We were approached by Rosie and Stuart to help them look at potential improvement and enlargement possibilities for their 1970’s bungalow and the project ended up being TV as Grand Designs Wirral, but more about that later.
They had worked with other designers previously and had had two design solutions prepared, but these didn’t quite hit the mark.
The initial brief was to help them convert their existing 2/3 bedroom bungalow into something with 5 bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms upstairs. The existing property was a dormer bungalow with the bedrooms in the roof space, so over the course of a few weeks we really got to know Rosie and Stuart and initially developed lots of concept possibilities with them. From a planning point of view, we realised that going up with another storey and a new pitched roof over was unlikely to be accepted, and R&S definitely didn’t want the house to appear like a badly extended 1970’s bungalow. Therefore a radical approach was required and the concept grew to remove the existing roof and add a cantilevered box over the existing ground floor to create the space they required.
The scheme was drawn up, submitted to planning and the scheme was approved. We moved forward with the scheme through the building regulations application process and getting builders to price it up. We found a builder who was happy to work with us just to do the external shell construction, allowing R&S to finish the internal and some external elements themselves.
With a week to go until the job was due to start on site. R&S rang up and let the bombshell drop that they had been in discussions with Channel 4’s Grand Designs about the project and filming would start at the demolition phase, with Kevin McCloud making some visits during the build. The build progressed well and Stephen met and was interviewed by Kevin during the build but unfortunately he did not make the final edit but did get a mention on screen.
There are various articles online with some good photos still relating to the build of which there are a few links below.