Are you fed up that the younger generation
are stuck to their screens?
That your children, you know, are not engaging
with making and doing, the kind of basic life skills
that are required to, you know,
improve the quality of their existence and help them,
help them become resilient human beings. Eh?
Goodness me. Was not the same with our generation...
Oh, bollocks.
What's that? Here you go Dad, I made you a cake.
Oh, you made that?
Yeah. Thank you.
I mean, it's incredible.
I don't know what to say.
Lucinda has had a lifelong love affair with wood.
I've been working with wood for about 45 years or more,
since I went to college to learn cabinet making
and then subsequently set up a furniture making business.
Now she's retired from creating beautiful one-off furniture
for other people,
she wants to construct something for herself.
Not just tables or chairs, but an entire house out of wood.
I'm hoping to use up all the leftover bits wood
from the rest of my life.
This will be her largest project by far
but she does have two able assistants.
Argh! LAUGHTER
Her son Dan and her daughter Rosie.
When the kids were young, Lucinda decided to quit city life
for the rural heaven of Herefordshire,
and moved the family to a remote house
in an overgrown acre of woodland.
So when you're a child it's quite exciting to have a garden
that's just completely wild.
We were making fairly elaborate treehouses.
One of the ways in which I brought them up
was when they wanted things, to start by saying,
well, can you make it?
So this seems to be a kind of culmination of,
well, if you want a house, then could we make it?
Having raised children with plenty of tools,
but no Wi-Fi or mobile signal,
Lucinda now has two capable adult helpers.
Rosie, an illustrator, will be bringing a designer's eye
to the project.
While Dan, an engineer who normally designs industrial production lines,
will be donning his inventing hat
for his most exacting boss to date, his mum.
Put it away. No.
So, I think Mum's going to be a tough client to work for.
I think her expectations of quality of finish
really are above and beyond.
Years after departing the nest,
the ambition is for the family to come back together
to build a low-impact eco-house,
just above the old family home
in the very woodland that they grew up in.
I'm just thrilled to bits that they've come home to help.
It makes the whole thing a completely different project
and far more fun.
Despite the family DNA of designing and making,
none of them has ever built a house from scratch.
And the success of this endeavour is going to need family harmony.
The two of them used to fight all the time when they were little
and they seem to be getting on quite well these days,
so maybe I will destroy that.
It may be a disaster.
Come summer, it's time to put the plan into action.
What a delightful little woodland world.
Lucinda? How are you? Kevin. Hi, nice to meet you.
Dan. Dan. And Rosie, how are you? Nice to meet you.
I just walked up through the most amazing little bit of woodland,
but beautiful and full of wild flowers
and lots of different species and loads of trees.
Which is what we're hoping to maintain
and stop the builders from damaging.
But we don't want any heavy machinery here at all.
The old house is that building I can just see through the trees.
Is the plan to sell that? I mean, are you splitting the site in half?
What's going to happen? Yeah, ultimately, we'll split the site
and either rent that out or sell it.
So this house you're going to build, how do you describe it?
It's a low-impact house, so it's mostly timber.
The whole of the outside of the building is wrapped in timber,
either cedar shingles or cladding that will weather down.
It'll look like the bark of the trees around it. Is that the idea?
Yes, maybe it will. I'm trying to build something modest,
but also exquisite.
Yeah, a jewel.
Lucinda's plot slopes,
so despite her wanting her house to touch the earth lightly,
they'll be cutting into the ground at one end.
But to protect any further damage to the precious tree roots,
two rows of slender concrete columns
will lift the building above ground level.
From this point on, the house will be built entirely of wood.
Lucinda's architect, Elly Deacon Smith,
has designed it along passive house principles
to make it super energy efficient,
so chunky pre-fabricated wooden panels
will form an airtight structural shell,
filled with recycled paper for insulation.
There's some clever hidden structural engineering in timber
to help form one huge uninterrupted barn volume inside.
And on the outside, a skin of 10,500 cedar shingles
will cascade from roof to ground,
a natural skin that will age like the surrounding trees.
The roof ridges stick out at either end,
above floating verandas,
where Lucinda can indulge in a spot of tree-bathing.
You'll enter through a porch straight into a kitchen-living area,
populated with Lucinda's handmade furniture.
You'll see the full height of the roof,
and there's floor-to-ceiling glass to drink in the light and the views.
At the north end, there'll be a study,
a bedroom and a bathroom.
Leading up to a mezzanine Lucinda wants to craft
a beautiful staircase,
made from off cuts of rare timbers she's saved over the years.
It'll double up as a bookcase
and include a window seat for gazing out at the canopy.
Once upstairs, there's the main bedroom and bathroom,
with access to a private balcony
suspended among the canopy of the surrounding trees.
Lucinda's big ambition is to honour those noble giants
by building with as low an environmental impact on them
as possible. That'll take time, money and care.
I hope she can find enough of all three.
Does the sort of complicated nature of the site
and the trees and the tree root protection
and the ground, does that affect the budget negatively?
You can't simply drive a lorry up there and a crane
and just unload the building. Absolutely, no, no.
So that does add to the cost.
The fact that it's on a slope adds to the cost.
Yep. How much have you got then to build with?
Well, I was allowing about 150 for the construction costs.
Which is on the... On the low side.
Yeah, I was going to say on the cheap. Especially for passive house.
Certainly for passive, wow.
Yes. I don't know whether we can do it. I hope we can do it.
What happens, if it does, if it costs a great deal more?
I guess I move into a shed and sell the house.
If I had to.
When do you hope to finish?
I'd like to move in February the 21st 2022.
18 months. 18 months, yeah. Yeah.
Yes, because I think that if I put pressure on myself
to do it in, say, a year,
which would theoretically be possible, I won't enjoy it.
Ha-ha, you must be careful because you enjoy making things.
You must be careful not to relish the process
to the point that it sort of spins out.
There is a danger of that.
This family of makers and doers will have to plumb the depths
of their well of inventiveness if they're to pull off this project
on Lucinda's very tight budget.
And I do see a danger ahead.
So as a designer and maker and craftsperson in wood,
the difficulty here is, of course, is that she...
The thing she's looking forward to is building it,
it's the process. It's the excitement of being in the moment
of construction, as opposed to actually living in it.
Which suggests to me that there is a possibility
that the house may never get completely finished.
Initially, progress on the project is frustrated
by Covid lockdown delays,
so the family keeps busy laying a tree root-friendly wood chip path
up to the site.
I think I need more of a job.
I'm not being fully employed here.
But come August, they decide to get on and lay the foundations.
But not in any way I've ever encountered before.
The house will be held above ground by ten concrete columns
that reach down to the bedrock.
And despite having no experience,
they've decided to pour the concrete themselves to save money.
Precision engineering going on here.
Dan's idea is to make the columns octagonal,
so they can mass-produce moulds themselves from lengths
of plywood in Lucinda's workshop.
It's a former for the concrete,
a container to pour the concrete into.
And then when you put them together like this,
and bring them in,
they are sort of self-locking into the shape.
So long as the angle is spot on.
And to hold all that concrete in place - plastic cable ties.
Really?
If there's something wrong with our invention...
I don't know. We'll know quite fast.
What will we do? I don't see why it wouldn't work.
Well, they'll soon find out when the concrete arrives tomorrow.
Ten deep holes have been dug for the home-made moulds,
which have to be lined up with millimetre precision.
We'll see if their novel DIY approach is ground-breaking,
or mould-breaking.
Big day today, nervous.
Either it'll work or it won't work.
Very relieved when this is all done.
I'm just praying that when I put the concrete in
they won't, erm, they won't bulge.
Lucinda is project managing the whole thing,
but for today she's brought in a groundworker, Steve, to help.
But he's never seen a set up like this before.
That's why I put the wire on there, because...
Not quite sure, really. Just cable ties, really.
Well, just in case they pop, like. Time will tell.
Have you got room to get out?
Dan adds a couple of straps for good measure.
I think it's about ten minutes until the concrete arrives,
so, you know, classic last minute.
At least some local friends have turned out to help.
Good fun being involved, it's a nice day out, really.
Let's hope it stays that way.
Erm, yeah, there's some tension here, I'd say.
Jump in quick, jump in quick. Just get on with it.
As seven tons of concrete arrive at the top of the lane,
there's no time left to prepare.
The truck charges by the minute.
This is it. Right.
Usually, you'd pipe the mix straight into the ground,
but in order to protect the tree roots,
the heavy lorry just can't come any closer
than the top of the drive, 100 metres away.
He's got to stop here at the entrance,
transfer it to the small dumper.
Dumper up to site, wheelbarrow from dumper.
So that's not helping.
They only have two hours to unload all the concrete
before it sets hard.
They make a start on the shorter columns at the bottom of the slope.
It's really slippery underfoot, folks.
Further forward.
That's it.
This one's dribbling a bit. This one's not happy.
Before long, the weight of the concrete is stretching
their home craft moulds to the limit.
Dan decides to lash the leaking columns with more straps
and some screws for good measure.
It's pouring with rain.
The formers are bulging.
The lorry of concrete is waiting.
Folks, we need to get the...
The man needs to get away.
We've got to get on with getting this into here.
Can you get that one on?
Right, we're going to this one next.
But just as they're filling the last couple of columns...
Oh, shit!
This side, it's all coming out.
OK, turn the poker off, Dave.
I'll go down and patch it up. But it's going.
The whole thing is going.
Yes, but darling, it might all explode while you're down there.
Shit, shit.
It's bulging, it's going.
Get out.
Dan, don't touch the pillars.
Dan is deep in a hole
with a column of wet concrete that's set to burst.
The screws have popped out.
Have you got a lorry strap or something we could borrow?
Under there.
Yeah, it should be. It's working.
Finally, it seems to be holding.
I am so wet and muddy and miserable.
Hug.
I'm a bit sad that the method for holding the columns together
didn't work quite as well as I was hoping.
But you know, it shows that under time pressure
you can fix most problems.
After two hours in the cold mud,
the bedraggled working party can finally warm up.
Well, I feel completely responsible for that disaster, Mum.
If this was a prelude for the rest of the project,
it's going be gruelling.
And no-one wants to be left with permanently bulging columns, surely?
Once the dust has settled, I'm back to inspect.
We need to talk about the rather excellent octagonal piers.
You've chosen to use bespoke timber joinery to make footings.
No-one else has ever done this. And they did come out spot on.
But, no, I think it's wonderful.
Thankfully all ten columns seem perfectly formed,
and they're not the only example of the family's innovative approach.
Tell me, what's this that you're standing on?
It looks like a membrane. What is it?
I make the machinery that makes this material,
so it's a concrete impregnated fabric.
So it arrives dry.
You roll it out like a heavy carpet,
spray it with water, and you're done.
I can get leftover rolls from the factory,
so we thought, why not?
We're using as an erosion control and weed suppression.
We're quite close to the ground here
and we do not want this mud in contact with the timber. Nice.
And this we can do in an afternoon.
And we don't have to excavate at all.
So what is the CO2 saving per square metre, say,
above, over standard concrete?
For the average application, we're using ten times less material.
So that roughly gives you the savings. Yeah.
So is that the roll of it over there? Yes.
Looks like a bit of roofing felt.
Do you want to come and have a play?
Yeah, have a look, yeah.
Look how flexible it is.
Carpet fitters around the country are going to be agog at your skill.
OK. Lovely.
I love it.
Lucinda has, so far, performed admirably.
But for the next stage of construction she's enlisting
a specialist timber frame builder, Rob,
to erect the structure of the house.
Lucinda gave Rob his first building job 12 years ago,
so he's going into this with his eyes open.
It gets difficult, with Lucinda's eye for detail.
Everything has to be perfect, everything has to line up.
No detail is overlooked.
The plan is for this super-insulated house
to be prefabricated in Rob's workshop.
Watch out behind. And he's got an assistant - Dan!
Oh, look, it's enormous.
That is your house on a lorry.
Held up for months by Covid and customs,
the sustainable German-engineered timber,
from which Rob will build the pre-fabricated panels,
has finally arrived.
It's really exciting.
They're hoping to avoid the rental cost of a large forklift
to off-load the lengthy 14-metre beams
by relying on Rob's small one.
Aren't they going to flop?
BANG
Are they all right?!
Whoa.
Shit. They're going to snap, Rob.
Ready. One, two, three.
Now it's spinning like mad.
Oh.
Keep your fingers crossed.
Finally, the wooden eagle has landed.
That's better.
That was exciting!
Good.
Lucinda is demanding a lot from her meagre £150,000 budget -
a two-bedroom house which won't harm the planet
thanks to its construction.
But there's a dwelling only a stone's throw from Lucinda's place,
which shows how it's done.
So normally in my line of work,
an inspirational building is one that's high-end,
it is lavish, expensive.
But the one I'm about to visit, just round this corner,
built by the architect Juraj Mikurcik for himself,
it embodies the opposite - a philosophy of modesty,
of the principle of just enough and no more.
Old Holloway is a house built almost entirely from natural materials,
and was a project guided by simplicity and economy
and the desire to make as small an impact on the earth as possible.
What a gloriously straightforward building.
A long extruded shape. Timber cladding.
No gutter - just big, deep eaves to give you lots of protection here.
And it was built for £150,000.
Three bedrooms.
And it's so well insulated it costs almost nothing to heat.
Inside this structure constructed from chunky,
straw-filled, prefabricated panels,
there's no sense of compromise.
The vaulted roof welcomingly embraces the entire cooking
and living area,
and the sustainable use of timber extends into almost every detail -
the window surrounds, built-in storage,
and a joyous slatted lined ceiling.
There is wood everywhere.
It gives you this lovely, soft sound.
With soft corners to match.
And a beautiful, beautiful, soft-focus view
out across the Herefordshire hills.
My goodness.
He's managed to put everything into one building
that you would want from any good piece of architecture.
As a near neighbour, Lucinda was inspired by this cosy little place
to have a go at building herself,
and also by Juraj's architectural philosophy.
I think he feels strongly about evaluating what you need
and just building that.
The overarching quality of this building is to do with
what it manages to do without, like a gutter. Yeah.
You know? Yeah.
Like carpets, like, you know, oversized bedrooms. Mmm.
And it seems to be, in its modesty, all the more charming.
Yes, yes. I think...
I think it's been described somewhere or other
as seductive simplicity, which I think is a great phrase.
Paring it down to, what do we actually need?
Juraj's is a simple single storey house,
whereas Lucinda wants a second floor,
built for the same budget.
Not just that, she wants no fussy internal tie beams or braces
getting in the way of the double-height living space -
usually an expensive engineering challenge.
But as you'd expect,
the family have come up with a clever structural solution.
So, what are these here?
On the left is a traditional solid frame with a tie-in tension.
So this represents a section through a building? Yes.
And you can't use the upstairs because...
You put a bit of wire here. Well, that would be a timber,
and I wanted to use the whole space. Hence this.
So Rob came up with this portal frame idea. Oh!
Because you're building a passive house,
your walls are going to be thicker than normal.
You're taking advantage of that fact
and putting then a very wide plate at the junctions.
And that makes it super strong. And there's no need for... No need.
No need for a tie. That's really neat.
Would you like to put it to the test? OK.
Let's see the traditional one. Has it got to go underneath?
If you rest the feet on the block.
Simulating the weight of the roof. Should increase the tension.
There we go. But if you'd like to demonstrate what happens
when you remove that tie. OK.
Oh!
Yeah. I see what you mean.
The tie's really doing a job.
So, sit on this.
There you go. Jiggle about a bit.
Utterly confident this would...
Well, actually why don't you try it?
Because honestly, it's so strong.
And this is collective family faith being made before our eyes.
The interesting thing is that it's taken the load.
It's rock solid, isn't it?
Good. What a lovely thing. My house is going to be OK.
It's a solution only a timber lover of decades-standing
would want to come up with.
What's the height of that, do you reckon?
I suppose it's... About 15 metres? Yes.
Early on in Lucinda's career
making high-end furniture from exotic wood,
she became concerned about the deforestation
the timber she depended on was causing.
So I guess I thought I'd get on a plane and go and have a look.
my first trip was up the Amazon
to explore forestry in Brazil.
Through the '80s and '90s,
trips to other places like Papua New Guinea followed,
and with others Lucinda set up the first projects
that promoted responsibly sourced timber.
I suppose I'd call myself an environmentalist,
but with reservations.
We felt it was all very idealistic, I think - bunch of hippies.
But it led to the FSC, the Forest Stewardship Council,
which is the accreditation of sustainable forestry projects
and wood sourcing.
Having created that legacy,
it's no surprise the lengths Lucinda is going to
to protect her own little patch of trees.
Come the summer...
Sugar. What's that doing there?
A lorry arrives with a very special delivery from Rob's workshop.
Today's a very big day, because the walls of the house are coming.
They make it down the main drive without a hitch.
That's the soft corner.
John, you're a bit tight on that side.
But there is still the final slope to negotiate,
out of bounds to lorries to protect the tree roots.
They're going to bring the lorry to the end of the gravel,
unload everything, and then get a Land Rover and trailer,
and try and get the Land Rover up there.
Time to see if the woodchip track is up to the task.
It does spin out. Just need to...
Every attempt churns the ground further,
making it even harder for Rob.
Blast.
It's very soft.
It's fine when you get to about here.
It's just that stretch there.
Rob goes for one final run up.
Dan, look at the back!
Erm... No.
If Rob can't make the final ascent,
I'm not sure how they're going to build this thing.
In trying to protect the tree roots around Lucinda's woodland site,
Rob's been struggling to deliver the heavy pre-made sections
of her house along the muddy track...
Come on, girl. ..up a hill.
Undaunted... OK, I've got to hit with a bit more speed, haven't I?
..Rob lightens the load,
faces forwards and goes hell for leather.
Finally, success.
Well, that was smooth.
Forwards, at speed, better.
He may have made it up the hill,
but Rob's travails are only just beginning.
He now has to erect the entire two storey house without a crane.
Right, push.
But as always with this build, ingenuity comes to the rescue.
It's been strong.
It's like the flag raising.
Seeking inspiration from the notebook of Leonardo da Vinci
and Amish barn raisings,
Rob is going to try a method of winching the panels upright
from ground level.
This is completely untested.
We never had enough time and space, really, to do it.
Sorry, Lucinda.
If they can't raise the panels by this ground-secured winch,
there is no backup that doesn't involve a crane.
Try and do... Be smooth, Dan, like a sailor.
You're so rough. He's like, grrrr!
Gently. Back.
It needs to be on the front.
Who needs a crane?
Oh, catch. Oh, see, my design was perfect.
Your design was absolutely perfect.
It's really amazing because it just, it's so quick.
Over the next few days, Rob and his men do Leonardo da Vinci proud,
as the entire frame is raised magnificently from the ground
by human power alone.
And before long, Lucinda is able to get her first glimpse
of the vistas she'll be enjoying from her new home.
Gosh.
You're right at the top of these trees, though.
It's brilliant.
It's existed in my imagination for so long.
It's hard to believe that it's actually here.
A month later, the whole structure is up.
Hello, team. Hello.
Look at this.
Yeah. It's splendid.
Thank you very much. Church-like, or a barn.
It's perfect. And in terms of timing, programme?
Um, we've never had... We've always had quite a fluid programme,
I would say. I can't say it's hardened up much.
I'd say we're about a year behind.
Lots of people building a house for the purpose of living in it.
I think Mum's building a house for the purpose of building a house,
which means... Ah! Having a really fun time.
Enjoying the process.
And living in it is, you know, a bit of a by-product. Yeah.
One big annoying drag on this project
has been the major access challenges
that come with a muddy path up a slope.
And there's still all the glazing,
the cladding and the interiors to come up.
But Dan has put his inventor's hat on again.
It seems he might have devised an ingenious solution
to get things back on track.
You've made this from what? Batteries?
It's just a motorbike battery, electric motor.
It is just a prototype. Does it work?
Do you want a go? Erm, Is this the throttle?
Yes. It has got quite a kick to it. And what's this? Brake.
That's helpful to know. Do I need to wear any safety equipment?
Oh, yes, well.
Oh, yes. Excellent.
Brunelian.
LAUGHTER
I declare the South Herefordshire Railway open.
Rob's job as main builder here may have got a little easier
with the arrival of the train,
but his next challenge of erecting a wall of glazing
at the gable end is still an engineering headache
in the absence of a crane.
My main worry today is making sure it fits
because the aperture was made ages ago
and the windows are ordered at a different time,
so hopefully they marry up.
Getting a perfect fit is critical
because Lucinda's building is following passive house principles,
meaning it has to be completely airtight -
something she's hoping to achieve with the 22 grand
she's spent on triple glazed units throughout the house.
It has to be spot on from the beginning.
And if it doesn't, then we'll fail our air test
and then I'll have Lucinda on my back.
She's a tough client because she's got her eye on the detail
all the time, every millimetre, checking everything.
Yeah, she's always over your shoulder.
Down.
There's a slight discrepancy on this side.
Sorry, didn't mean to...
Cheap windows, Lucinda.
Not cheap windows.
Just don't break the glass.
Don't break the glass.
Can you shift the whole lot over?
It's fractionally wider on the upper.
Oh, my back.
The windows, they're not perfect, there's a mil out,
and Lucinda's noticed it.
It's this manufacturer.
They must just be slightly wonky. Slightly.
Thankfully for Rob, Lucinda decides that on this occasion,
she can live with 1mm of imperfection.
A few weeks later, the final and tallest piece of glazing
goes into the slot space.
Look's jolly heavy, doesn't it?
Closing slowly. That's in.
And the building is finally watertight.
It's brilliant.
Meaning that Rob has now completed the work
Lucinda contracted him to do.
But she is far from finished.
She's only a month away from her original completion date,
and she hasn't even started on the interior.
She's now also overshot her original £150,000 budget.
You know, in terms of the finishing of the job,
it could well be me doing it
because that would save a lot on labour.
Furthermore, Lucinda's free workforce is becoming restless.
Rosie's going to be moving into a flat in Oxford
in about a couple of month or two's time.
And we're restoring some furniture and things for her to take.
My kind of freelance career is sort of starting to take off.
And to complete the exodus, Dan is also departing for a new job.
Obviously they've done a lot.
I was kind of used to having them as extra labour
and they're going to be gone.
I think there might be quite a lot of evening phone calls
saying "Could you maybe just, just for a few days,
"pop back just for a little bit."
With no money in the bank to pay for replacement workers,
it's going to be up to Lucinda alone
to shoulder the rest of this project.
And they'll need to be broad shoulders,
because at a nearby woodmill,
the first batch of 10,500 cedar shingles are being cut to size.
These are responsibly-sourced natural tiles,
and they'll provide the wooden skin for this wooden house.
Once they're delivered to site, Lucinda begins the long,
lonely task of nailing them to the house, one shingle at a time.
It's a slow old business
and there are days where that does get you down.
And because it's so slow, employing anybody else to do it is really,
really expensive. It's something I CAN do,
so it's an area where I can save money to do this,
even if it takes a long time.
What else am I going to be doing with my winter?
The massive rise in the cost of timber
means that Lucinda is now digging in to the last of her savings.
I used to think I'd have a pension and now I won't.
I'll be eating baked beans in the finest house in the country.
This scaffolding is not the right place... Argh!
Damn.
Attempting to shingle a house of this size solo
is a crazy undertaking.
Lucinda is already months beyond the day
she originally planned to move in.
So, time to call in the cavalry of incompetence.
I've already spiked myself on my first stainless steel nail.
Yeah, they're quite sharp, aren't they?
They're very sharp.
How is the budget?
The budget is not perfect,
but it's much more the timescale that I'm concerned about.
Yeah. My timescale has slipped by, you know, a year or two I'd say.
That's quite significant, isn't it? Yes.
But if I put a...
Saying I've got to be in by a certain date,
that then makes the whole thing extremely stressful
and becomes very difficult to enjoy what you're doing. Yeah.
Are you at all daunted by this?
In the middle of the night I am. KEVIN CHUCKLES
Yes. Good answer.
So I don't really know what to say about that except good luck.
You have to admire Lucinda's resilience and energy,
but I do not envy her the task that she's set herself.
She has no spare money to bring in labour,
so I'm beginning to wonder
how she's ever going to get to the end of this.
As summer turns to autumn,
it's time for me to return to this bucolic corner of Herefordshire.
The dew is on the ground.
And the leaves are just turning.
So, it's a perfect day to visit Lucinda in her woodland home.
I first made this journey three years ago,
when Lucinda was just getting started on her wooden eco-home.
She thought, of course, it would take 18 months,
but come on, we all knew!
She's a cabinet-maker, she's a furniture maker.
It was always going to be a very finessed building.
So the question is...
..does it merit that amount of time spent on it?
Is it beautiful?
Lucinda was an early campaigner for sustainable forestry,
so of course she had to make sure her own house
didn't trash the woodland site it occupied.
Well, this is as far as I drive,
because beyond here it's just a pedestrian footpath.
Lucinda does not want to look at cars out of her window.
It's on foot from here, but, boy,
this is an arrival worthy of the effort.
Good grief.
That is so beautiful.
I mean, it's so precise.
And beautifully crafted.
Look at it.
Like a piece of furniture scaled up...
..in the middle of the forest. You just don't expect to find it.
It is exquisitely done,
and it even appears to float at this end,
defying gravity as well as defying expectation.
It's too good.
It's too beautiful. KEVIN CHUCKLES
The black stained cladding enclosed within the angled ends
contrasts crisply with that diligently placed skin
of 10,500 shingles - each one fixed by Lucinda.
This is a remarkable wooden ark
in a woody dialogue with the trees around it.
The house respects its environment
and I suspect the trees express no little gratitude for that.
Lucinda. How are you? Kevin, how lovely to see you.
And you. And you.
And congratulations. Thank you so much.
What a thing!
What a beautiful crafted object.
It's so precise.
It's what you wanted, isn't it? It is what I wanted. Yeah, yeah!
It is what you wanted. Yeah, I bet. It is what I wanted.
It is what I imagined it would be.
It couldn't be more precise.
Well, it did take a very... A ridiculously long time.
I mean, it just. I know. Forever. Forever.
Forever. Tell me, are you sick of shingles?
Erm, I don't specially want to do them again.
But it was actually quite a meditative process, really.
Right from the beginning you were keen to not compress the earth here,
not to compact the roots of the trees.
How do you think you've fared? Pretty well I'd say.
As a low impact build, it's worked pretty well. Yeah.
We didn't have to bring concrete lorries and things
because we didn't have concrete. So the kind of thing that normally
makes a real mess on a building site, we didn't have at all.
Since we put the train in, it's been in daily use... Yeah.
..for moving everything, and that's, you know,
that again means we don't have to drive up here.
And it means in future you know, your rubbish, your shopping...
Yes. Me. You!
Going to get Dan to weld a little seat to it. Yeah, you should.
In my old age. Yeah.
It's admirable that Lucinda appreciates the urgent need
to avoid using unnecessary planet-wounding concrete and steel.
And that desire to avoid waste finds another expression...
This is splendid, Lucinda.
..in the beautifully built veranda at the end of the house.
The boards here. What are they?
They are the boards we were using for the scaffolding.
So that's an exact scaffold bay.
This is a scaffold board?
I thought, we'll get them, so that they can be...
You might as well get a scaffold board you're going to then use.
Yes. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Oh, very good.
Meantime, there's the oak, who's very close.
Yes. I like it. Well, who doesn't?
Various members of the family
and builders have suggested it's really in the way
and if I just made this whole veranda a bit shorter
or just got rid of the tree, life would have been easier.
Surely, the philosophy of the building
is to try and kind of cohabit. Yeah, exactly.
Up above, the roof reaches out to offer a wooden canopy,
protective from the elements.
Underneath it, there's more evidence
of Lucinda's forensic attention to detail.
If you step back here you can see that the groove between them
goes up and then follows through.
On the soffit, every one of these timbers runs in
to match every one of these verticals... Yeah.
..exactly, like, you know, a piece of furniture with compound angles.
You'd expect everything to run in, to book match, to be perfect.
And that's what you've done with the building.
That's exquisite. It is exquisite.
Thank you. Well, it's... I think it was worth it.
How about inside? How thoughtful is that, the layout?
Yes. Would you like to come and have a look? Yes, I would.
I would. I feel like I should apologise in advance.
In stark contrast to the lovingly detailed exterior...
Oh, no. Yes, I see.
It's one big void. Yes.
Inside is still a blank canvas,
yet to be given the Lucinda treatment.
You got the first floor in, the mezzanine. Hmm.
That's a lot of work in that.
But does it upset you that you're behind on getting in?
No, no, it's fine. It's fine.
I don't have a date where I have to be in.
I did. And that was really very stressful.
It's more enjoyable if you don't have a schedule
and you're doing it yourself. Yes. There's no-one else to please.
That's right. Yes. Just you.
And this is the first time that I've actually been in that situation,
not working for a client or...
Or bringing up children at the same time.
Or bringing up children at the same time. All that.
So it's a real luxury just to be able to work at your own pace.
And how long do you think, then, before...
I'm not going to hold you to this,
but how long do you think before you'll be done?
Um, come back in a couple of years?
Two years!
A chunk of that time Lucinda will devote to hand crafting
the floating staircase of her own design,
again using all the off cuts and leftovers she's diligently saved.
Can we get upstairs onto the mezzanine? Yeah.
The staircase at the moment, as you can see, is a little basic.
Thank you.
Oh, yeah. You really, really get to benefit from these windows here,
don't you, being banked into the roof. Yes.
No, it's lovely.
Oh, yeah. So you, what, your sofa goes here?
Yes, yes. Just slightly behind here, I think.
And then you... Oh, and you see...
Then you're up in the trees at this end.
There's actually a rather beautiful hill,
which you probably only see in winter,
which has an iron age fort on the top of it. Wow.
It's wonderful. It really is.
And Lucinda will be cosy as she enjoys the views from up here.
The thick wall cavities are pumped full of recycled Polish newspapers,
which provide such good insulation
that the whole house will only be occasionally heated
by a single woodburning stove.
But on sunny days, this floor has another treat in store.
This is your own private deck. Your own balcony?
Indeed, yes.
Magical at tree top level like this, you know,
because you're up in the canopy looking over the top of it.
It will be lovely with a balustrade. Yes, that's true,
it does need a little something to stop people. Yeah, a little safety.
Do you think you can, will, ever slow down
or do you think that's an enemy?
I think it's a real... It could be a real problem,
that you never relax into the space because all you can see
are the things that you didn't get quite right.
And there must be a way of dealing with that.
I think therapy is the answer. Yes.
To focus on the things that you did get right,
of which there are thousands. To live in the moment. Yes.
You just have to allow yourself to enjoy the finished house
as much as enjoy the process of building it.
Yeah. Yeah, I will. I will.
Lucinda is a supreme exponent of her craft,
but her other great skill that emerged on this project
has been the marshalling of a talented team of helpers,
especially her own family.
Would you rather it had gone quicker?
Or does this pace suit you?
I think Mum wishes it had gone a bit slower!
She's always worked with incredibly valuable woods
and therefore something like a building comes along,
where you get a cheap sheet of OSB.
She will measure it as if it's a beautiful piece of mahogany.
From the very beginning, she always wanted to really enjoy it.
And I think she's never enjoyed being rushed on projects.
Do you think that a building is an appropriate place for that approach?
I think if you've got the time for it
and you've got the patience for it, why not?
If you enjoy it? I think it's great.
Right at the start,
Lucinda said she wanted to build something modest, but exquisite.
I think the time, expertise and attention to detail
lavished on every joint and junction of this jewel of a building,
has crafted just that.
How are you in relation to that 150,000?
That was just for the build,
and then there was 50,000 for the infrastructure
and the fees and all the sort of environmental surveys
and preliminary stuff.
And then there was a 10% contingency which brought us to 220.
OK. And by the time you will have finished?
I'll bring it in under 300, I think.
OK, so, 220 to 300
is about a 40%... Yes, yes.
..increase. What I'm saying is that sort of corresponds
to the increase in materials and costs in construction.
Yes. I mean timber in particular, it's a primarily timber building
and some timber has doubled in price.
The important question, however,
is can you afford to finish it without hardship?
I hope so. I don't know whether by the time I move in, you know,
there'll be nothing left to eat. Come on.
But I think it'll be all right.
And so, does this also then connect to that other part of your past,
of, you know, travelling through the Amazonian jungle?
Sustainability, doing something that makes sense, if you like,
of all the work you've done? Yeah, I think it does,
more so than perhaps I anticipated.
It is really exciting to have something
that's so coherently from within,
an expression of the things that... The values that I have
and the things that I stand for,
actually having a physical manifestation. Yeah.
My mum would say it's a very big den, and she...
Because it began with den building when, you know,
when I was five or something
and she'd say this was a really good den.
It's a really good den. It's a REALLY good den!
The ultimate den, I'd say.
And I can only imagine what pleasures lie in store
once Lucinda is able to put down her tools and move in.
Well. Beautiful on the outside.
And what should we say?
Full of promise on the inside?
But then, you see, I think of this building a bit like,
well, like the slow food movement, you know,
like the trees growing here.
This building has risen out of the ground
with the minimum of demands on its local environment,
and on the wider planet, for that matter, too.
And Lucinda likes it that way.
She's in full control of this process.
She's in absolute control of her craft.
And it's allowed her to build something considered and thoughtful,
and super sustainable.
The rest of us, I mean you and me,
we might demand something a bit more quickly.
But I think we should take a leaf out of her book
and learn to be patient.
We'll be back.
What we're trying to build is the UK's first passive house premium.
So, it's like a miniature power station.
How do you know it's going to work? We don't!
LAUGHTER
My God!
Oh, Jesus Christ, it looks like we're building a cathedral.
Not being here, not living it with him, is a strain on a relationship.
The risks if we continue, the wall will burst somewhere.
Oh, shit.
I will be absolutely devastated
if we don't achieve passive house premium.
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