Help build a Grand Design from as little as £2!

Love Grand Designs? Always wanted to build your own but lacked the funds? Interested in sustainability, innovative building methods and all things green? Here’s the chance to help rebuild Kevin McCloud’s famous eco house.

Planning permission has just been granted for the University of Brighton to rebuild The House That Kevin Built which was first erected in London’s Docklands live on Thames TV in six days in 2008 for Channel 4’s Grand Designs Live and heralded as the UK’s first low-energy prefabricated house made from eco-friendly materials.

The house was later dismantled but  – and here’s the exciting part – the concept is being reborn in the courtyard of the University of Brighton’s Faculty of Arts.

Kevin McCloud, the British designer who presented the TV programme, is backing the idea along with Brighton & Hove City Council and the Building Research Establishment . The house was designed by architect Duncan Baker-Brown, a Brighton graduate.

In an article for Grand Designs Magazine, Kevin writes:

If you made it to Grand Designs Live at ExCeL in London in the spring of 2008, you will have been greeted by the sight of my house.Thousands of you tramped round it. I slept there during the exhibition, in fact, spending my 49th birthday there. It wasn’t, of course, the house where I spend the bulk of my time and which is full of my detritus. It was the house that I built, admittedly with the help of around 73 muscular adults, in just six days as an exemplar project of where domestic house building might go…..

The house came down, sadly, as it was there only for the duration of the exhibition, but being a component-built project it was always intended that it might go somewhere else. The exciting news is that it now has a new home in Brighton where we’re hoping to reincarnate it as a project for the University. The House That Kevin Rebuilt is goingto fit in the quadrangle of the Faculty of Arts in Grand Parade, which is a lump-of Hemcrete’s-throw away from the Royal Pavilion, so it’ll be available to see for anyone in the towncentre.

It will also provide a working laboratory for researchers to monitor the building’ s performance, carbon footprint and evolution. Different faculties will be involved and the building adapted and furnished by students.. ..

And here’s where you come in – £300,000 is needed to re-build the house. All donations to the University are eligible for both Gift Aid and the government’s matched funding scheme; for every £2 received in philanthropic donations, the University can claim an additional £1 from the government.

If you would like to make a donation to the project, click here and you will be taken to the University’s secure JustGiving site. Mention The House That Kevin Built in the comments box when you make the donation to ensure that your donation goes directly towards re-building this unique Grand Design.

More information HERE.