Kevin McCloud meets Claire Farrow and Ian Hogarth, who are trying to build a home containing a sauna, spa, dance floor and DJ booth on a small patch of land in London. They have applied for planning permission to include a basement and started work on the construction, but setbacks, including their digger smashing into a neighbour’s wall and the re-emergence of the old river under the building, threaten to prevent them completing the project
This was a great episode. Kevin was almost beaming with glee with his map of London rivers pointing out that a creek does underground just where they were putting their massively deep basement.
Double tanking was needed when they hit the river and they had to pump water out and stop it as best they could. It would worry me somewhat knowing that water was there still!
This was of course after the obligatory planning debacle where they had to argue with neighbours about having the bigger size house on the smaller plot. Massive disruption for neighbours with the size of machinery required to dig the piles and a small bump into a garage.
The house was very modernly retro with a huge gold sofa and light up dance floor.