a work of art.
Who specified that?
Nobody's going to take
the can for that are they?
And then this, this is my favourite bit.
An under shelf.
Under?
No, no, no.
This is clever.
This is a drawer fridge.
It's like a chest freezer.
Yes.
So all the cold stays in the drawer,
it doesn't tumble out of the fridge
when you open the drawer.
That's right. And the great thing
about it is that you can see everything.
You just look down on it.
Look at that.
And you can see it.
Look at that.
I like these shelves.
The library.
The library, I love it.
I do remember
when there was just
kind of a spaghetti
junction of cable here.
There were 99 cables
coming out of the floor.
99? Where do they all go?
They've all been terminated
in these black boxes.
That's all, all the original stuff.
The glass walkways are hugely successful.
You come into what you think
is going to be an enclosed space.
But the moment
you're in it, it opens up
again and gives you
views to either side.
The walkways work like Bridges,
and they're an exciting component of the
building from inside and out.
And through here is the dressing room.
And beyond.
Look at this. Small room, small room.
Nice room.
But you know, the thing I like the
most in here is you can actually sit on
the bed and look at the clouds up there.
And look at the clouds up there.
The fact that you've got that great
expanse of the natural world up there
means that the space seems so much bigger.
Doesn't it?
Doesn't need to be any bigger than this.
You've got your bathroom next to
you, your dressing room here, so all you
need in here is sleep.
And the view.
And the view.
And the view.
A nice simple combination of elements.
Oh now this is rather special isn't it?
This is beautiful. What's this timber on?
It's cherry. Solid cherry.
Isn't it just exquisite? I think it's
got a tremendous amount of strength.
Great character this room too.
And a long thin room. You've
kind of played with lots of glass here.
You've opened it up.
I've put the mirrors in to widen it out.
Yeah? It's very glamorous looking.
Restful colours.
Yeah. And the shower.
Yes, this is the beam me up Scotty.
Oh.
I have to say that is an
astonishingly large shower.
I'm a tall bloke.
I'm pleased this house hasn't totally
disappeared into the environment.
I'm pleased the colours
don't camouflage it.
It's a great building that deserves
not to be hidden but to be admired.
It has its own
personality and yet I
think it still connects
to the landscape.
Oh this is a nice room.
The lookout tower.
Woah. It's like a
series of pictures isn't
it? This is the paintings
around the walls.
360 degrees.
Yeah. Wow. All across the new forest.
It's a proper lookout.
It is. It's a control tower.
And look downstairs
was going to be
your office but it's
clearly not an office.
That's right.
So what's happened?
Well this was such a beautiful room
but I had to prevail on my answer.
We did.
We should share it. We did a deal.
So you've got a desk each now.
Yeah.
That's neat.
You work here and chilled downstairs.
Yeah.
You can dream up here. Let your mind go.
The finishing details of
this house are exquisite.
The stain is the right colour.
The arrangements of glass, zinc
and timber are elegantly resolved.
And all that timber
engineering is a joy to behold.
If the devil is in the detail, Mike
has sold his soul to this place.
I have to say I have
very rarely visited
a house so beautifully
finished as this.
And I wonder what you put that down to.
Good project management.
From Graham?
From Graham all the way through.
And attention to detail and that comes
down to Mike because he did plan it
all out well in advance to make sure
that we had all the bits and pieces.
Yeah.
I'd say he was obsessive about it.
Yes.
Yes.
In the sense of skiving
off work most of the time.
You didn't.
I'm afraid so.
Did you?
Guilty.
It's easy to forget that this is
an extremely high-tech house.
The computer-run lighting and
audio-visual systems are all hidden.
So the clean wooden structure and
plain white walls are largely free of
sockets, wires and other
modern paraphernalia.
You even have to hunt for the television.
No. No, no, no.
Hidden because...
That is so Ian Fleming.
I expect to see a map of the
world with little lights over it blinking
underneath all that.
He's trying to turn it off.
He's trying to turn it off and he can't.
It's clever but I'm
not sure you really
need a television
with views like this.
The house was built to take
advantage of them and it does.
So is it what you expected?
No, it's much better than that.
I didn't think we could do this.
It's just a fantastic
life-enhancing experience.
Yeah, it just makes
you feel more grown-up,
makes you feel
more adult somehow.
It makes me feel very humble
actually, makes me feel very lucky.
It does make me feel humble.
Very privileged to have
been able to do this.
You've got all your joint history
in this building, haven't you?
I mean 16 years of life
together, all your travels.
How are they expressed here?
Well, my main worry was that we should
express them everywhere and it would
be a real hodgepodge of different ideas,
we're going to cram it all in, this is
our once in a lifetime opportunity to
put the house, our home together.
And we try and put it all
in there, in the melting pot.
But I think we've managed to restrain
ourselves and keep it all on a great
theme but with little pockets of discovery.
And I think it just hangs
together really well.
If anybody who knows us walked into
this they'd think, "Oh yes, this is Mike
and Liz's house."
Because it's writ all over the walls.
Anyone setting out to build their
own house will want it to reflect their
own lives, their interests, their passions.
And that's what Mike and Lizzie did.
They commissioned a building of
parts inspired from far flung places that
really does mirror their lives.
But it does more than that. It
actually transcends the sum of its parts.
It's more successful than I thought,
than I think they thought possible.
This is a house which is an honourable
addition to the architectural canon.
And already it
makes its owners feel
like more civilised,
happier human beings.
That's what a great building does.
Looking for a way to freshen up your mind?
Join me, Glen Bartholomew, weekday
mornings on ABC News Radio from 5.30
Eastern Standard Time for
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ABC News Radio. Get your news now.
quite what we expected.
Let's see it. Let's try it.
Let's try it and see what you think.
I.E. I'm not changing my mind.
I thought that was a window, actually.
Mike, isn't this going to be a window?
If you're going to build your own house,
then you're going to want it
to reflect everything about you,
to mirror every aspect of your life.
The couple I'm going to meet
this week have travelled the world,
and they want to take all the
ideas that they've garnered
from the four corners
of the globe and
put them into one
extraordinary building
in a remote and spectacular
part of the New Forest.
Mike Thrasher and Lizzie Vann
live in the middle of 55
acres of organic farmland.
Home is a New England-style
converted chicken shed,
but for 16 years they've dreamt
of building their own house,
and now they're about to do it.
The yellow chicken shed
is going, and in its place,
they want a house that sits
comfortably in its surroundings,
but one that's also a very unique design.
So, this is your first day?
Yes, it is. Yeah? Yeah.
And what happens where, then?
I mean, this house is going to go...
Yeah...where you're currently living. Yeah.
And what's going to be here, then?
Three different buildings.
Three different buildings.
So, we've got this area here,
which is the living room. Right.
Then over there we've got a bedroom wing.
Right.
And then at the back we've got
this really exciting romantic notion,
which is the tower, which I
know is totally impractical,
but I really like the idea.
It's a useless living space, but...
I know.
It's very romantic, though, isn't it?
And who's building it for you?
We're building it with all
kinds of different contractors,
different specialist skills
for each of the facets -
the glazing, the
superstructure, the
substructure, and
the interior fittings.
But we've brought all that together
with a project manager. Right.
And I'm helping him on the
aesthetic side, cos I'm the designer.
And I'll be doing the interiors,
the kitchens and the bathrooms.
Together, together.
We're doing the interiors together.
The kitchen, the kitchen...
Oh, you're going to go...
Don't even start. No, I'm the finance.
So, I'm arranging the
finance and making
sure that the whole
thing comes in on budget.
How long does it take to
get planning permission for it?
About three years. Wow.
From... A long time.
We wanted to build a
Hayeku house, which is
this wonderful Japanese
wooden-style house.
We really, really wanted that.
And we thought it would be quite easy,
because here we
are in the new forest,
wooden houses, and
we've blended wonderfully.
And they said, "No, come back again."
And it's taken us three years of
refining and refining and refining,
and now we have the English
version of the Hayeku house.
We've had to make a few compromises,
but nonetheless, we think we've
come up with a great design.
With a design that works. Yes.
The ground plan comprises
three separate linked structures,
which keep to the scale of
local agricultural buildings.
But the whole house will
be built and clad in timber,
as a way of rooting it into the forest.
The main building will sit on stilts,
and it'll be faced with
floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors.
This is an open-plan
living/dining/kitchen space,
and the timber frame and
trusses will be visible throughout.
A glass walkway leads to the
second building, the bedroom block,
which holds a bathroom, dressing
room, and the house's only bedroom.
The third building is Liz's
romantic three-storey tower.
Its basement houses the laundry,
services, and a shower room,
while the two floors above give
Mike and Lizzie a study each.
The upper one, surrounded by glass,
giving fantastic 360-degree
views across the new forest.
This place doesn't look
like a typical British house.
This looks as though it would
be at home in, I don't know,
Australia or America or even West India.
It's somewhere like that.
And for that matter, of course,
neither is the one you're going to
build going to be typically British.
So where do these ideas come from?
Where does that all come from?
Well, we travelled into those
parts that you mentioned,
and we've been
influenced by staying in
bed and breakfast
and those sort of places,
and some of our greatest times
have been sat out on decks,
looking at sunsets and enjoying
the wildlife and the surroundings.
And I used to live in Australia,
and I wanted that outdoor
living to bring it back here.
And when I met
Lizzie, we both had the
same sort of feelings
about outdoor living.
16 years ago. 16 years ago,
this guy promised me, he said,
"One day, we'll build a house together."
That's just a romantic gesture.
This is the way of picking you up.
It started today.
It actually happened today.
What does it mean to you, this building?
Oh, I just want a really
nice house to live in.
And I think in the way that, you know,
sometimes you can
crave food cooked
just for you or
clothes that fit just you,
to have a house that
we've designed that
meets exactly what
we need is a real luxury.
So to have a house that meets, you
know, just who you are and who I am,
and fits around that rather
than the needs of others,
or just the needs of some sort
of amorphous family is great.
So how much is this
perfect dream going to cost?
I will have the money, person.
Ha-ha!
Well, it's going to cost
more than we've got.
We're going to get
a large mortgage and
we have some funds
that we put to one side.
Maximum budget that
we can afford to spend
on the initial build
is 300,000 pounds.
Have you got anything kind of
put aside to cover eventualities?
Unforeseen?
No, but we have confidence.
Well, that'll pay for it then.
It's a great currency.
Mike and Lizzie's budget
is medium-sized and fixed,
but their vision is ambitious and complex.
Even the foundations are complex.
This wooden house is going
to be built on a concrete plinth,
supported by concrete pillars.
Now, I know this house is meant to
be a forest-friendly wooden building,
but there's an awful
lot of concrete around.
And the reason for that is
that Mike has been persuaded
that to sit his wooden building
on top of all this damp earth
means that the timber would
just rot away really quickly.
So, instead, they've pulled this
enormous great concrete plinth
supported on all these
great concrete pillars.
The structure will certainly do the job.
From now on, Mike is going to be
taking a leading role on this project,
interpreting and adding
to his architect's drawings
and supervising the
design of this building.
I'm very excited and
concerned at the same
time because there's
no going back now.
This is 60 tonnes
of concrete, so
hopefully everything
is in the right place,
and this is very final.
Mike's fulfilling a
16-year-old promise to Lizzie
to deliver a house
tailor-made for the two
of them, and he doesn't
want to disappoint.
It's August, and 11 weeks in,
the foundations are complete,
walls are emerging, and the
structure of the house is taking shape,
come rain or shine.
Well, it's really started to move now.
They've started to put
up a timber framework,
and it's just every day,
up another 6 foot, 12 foot,
which is exciting because
you can begin to see the tower,
which I think is going to be
my favourite part of the house.
I've been clambering up it every night
to try and get that sense of
height that we're going to get from it.
Lizzie only gets to see
progress each evening
when she returns from running
her very busy organic food company.
She's earning the cash.
Mike is taking time out of
his graphic design practice
to supervise the design of the project.
It's a huge
responsibility, but he's got
project manager Graham
Davies to help him.
It is unique, and it has
required an awful lot of work.
Although it's just a timber
building, a timber and glass building,
everything is special,
everything is one-off.
You can see here
the amount of detailing
that we've had to have
done by the architect
to make sure that
everything actually works.
We've had to produce about 30, 35 drawings,
which is unusual for a
house of 175 square metres.
I guess in a normal
four or five bedroom
house, a slightly
bigger house even,
you'd only produce perhaps a dozen 15.
Of course, drawings are cheap
relative to the cost of a house.
The risk comes in
translating one into the other.
When you've had the image of a
dream in your mind for a long time,
it's hard for the
reality to match up to it.
When we were designing
the building, there
was a point where we
had to suddenly lose,
I think, 10 square metres
or something like that,
and the compromise we made
was instead of having to redesign
all of the living room area, which
would have been really difficult,
we just cut the bedroom
down, bedroom and bathroom.
And now when you see it
on the ground, it's very small.
It's very small.
I'm not sure that it's...
I think it may be disappointing
when we get to live in that bit.
I think on this side we've got the bath,
then we've got the
sink area, and that
must be where the
window's going to be.
So we're going to
get the morning light
coming through there
and a big mirror here,
it will make it look a bit bigger, I hope.
We're going to need that.
And then toilet, shower,
which looks quite small,
but everybody tells me that it gets
bigger as you kind of finish it off.
And then in this area
here, the dressing room,
where we have to fit in many
pairs of shoes and a lot of clothes.
And at the moment we've got
about twice this area in the old house.
I've decided to be very hands-off with it.
Mike is there on the detail every day,
discussing it with the surveyor
and the architect and the builders.
But that means a lot of decisions get made
that Mike can't remember
if he's told me or not.
I thought that was a window, actually.
Mike, isn't this going to be a window?
We haven't exactly fallen out about it,
but I have had a few
questions every now and then.
But there is a window here, isn't there?
Yes.
At eye level?
When you're in the bath?
Yes, in the bath. So it's about here.
I'm just looking at this and wondering
whether we raise the bath up.
And just slide that window up a bit.
Mike is under pressure to
deliver their dream home.
He's passionate about
detail, colour and materials,
and he and Lizzie really want this place
to relate to the natural
woodlands surrounding it.
Before choosing his wood,
Mike's revisiting an early inspiration,
the Hayeku House in Cambridge,
to see what makes it work so well.
The last time I came here was with Lizzie.
We'd only recently met.
As soon as we saw it, we thought,
this is what we're going to have one day.
It seems very honest, the structure.
You can see all
the construction, the
bolts, the metal bits
that join the wood.
It feels very comfortable.
It feels like I want us to
be in five, ten years' time,
and it feels really as
part of the landscape.
Hayeku design rests on the
principle of oneness with nature,
and that means a great deal of wood
in the building, on show, everywhere.
Mike's choice of
timber will fundamentally
affect the character
of their interior.
And after weeks of agonising,
he decides on Douglas Fir,
which grows locally in the New Forest.
That's the raw stuff, Mike.
What do you think?
Pretty good, eh?
Perfect rings.
When they turn that, the grain on
that is going to be tremendous, isn't it?
Look at that. Just the job.
Fantastic.
I'm amazed that we're
taking New Forest,
Douglas Fir, back
to the New Forest.
What a great idea.
Ten columns will hold up the roof trusses,
defining the internal
shape and look of the house.
The columns are
unusually large, three and
a half metres high and
38 centimetres thick,
to prevent distortion.
If he sinks, how round it is?
Yeah, just being, what you do
is you run the tip of your finger,
and if you feel a slight
vibration, you know it's not round.
They turn on a lathe, and as each
pass of the blade makes them smoother,
so their individual wood
grain pattern emerges.
I'm mesmerised by the
figuring on this, it's so beautiful.
I can't wait to see them in the house.
It's September, three months
since the first pilings went in.
Today is the day Mike's been longing for.
The beautiful Douglas Fir
columns have arrived on site,
and a team of carpenters are
preparing them and fitting them into place.
Unusually, this house is being
built anywhere in the world.
It's a very small house,
but it's a very small house.
It's a very small house,
and it's a very small house.
Unusually, this house is being
built entirely by carpenters.
But they are using
other technologies,
such as these bespoke
steel fixing plates.
That way, they reckon they can get
the whole frame built in just two days.
There are lots of complicated
joints in this building,
between timber and timber, timber
and steel, and timber and concrete.
They're achieved not with
the traditional method of using
complicated timber joints and wooden pegs,
but by using a thing called a flitch plate,
which in this case
has five fingers, one
piece of steel pointing
in all directions,
locking these pieces of timber together.
The timber slots over that like
that, and then it's bolted together,
and it's the bolts that take the
load, if you like, and stiffen the whole
structure up.
And that way, the joint really
can't move anywhere at all.
They're going to look
really fine, aren't they?
I mean, they look great just
lined up over there, as it is.
Yes, they look great.
They're part of the furniture inside.
Yeah, for sure.
And do you need to protect them
from the wet as the building's going up?
That's something I'm wrangling
over at the moment, how to finish them.
Because two are
outside, the rest are inside.
Right.
I don't really want to change the
colour, so I don't want to stain them.
I need to protect them.
And do the ones
outside go silver naturally,
or do we stop that
happening somehow?
I don't know the answers to that yet.
No.
But you will.
That's what keeps me awake at night.
With all ten Poles lined up in their pairs,
the five Douglas fir trusses
can now be positioned on top.
Look at that.
It's like a big delta wing aircraft,
that, flying through the air.
I'm reliably informed each one
of those weighs half a tonne.
What, the trusses?
The trusses, yeah.
Really?
Given the fact they're working
with these different materials,
means that, and particularly
with the steel work in the box,
means that they can put a
section up really quite quickly.
Yes, oh yes, yes.
I mean, you're not
waiting for glues to
dry, you're not having
to fiddle around.
No glue.
And is there any flexibility in the frame,
or in the whole of the
frame's construction,
that allows you to
move stuff around?
Yes, because what they're going to
do now, once all five trusses are up,
is they're going to square
it all up and adjust it,
and then just tinker with all the
angles before they tighten the bolts.
So everything's absolutely true.
I see.
So that's why you've got these
spaces between the bottom plate
and the concrete and the
bottom plate of the tiller,
to allow you for some
flexibility of movement.
That's right.
To basically line
everything up when it's all in.
That's right.
They seem very nice there.
And they're now on number three.
Yes.
You're done by lunchtime, aren't you?
What do they think of it, these boards,
because these guys are carpenters.
They are indeed.
Not steel workers,
and here they are having to marry
the timber into all these other materials.
Yes, it's a challenge for everybody.
So do all those nuts and bolts, do
they all remain in the stainless finish?
Either that or black, and I've decided
it as to which way they're going.
OK.
I'd do stainless, mate.
Yeah, you're probably right.
Slightly temperate, isn't it?
Yes.
That bothers me a bit, because
this is not what I was after.
If Mike's bothered, I wonder what
Lizzie'll think when she gets home.
For the first time, she'll be able to
see the design leap from the page
into three dimensions.
When were you out last?
This morning?
I saw the columns, but I
haven't seen the trusses.
It's got a shape, all that
crisscross all the way through.
Such a strong pattern
going through the house.
It's like a pink sandstone temple.
No, pink, pink.
Pink isn't quite what we
expected, but pink we can work with.
I'm sure we can work with lots of neutrals.
It's a good pink.
So this is what? This is the bedroom?
This is the bedroom wing.
So we've got a bathroom and a
dressing room, but this is the bedroom.
Right. Not huge, is it?
Not huge, no.
Bit of a compromise here we
had to make at the last minute.
And in fact, because Mike is six foot four,
we've had to push the end wall
back a bit just to get the bed in.
And then this is the dressing room.
Yeah.
And the bathroom through there.
Through there, right.
Into this bit, which is a glass walkway.
Right.
Completely glass.
This connects the two buildings here.
Glass, both sides, sheer glass.
Great.
Yes. And then library here.
Right, and the main living area.
And the main living area. Wonderful.
That's amazing, isn't it?
Something on site.
Thank you.
Isn't it big?
Does it seem big?
It feels smaller because
we've been used to
walking on this concrete
pad with nothing.
But we've always wanted it to be bigger.
We've always wanted it to
be sort of... I think it feels huge.
The benefit was bigger.
I think only for one living area.
It's one big open plan area.
It is, yeah.
And then... You go through.
The tower.
The tower.
My favourite bit.
This is your baby, isn't it?
Yes.
I'm so excited by this.
It must be something in my psyche.
It's really sort of
romantic about
princesses and
towers, but I really like it.
It's quite Harry Potter-ish, isn't it?
Have you been out the top?
No, I have not.
Shall we go up?
Yeah, yeah, come on. Show me your tower.
Just take a run up. Go on.
OK.
See, this is where the staircase is going.
Just here.
Yep.
My bit's not as steep as this one.
No.
I love this room. I love...
I want this room.
What do you mean? It is. It's your...
What do you mean, it's
your whole house is yours?
What are you talking about?
No, I had to do a deal
with Mike on this one.
Did you?
He wants this room. He's got a telescope.
And it's going to be
windows all the way round.
And the view. The view is wonderful.
It's going to be epic.
It's going to be like some great
lookout tower in the African...
It's going to be wonderful, isn't it?
...plane, isn't it?
It's a tower.
It's one... No.
That's why I'm growing my hair.
The frame goes up in the
two days they had hoped.
It's a good start.
But it is just the start.
Whichever way you look at it,
this house is really complicated.
It's made out of poured
concrete, blockwork, bricks.
It's got timber softwood stud framing.
It's also got glass walkways here.
And it's got a Douglas fir timber frame.
Not only that, but it's not one building.
It's three buildings, all of
which are joined together.
And bits of it like this place are
single storey jutting out of a hill.
And the tower over there, meanwhile,
well, that's three storeys high.
The design is complicated, highly
detailed, and it's also dynamic.
If they can pull this off, it means
that this space is going to be a
stimulating, exciting place to live.
And if they don't, it's
going to look a mess.
It's early October, and
Autumn is well set in.
It's crucial that this
timber house gets a
roof on before the
weather gets worse.
Softwood purlins and
rafters are fixed to the trusses.
And then the whole
grid of timber is
held rigid with a
stressed skin of plywood.
The studwork walls have been packed
with insulation and also boarded over
ready for the cladding.
Mike's decided that
he's not going to leave
the cladding in the
natural wood finish.
Instead, he's going to paint it.
This is a big departure
from the Hayeku idea
of blending effortlessly
with the forest.
And looking at how much they
love bright, bold colours and all things
American, I'm quite worried
about what he's going to choose.
Yes, let's drop that in.
He's put an image
of the house into his
computer at his
graphic design practice,
so he can try out
different looks before
committing himself
to the real thing.
That looks vile.
Let's try that New England red.
It doesn't look too bad.
I don't think I could have done it
without this sort of system to visualise
what six months worth
of building would look like.
And it's been really helpful for
Lizzie as well, for us to discuss the
options of colours and door designs.
And it's just been
something to fall back
on every time a
decision has to be made.
What's it going to look like?
One thing's for sure.
In a setting as beautiful
and unspoiled as
this, Mike's choice
of colours is critical.
These are striking buildings
with big surface areas.
And I think the
eventual success of
their design will
depend utterly on colour.
If you're building a commissioned
piece of architecture like this house,
when it comes to the detail, it's like
having a blank piece of paper really.
There's very little in
the way of precedent.
If you're building surrounded by
other buildings, then you can take a cue
from other materials.
You can match a brick colour or match
a tile or maybe match a paint colour.
But here, what are Lizzie
and Mike going to do?
They're surrounded by woodland.
Their neighbours are trees.
Every time I come here, the
landscape seems to be a different colour.
Yes, the woods change
colour with all the seasons.
This house of yours has got
to sit in a most all this, hasn't it?
It's a constantly changing
palette of colours.
That's right. The ideal would be some
sort of chromatic paint that changes
with the seasons.
Comedian paint.
Yes. As we've got three separate
structures, three separate buildings,
we're going to choose a
different colour for each.
Right.
And the main house,
we've chosen to use
a wood stain which
matches the bracken.
And this is the chosen colour.
Oh, my.
Which is inspired by our original colours.
It's brilliant. It's exactly the same
colour as the bracken when it's lit in
the sunlight.
That's right.
I mean, is that
straight out of the pot
that we just poured
a propionate stain?
No, no. This is three coats. This is
one coat of light oak stain, followed
by two coats of teak.
So you've had to mix and
match, like around the house.
We've experimented to.
And the other colours in the
building then are coming from where?
And the other colours, we've
got a green for the bedroom wing,
which we're getting out of our
evergreen plantings, tropical plantings
around the house.
And the purple for the tower, we're
getting from the purple header at the
end of August on the Heath.
And the rhododendrons
that we get in the spring.
So at any time of the year, the
house will match something around it.
Yeah, it's great. It's great.
It's a really, really wonderful piece of
research, really.
I've enjoyed every minute of it.
I love colour and it's just been fun.
Mike's done an enormous
amount of work here.
He's obsessed to the point that
this project has consumed him.
But although he's taking his
colours directly from the landscape,
what on earth will they look like as
huge areas of flat colour on buildings?
Is this the purple for the outside?
This is the Heather
purple that we've ended
up with on the soil
of the tower cladding.
It's the inspirations from the Heather
in the field and the rhododendrons
that are here every June.
In fact, I've got a photograph of that.
What are these pots of Heather down here?
They're not out of the field, are they?
No, but that's... They're
from the garden centre.
That's from the garden centre.
But that's the sort of effect.
Is it the same colour?
Across on the Heath, yes, exactly.
It is, it is.
You can see how that...
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
It is actually. It's
the tint of that...
And this is what the surroundings
look like in the whole of June, which is
the rhododendrons.
Yeah.
And these are very much the
final colours and they look great.
And what about this one
over here, the green one?
That's horizontal cladding
of the bedroom wing.
Oh right, OK.
And this is just one coat on there.
So when you combine them all together,
they have sympathy with each other.
Yeah. It makes for, overall, a very
adventurous combination, doesn't it?
It takes us back to... it always
matches something in its environment.
Yeah.
Which I think is nice.
Yeah. But there is a risk, isn't there?
Absolutely.
It's not off-white and cream.
No, it's a risk. And
it'll look odd until
we get all our
landscaping correct.
Yeah.
And it comes up to it.
Yeah. So you hope it's going to work.
So I hope it's going to work.
And there is another
big colour on this build.
The roof is made of zinc, which is a
cool grey colour, and there's a lot of
it.
It's expensive, but Mike
likes it because it's modern,
and it reminds him and Lizzie of
the tin roofed houses abroad that first
inspired them.
It also comes pre-patinated, so
whatever time and bad weather throw at it,
the colour won't change.
It's prepared on site.
The zinc comes on a huge roll, which
passes through a machine to be cut and
shaped into individual
trays ready to be installed.
You've got two separate profiles on this.
Yeah.
And that's presumably because
they overlap, is that right?
They interlock.
We lay it down on the timber decking.
Yeah.
And then hook the clip over
the top, nail it to the deck.
Yeah.
And then the next tray
goes over the top like that.
Yeah.
And then you seam the whole thing together.
How do you do that?
Well, there's an electrical seaming
machine that we would then sit on top of
that, which runs up
the roof and turns at
360, so you end up
with a very thin joint.
How beautiful. And that's effectively
an airtight, moisture-tight gap.
That's a waterproof joint.
And on this job, you must have
quite a lot of complicated little details.
Seams, gutters, edges and so on.
Yeah, the details are where the time
goes and where the craftsmanship has to
go, either at the eaves or
on the cores of the roof lights,
or where you have to solder the
gutters because all the guttering here is
all done with zinc.
But that makes for a very beautiful job.
It does, yeah.
As opposed to something which
is constructed out of different
materials like, you know, flashing
and tile and guttering material.
And this you can form the
whole thing in one material.
You're mixing a modern
product with modern
machinery techniques
with craftsmanship.
Yeah, old-fashioned plumbing, in fact.
Yeah, it is.
With the roof in place, the
skylights are inserted along its Ridge.
Now the building is reasonably
watertight for the winter, and work can
really get moving inside.
The interior walls are being
boarded up, ready to be plastered.
And Mike's high-tech systems can now go in.
In the tower basement, he's got a
top-of-the-range, energy-efficient boiler.
For the electrics, he's gone for a
very clever and highly technical system,
requiring two kilometres worth of cabling.
Everything is to be controlled
from a central computer.
Lights that change colour.
A music system of 12,000 CDs, which
can be heard and controlled from every
room, even the bathroom.
And a state-of-the-art television system.
We started two weeks ago.
We've spent a week putting all the
trunking in and all the conduits, getting
every box fixed.
The floor goes down on Friday, so
we've spent the last two weeks working
until half-eight, ten o'clock sometimes,
just getting
everything in, because
once the floors go
down, that's us stuffed.
This 21st-century technology sits
alongside old-fashioned wooden carpentry.
The large sliding walls are inspired
by traditional Japanese screens.
But these wooden frames will be
glazed to introduce light and provide the
essential views.
But building with
timber is giving project
manager Graham a few
engineering headaches.
The design aspects with the challenge,
you have to keep that big structural
opening true, so that we don't jam
doors in a year's time, and so on.
I mean, timber moves. We've noticed
that the building structure has moved
over the last couple of weeks.
It's relaxed and it's settled down,
so we've had to adjust things.
And it will continue
to move for another
year or so, at least
I would imagine.
I think we've got the
details to accommodate that.
One solution has been to hide a
steel beam that won't shrink or expand
behind timber cladding.
It's a bit of a cheat, but
worth it to avoid problems.
It's quiet and down now, isn't it? Look.
In the end of the working day.
Oh, there's a door.
This has got a little
bit of a shaft, doesn't it?
That looks lovely.
So it's the idea that these windows
will also travel all the way down the
building. Is that how it works?
Not quite all the way, but they pass
each other, so that we can open it
right up to the fixed ones either end.
Blimey, isn't that nice?
I did not realise that. I just wanted
them to be stuck between the poles.
No, no, no, they pass it. Hence the
three tracks, because they can all pass
each other.
How much do you know about this project?
A lot, obviously.
This ducting here, though, very, very wide.
I was surprised, looking at them
laying all these
cables in, how much
electrical cable they
needed in this building.
I thought the ducting
was far too big, but
now they filled it
with cables, it wasn't.
It's surprising. And that's going
to get screeded over, isn't it?
Absolutely.
So how on earth will you access?
It won't be accessible. You'll have to fish
afterwards.
Correct, yeah.
And hope that
rats don't use it as a run
and chew their way
through all that PVC.
Thank you, thank you.
That's very reassuring.
Wasting that small points.
What's this thing?
Computer cables, telephone cables,
electric cables, back to the control
system in the tower.
I thought we were running books here.
We are, all in front of it.
It's like the human body, isn't it?
And the nervous system.
What, what, what, what is what? I
mean, I've been to see those and I've seen
a lot of cables, but
this is, these, these,
there are so many of
them, they're a bundle.
I'm a bit of Banjax myself.
Godfathers.
What about the colours on the outside
of the building? I mean, you've been
quite involved with most
experiments, haven't you?
I really like the mauve-y purple colour.
Yeah, for the tower.
The greeny colour, I can see where
we're coming from with it because it
matches this area. But I don't like
that green. But I'm sure in its context,
I would have gone for darker green.
So it is on the lighter end of the tower.
But that's only one coat out of
three, so I guess it'll deepen a bit.
But let's see it, let's try it.
That's the architect's solution.
I've noticed this. The architect's answer
is, let's try it and see what you think.
i.e. I'm not changing my mind.
They don't have to wait long to see.
We're six months into the build and the
painted cladding is going on, starting
with the rather light green that has
worried Lizzie.
It's pre-painted and there's a lot
of it, so I do hope it works for her.
The exterior timber of the main
building is being stained as opposed to
painted. Again, they'd better have
got this colour right because stain on a
wood is irreversible.
The end is in sight, but
for Mike, the responsibility
of all the decision-making
is taking its toll.
The project, as I call it, has begun
to bite me a bit. It's taking me over
and there are moments where I sort of...
it's a big chain around my neck.
But is that a problem of simply the
quantity of decisions you have to make
or is it a question of time?
No, it's the quantity of decisions and
where are the materials coming from,
what colour are they, how do they
interface with each other and what is the
cost of it.
But that's what this whole project
is about, isn't it? This is not a house
of one colour.
Oh no.
This is three separate buildings,
jointed in very complicated ways, in three
different colours,
three different finishes.
I find myself thinking of it as a
project, as if I had a client and then I
scratch my head and
think, well, one day
I'm actually going
to be living in there.
Yeah, but to an
extent Lizzie's sort of
assumed the role
of clients, isn't she?
Yes, very much so.
Are you still on budget?
Is that all working out fine?
I wouldn't say we're on budget.
It's slipped a little.
How much is a little?
Probably about 10%.
Really, that much?
Yeah.
And is that just on everything?
Unforcains and the implications that
some of our finishes are bringing to
bear, the tiles and that sort of thing.
So it's crept up a bit.
Yeah, are you OK about that?
Yes, it's a constant battle, keeping
the cash flow going with Lizzie.
With the house on the
way to being finished,
I hope Lizzie will
be a satisfied client.
I've always felt that this build was
very complicated. A lot of ideas, a lot
of materials, a lot of buildings even.
And the risk there was that this
place would not be one coherent house.
Having said that, Mike and Lizzie
have finished on time. They've moved in
this week.
So I can't wait to see what it's like.
This is unlike any other house I've seen.
There are so many ideas in it.
From a contemporary take
on New England clapboard,
to the big eaves and
stilts of Japanese Hayeku,
to the influences of the American
architect Frank Lloyd Wright, especially
in the grouping of the buildings.
And it's all been shaken up
and painted bright colours.
The whole house is a sensitive response
to the landscape, but it is also an
exciting one.
Isn't it beautiful? It's very, very,
very impressive. I like it, I like it.
Are you pleased?
We've just come to terms with it really.
We're not sure that we
should be living here.
How long have you been living here?
Two days.
Really? Two lives we've spent here?
It doesn't feel like we deserve to
live there. We keep waiting for the
owners to come home and throw us out.
So you're pleased with the colours?
Absolutely. I love this Brecon
coloured stain that we've used.
I love the purple. I think the purple
is really great because it has lots of
different shades.
But it was the green of the bedroom
wing that was always the biggest worry.
And even now Lizzie remains unconvinced.
It looks too new at the moment. Whether
it works in the landscape, I reserve
judgement.
Well it's going to be a bit difficult
to tell until you've got the planting
around it and more grass.
You've got to knit it to landscape.
You've got a lot of mud
there at the moment.
Yes.
I did wonder at one point near
whether there was going to be any Hayeku
influences left in this house at all,
but from this side it looks
very, very Japanese-y.
I think it's there but it's a
modern interpretation of it.
I was a bit worried about it being
a bit Swiss, a bit Swiss chalet-ish.
It doesn't look like a Swiss chalet.
I've never seen a Swiss chalet with a
purple tar next to it.
Inside the spacious open
plan room is bathed in natural
light from the skylights above
and from the wall of glass.
And these windows work
magnificently at framing
the views that Mike and
Lizzie have always craved.
The space flows seamlessly from one
area to the next, shaped by the organic
curves of the kitchen furniture.
But this sexy interior is still contained
within a very agricultural looking
timber frame.
And those timber columns really
are a little bit of the forest inside.
Now that the walls are all painted, the
structure becomes much more obvious.
We can hug a tree.
We can hug a tree.
The concerns about
them being too pink,
that's all gone now
because they've mellowed.
Yes, yes.
And the view.
There are so few places in Britain
where you can look at and see nothing, no
one but trees, forest and landscape.
All the different Greens.
I just want this place
to know what that is.
Yes, this was the dream, very much so.
Show me your toys,
what have you got
in your kitchen that
you show off to me?
Oh, just loads of stuff.
We've never got married, so we've
never had the wedding list and we've never
had the kit and everything that matches.
So over the years we've actually been
accumulating our own kit for the new
house and it's all come out to play.
Yeah, this is some kind
of wedding presentation.
What I really like is the way
that it's kind of jauntily arranged.
I've listened to what Lizzie's requirements
were and tried to feed them into
this design and keep it fresh and
low level and airy and free flow.
To keep this space clear of
extractors and things like that.
Extractor.
And it sucks all the cooking smells
down through this cupboard and out
through the floor.
Up periscope.
Up periscope.
And what is this thing?
It's not a tap.
Well in theory it's a tap, but I
like to think of it as a work of art.
It's the nodding tap.
We've not worked out how it works yet.
I think it kind of goes like that or
it kind of goes like that.
But what we keep
doing is this and then this.
What a nightmare.
That's not a tap, it's a ridiculous thing.
It's like a work of art.
Who specified that?
Nobody's going to take
the can for that are they?
And then this, this is my favourite bit.
An under shelf.
Under?
No, no, no.
This is clever.
This is a drawer fridge.
It's like a chest freezer.
Yes.
So all the cold stays in the drawer,
it doesn't tumble out of the fridge
when you open the drawer.
That's right. And the great thing
about it is that you can see everything.
You just look down on it.
Look at that.
And you can see it.
Look at that.
I like these shelves.
The library.
The library, I love it.
I do remember
when there was just
kind of a spaghetti
junction of cable here.
There were 99 cables
coming out of the floor.
99? Where do they all go?
They've all been terminated
in these black boxes.
That's all, all the original stuff.
The glass walkways are hugely successful.
You come into what you think
is going to be an enclosed space.
But the moment
you're in it, it opens up
again and gives you
views to either side.
The walkways work like Bridges,
and they're an exciting component of the
building from inside and out.
And through here is the dressing room.
And beyond.
Look at this. Small room, small room.
Nice room.
But you know, the thing I like the
most in here is you can actually sit on
the bed and look at the clouds up there.
And look at the clouds up there.
The fact that you've got that great
expanse of the natural world up there
means that the space seems so much bigger.
Doesn't it?
Doesn't need to be any bigger than this.
You've got your bathroom next to
you, your dressing room here, so all you
need in here is sleep.
And the view.
And the view.
And the view.
A nice simple combination of elements.
Oh now this is rather special isn't it?
This is beautiful. What's this timber on?
It's cherry. Solid cherry.
Isn't it just exquisite? I think it's
got a tremendous amount of strength.
Great character this room too.
And a long thin room. You've
kind of played with lots of glass here.
You've opened it up.
I've put the mirrors in to widen it out.
Yeah? It's very glamorous looking.
Restful colours.
Yeah. And the shower.
Yes, this is the beam me up Scotty.
Oh.
I have to say that is an
astonishingly large shower.
I'm a tall bloke.
I'm pleased this house hasn't totally
disappeared into the environment.
I'm pleased the colours
don't camouflage it.
It's a great building that deserves
not to be hidden but to be admired.
It has its own
personality and yet I
think it still connects
to the landscape.
Oh this is a nice room.
The lookout tower.
Woah. It's like a
series of pictures isn't
it? This is the paintings
around the walls.
360 degrees.
Yeah. Wow. All across the new forest.
It's a proper lookout.
It is. It's a control tower.
And look downstairs
was going to be
your office but it's
clearly not an office.
That's right.
So what's happened?
Well this was such a beautiful room
but I had to prevail on my answer.
We did.
We should share it. We did a deal.
So you've got a desk each now.
Yeah.
That's neat.
You work here and chilled downstairs.
Yeah.
You can dream up here. Let your mind go.
The finishing details of
this house are exquisite.
The stain is the right colour.
The arrangements of glass, zinc
and timber are elegantly resolved.
And all that timber
engineering is a joy to behold.
If the devil is in the detail, Mike
has sold his soul to this place.
I have to say I have
very rarely visited
a house so beautifully
finished as this.
And I wonder what you put that down to.
Good project management.
From Graham?
From Graham all the way through.
And attention to detail and that comes
down to Mike because he did plan it
all out well in advance to make sure
that we had all the bits and pieces.
Yeah.
I'd say he was obsessive about it.
Yes.
Yes.
In the sense of skiving
off work most of the time.
You didn't.
I'm afraid so.
Did you?
Guilty.
It's easy to forget that this is
an extremely high-tech house.
The computer-run lighting and
audio-visual systems are all hidden.
So the clean wooden structure and
plain white walls are largely free of
sockets, wires and other
modern paraphernalia.
You even have to hunt for the television.
No. No, no, no.
Hidden because...
That is so Ian Fleming.
I expect to see a map of the
world with little lights over it blinking
underneath all that.
He's trying to turn it off.
He's trying to turn it off and he can't.
It's clever but I'm
not sure you really
need a television
with views like this.
The house was built to take
advantage of them and it does.
So is it what you expected?
No, it's much better than that.
I didn't think we could do this.
It's just a fantastic
life-enhancing experience.
Yeah, it just makes
you feel more grown-up,
makes you feel
more adult somehow.
It makes me feel very humble
actually, makes me feel very lucky.
It does make me feel humble.
Very privileged to have
been able to do this.
You've got all your joint history
in this building, haven't you?
I mean 16 years of life
together, all your travels.
How are they expressed here?
Well, my main worry was that we should
express them everywhere and it would
be a real hodgepodge of different ideas,
we're going to cram it all in, this is
our once in a lifetime opportunity to
put the house, our home together.
And we try and put it all
in there, in the melting pot.
But I think we've managed to restrain
ourselves and keep it all on a great
theme but with little pockets of discovery.
And I think it just hangs
together really well.
If anybody who knows us walked into
this they'd think, "Oh yes, this is Mike
and Liz's house."
Because it's writ all over the walls.
Anyone setting out to build their
own house will want it to reflect their
own lives, their interests, their passions.
And that's what Mike and Lizzie did.
They commissioned a building of
parts inspired from far flung places that
really does mirror their lives.
But it does more than that. It
actually transcends the sum of its parts.
It's more successful than I thought,
than I think they thought possible.
This is a house which is an honourable
addition to the architectural canon.
And already it
makes its owners feel
like more civilised,
happier human beings.
That's what a great building does.
Looking for a way to freshen up your mind?
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