George Clarke (The Home Show) Interview
In these economically uncertain times, the idea of buying a grand, new home and moving into it lock, stock and barrel isn’t exactly tempting - as any look at the long faces of estate agents will tell you. But what if you’ve outgrown your house? What if it doesn’t meet your needs? What if you simply don’t fit in your home any more? What do you do then?
According to architect George Clarke, the answer could be closer to home than you think. A lot closer. In his new series, The Home Show, Clarke helps out six families who don’t want to move house, but can’t see a way of staying where they are. With his architectural nous and their money, Clarke transforms their homes to meet their needs. But this is no makeover show - we’re talking moving walls, changing bathrooms, rewiring, looking upwards, downwards and sideways for solutions. This isn’t a lick of paint and a couple of scatter cushions - this is real, life-changing architecture at work.
Here, Clarke reveals more about this timely, original series, and the stresses of being given people’s life savings and charged with changing their lives.
Given the state of the economy, your new series, The Home Show, is quite timely, isn’t it?
Yeah. That was a complete fluke. I wanted to make this series because it was important to me, as an architect, to get under the skin of homes, to find out what homes really mean to people. I’m not interested in making a programme about property, assets, increasing value, climbing the property ladder. A home is a container of personal dreams and memories. I was brought up in a 1974 council house in Sunderland, and I absolutely love that house. You can remember how many steps there are, and navigate round the house in the dark when you get up and need the loo. Those things are so much more important than how much a place has increased in value. So the point of this series is to allow people to make the most of their homes, and to stay in them, rather than have to move to accommodate their needs.
Do you think people are too obsessed with trying to trade up?
Well, what’s the point in selling your house, paying your estate agent fees, which are huge, plus VAT, paying your stamp duty on your new place, plus you’ve got removal costs - and then when you get in there, it’s still somebody else’s house? You’ve inherited their kitchen, their bathroom, their floor finishes and everything else. It’s not your house. So then you end up spending £20,000 sorting it out anyway. What’s the point? If your house is in the location you want, it’s a house that you really like, but it doesn’t work for you, don’t sell it! Get someone like me in, get an architect in to help you make it the house you always dreamed of. What’s the point of throwing money away?
So this isn’t your typical property show?
No. It’s got a totally different approach. It’s not about fashion statements and gimmicky style, which is what a lot of interior programmes have been interested in. It’s not about treating a home as a commodity. I’m quite looking forward to dinner parties over the next year, because at least people won’t be talking about how much bloody money they’ve made on their house. If you’re in that house for the long term, bringing up your family, who gives a toss what it’s worth? The Home Show is about maximising the real value of homes - how much they mean to people.
Explain what happens in the show.
My job is to go into a family home and make sure it can be exactly what the family want it to be, so that they can stay there and live there happily. I go in there and try and sort out the houses quite quickly. And the reason I do it quite quickly is they’ve got very, very limited budgets, so we can’t be doing a build for ten months, doing a mini-Grand-Designs-style project. The programme is absolutely real, it’s their budget, it’s their home, it’s their life there. It’s a huge responsibility for me to get in there, do it quickly, and get out again. I want to make it absolutely clear that this is not a makeover show. Just because it’s done quickly, it’s not a Changing Rooms, it’s not a 60-Minute Makeover. It’s not one of those shows where you go in and make every house look like a hotel room, quite anonymous and bland.
You actually go and stay with the family first, don’t you?
Yes, that’s very important. As their architect, my job is to understand them, so I stay with them for a day and a night. And very quickly I begin to get an understanding of where the house doesn’t work for them, where it might be inefficient, where it might not have the right ambience to it. Then I sort it out. Some very simple things can completely transform the way you live.
Are you pleased with the results?
I have to say, hand on heart, I think what we’ve done is amazing. As the idea developed, of us going into people’s homes with a limited budget and limited time, to transform how they live, I began to worry about whether we’d pull it off. Because nothing is done in a slapdash style. It’s all finished properly. Work has to be done well, and it’s not just decorative. You’ve got to get the electrics right, the plumbing right, all the services and infrastructure has to be right before we can make it look nice. So it’s a really ambitious programme, but I’m unbelievably proud of how we’ve managed to do it.
How did the families feel about what you did to their homes?
Well, the feedback from the families has to be the most important thing. The proof is in the pudding. The people who’s houses we’ve done so far are absolutely thrilled. I got an email from the family whose bungalow we worked in down in Dorking. They gave me all of their savings, including their Christmas bonus, and they extended their mortgage a little bit, to work on their home. But they genuinely were so thrilled with the result. They sent me an email saying ‘George we blame you for us waking up at 6am every morning, because all we want to do is sit by that beautiful picture window that you created. It’s your fault that we’re not getting enough sleep.’ And she said she feels like pinching herself about the transformation of the place, because it seems too good to be true. For me, that’s architecture. It’s not just about some iconic building on the Thames - although I love that. But my thing is to make architecture popular, accessible, not aloof or highbrow, but accessible to everyone.
Was anyone less than pleased with your work?
Not yet, but I’ve still got three reveals to do. But the three that we’ve done so far have all been incredibly happy.
That must be a relief.
Honestly, doing six buildings like that, all at the same time, with all of their savings going into it, all their own money, they hand their keys over and they genuinely don’t know what I’m going to do when they leave the house. It’s real pressure, so when it comes off, yeah, it’s a massive relief. Especially as it’s an odd position to be in. As an architect, you normally consult and work with the client for all the decisions. But on this show, they have to put all that trust in me to make the decisions for them. I’ll do my best to understand their needs and their taste and style, but the rest is down to me.
What’s been the main issue that you’ve had to address in most of the homes? What was the problem people had with their houses?
Fitting in, having enough space, and making the best use of it. It really is the most important thing. When you talk about use of space, it sounds a bit abstract and artsy fartsy, an architect going on about ‘space’ again. It’s not necessarily about creating additional space, but about making the space you’ve got work. Sometimes it’s about taking from one room to give to another. Like in the Brixton show, I gave them a much smaller family bathroom, to give them another bedroom. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices like that. It depends on how you live, what your priorities are.
If they have to pay for the work themselves, how do the contributors benefit from being in the series?
Well, the couple from Dorking put it quite nicely. They only had a budget of £30,000 and they said: “We couldn’t afford an architect like you normally,” cos they get me for free. “So we get you, you bring your own contractors in, you project manage the entire build, you make all the decisions, we get sent away for six weeks, we come back and our house is finished. That is absolute heaven.” They don’t have to deal with any of it. And also, they pay for all the work, but we do help them out with the styling of the place when the building’s finished. So we get them rugs, a new sofa, that sort of thing. But their money pays for everything else.
What one thing could most people do to improve their homes?
There are different degrees of change, I suppose. You can always change a bathroom or a kitchen - they make an enormous difference to a home, visually and to how it feels. If they’re done well, they look lovely. But if you want to add space, loft conversions are great, basements are great, but very expensive. But if people just sat down with the plans of their house and sketched over the top of it, moving the walls around, to change spaces that don’t work in their home, they might come across a solution to all their problems. You don’t have to be an expert, just start making notes about what works for you. I think people understand architecture more than they think. There’s actually a 3-D planner on the 4Homes website accompanying the series, which is a piece of software that allows you to put on a couple of the rooms in your house that don’t work, and then you can move the walls around or break through, or position furniture in a certain way. Simple changes like breaking through a wall, moving a door position, going up into the ceiling space, can make a huge difference.
You’re pretty evangelical and passionate about all of this. Why?
I just feel really strongly about it. You’ll never spend as much on anything as you do on your home, so why not make sure it’s right? You don’t buy clothes if they don’t feel right, you don’t buy a new car if it doesn’t feel right, why should your home not be right? Of course it should. And if you get it right once, just right for the way you live, it’ll last you a long, long, long time. And it will improve the quality of life for you and your family every single day.
The Home Show is on Channel 4 on Wednesdays at 8pm from 5th November 2008.
