{"id":21167,"date":"2022-08-31T17:26:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T15:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1700084"},"modified":"2022-08-31T17:49:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T15:49:11","slug":"kevin-mccloud-on-new-grand-designs-and-dislike-of-makeover-shows","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/kevin-mccloud-on-new-grand-designs-and-dislike-of-makeover-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin McCloud on new Grand Designs and dislike of makeover shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Michael Hodges\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 31 August 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGo and buy a gazebo from B&Q, stick it outside your big glass wall, and you\u2019ve sorted the problem.\u201d I\u2019d thought Kevin McCloud would be downbeat. After all, as he dusts off the architects\u2019 plans and dons his hard hat for season 23 of Grand Designs<\/a>, the entire premise of the show appears to be at risk from cataclysmic economic meltdown and unfolding climate disaster.<\/p>\n

But here he is, telling me I should have gone to B&Q (\u201cother gazebos are available,\u201d he adds, forestalling any winces in the Channel 4 advertising department) to cool down my house during a British summer when temperatures topped 40 degrees \u2013 especially if I\u2019ve been foolhardy enough to build a modernist glass box. Far from hastening Grand Designs\u2019 demise, he insists, the end of days we\u2019re presently enduring is actually playing to the show\u2019s strengths.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about the third time around that we\u2019ve had a big jolt to the economy,\u201d he says. \u201cAll our contributors are thinking hard, and they\u2019re working with people who are brilliant. If they\u2019re faced with a real difficulty, they will think of a cheap and clever solution to get out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what about the recent and ongoing crazy weather \u2013 is it still wise to put glass boxes on mountainsides? \u201cDo we really? I can only think of three glass boxes in 23 years,\u201d he says, rejecting my characterisation of a show that erects radical domestic architecture in hard-to-reach locations.<\/p>\n

He does concede our modern affection for acres of glazing has meant a very sticky summer for millions of Britons. But it needn\u2019t. \u201cGo to Morocco or any hot climate in the world, and there are plenty of buildings with glazing. It\u2019s not the glass that\u2019s the issue. It\u2019s the shading that we need to be providing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hence the gazebo, and the 63-year-old presenter has other fixes where that came from. Consider, he suggests, why \u201clittle old Italian men\u201d (and women) in their hilltop villages put water on the pavement in front of their houses every day. \u201cThey\u2019re not doing it to keep clean. The water evaporates; to do so it draws energy from its immediate environment. So, sun heats water, water evaporates off, stone becomes cool. Air passing over stone into house becomes cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

What if you don\u2019t have a slab of Tuscan stone outside? \u201cMop your floors in the morning but don\u2019t mop the water off, just leave it there to evaporate. Or go and sit under a tree; because the water is evaporating off the leaves you get evaporative cooling. Trees in cities can mean that the streets are up to 12 degrees cooler because of the evaporative cool rate. This is basic physics, it\u2019s exactly the same physics of evaporative cooling in air-conditioning. You can put your hand in your pocket and pay \u00a33,000 or you can let nature help.\u201d<\/p>\n

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