Big Design Adventure

We all want our cities and our neighbourhoods to be better, but what can we do about it?

Tim and Kev head to Fremantle in Western Australia to meet Kate Hulett, a community-minded individual who isn’t afraid to step up and have a crack at making change.

She’s passionate about Fremantle and her state and, with great positivity, advocates for better housing, more thoughtful and sustainable development, more public space, ...

Tim and Kevin take a road trip down to Anglesea, on Victoria’s Surf Coast, to visit architect John Wardle at Burnt Earth Beach House, his award-winning holiday home.

Described by his peers as “the architect’s architect”, John is the recipient of the Gold Medal, Australian architecture’s highest honour.

He’s also a collector of things, people and ideas, and this is on full display as he not only o...

What’s the most impressive thing you can do for an overseas visitor?

Wrangle them an invite to the official residence of the Governor-General?

That’s exactly what Tim managed to do for Kevin. In this very special episode, they take a tour of Admiralty House and sit down with the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Her Excellency the Honourable Ms Sam Mostyn AC.

The conversation is a relaxed one,...

Kevin on the dance floor?

The ultimate 1970s party house is on the menu as Tim and Kev hit the Perth suburb of Dianella to visit one of the city’s most talked-about homes.

Designed by Bulgarian-born architect Iwan Iwanoff in 1976, the Marsala House is a sculptural, concrete-block Brutalist wonderland that boasts a Saturday Night Fever-style dance floor.

The current owner, Greg, flings open the doors to reveal the stories...

Enter stage left: Neil Clerehan, the Melbourne architect who helped bring modernism to the suburbs - and a handsome, charming raconteur who waltzed his way through Melbourne society. A talented writer, his wit found a regular home in newspapers for much of his life.

In this very special conversation, Tim and Kevin head to the leafy inner-city suburb of South Yarra to sit down with Neil’s daughter, Esther. With inherited ...

What happens when two young architects build their own home with little money but plenty of ideas?

Tim and Kev head to London’s Hampstead to visit Patty Hopkins, one of Britain’s most influential
architects and the co-founder of Hopkins Architects, the practice she started with her late husband
Michael in 1976.

For this very special interview she opens the doors to the iconic glass and steel home the pair designed...

Tim and Kev head to Brisbane to meet architect John Ellway, who has quietly built a reputation for
transforming one of Australia’s most iconic house types - the Queenslander.

Working almost entirely in his own neighbourhood, John carefully adapts these classic timber-and-tin
homes so they can handle contemporary living while still embracing the subtropical climate that shaped them.

Recorded in his own inventive house, J...

Tim and Kev head to Melbourne to visit Ben Shewry, the chef behind the world-famous restaurant Attica, who lives in the 1966 home designed by émigré architect Ernest Fooks.

Ben, who has a deep passion for architecture and design, had long admired the house from afar, but he never thought he’d actually own it.

In this episode, he not only flings open the door to his incredible heritage-listed home, but he sh...

Tim and Kev head to the Sydney inner-city suburb of Marrickville to visit artist Leila Jeffreys and musician James Roden, who have spent a decade transforming a modest weatherboard cottage into a small but carefully considered home.

Their dream? A small sustainable home that works for them and connects them to nature by creating
habitat for birds and native species while rethinking what a suburban block can become.

The...

Can you imagine living in a museum?

Tim and Kev head to Surrey to visit The Homewood, the modernist masterpiece Patrick Gwynne
designed for his family in the late 1930s. Completed in 1938, The Homewood is one of the most
remarkable examples of pre-war modernist architecture in Britain.

Gwynne later gifted the house to the National Trust in 1999, with the stipulation that someone must live in it and that it be opened to the pu...

What happens when you try to fix the housing crisis without destroying the suburbs we love? You get
density by stealth.

Tim and Kev head to the Perth suburbia to visit Giuseppe’s House, a 1960s home recently restored by
local architect Kate Fitzgerald. Beneath the terrazzo floors and colourful character lies a bigger idea: how to add more housing to our cities without flattening their identity.

Kate shares her appr...

We’re back with Series Two!

Tim and Kevin head to Birmingham to explore a city defined by industry, reinvention and the home
of Peaky Blinders, Black Sabbath and ELO.

Over tea and biscuits with journalist and campaigner Mary Keating, they examine the fight to save the
Smallbrook Ringway Centre, one of Europe’s longest modernist buildings and a rare surviving example of Birmingham’s post-war ambi...

In the special festive episode, can you have a room just reserved for Christmas Day? What’s our hot take on the merits of tinsel, and we present our all time favourite Christmas movies and songs.

The model makers who create wooden Christmas ornaments of buildings can be found on Instagram here: Atelier Maps or their Esty store here. 

For suggestions of places and stories for Series 2, shoot us an email to h...

In this mini episode we’ve got huge news about the final show for the year and we answer our most asked question.

For questions and suggestions for our Christmas episode, shoot us an email to hello@bigdesignadventure.com

For suggestions of places and stories for Series 2, shoot us an email to hello@bigdesignadventure.com

Tickets are now on sale for Kevin McCloud and Tim Ross – Live in Interesting Places –
...

Tim and Kev head to London to visit Highgate New Town, a 1970s social housing scheme designed by Hungarian-born architect Peter Tabori.

Over a cup of tea with architect and long-time resident Rachel Stevenson, they uncover the secret behind the development’s enduring success.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Camden became a testing ground for a new kind of socialhousing in London — one that valued community, good design, an...

In answering all your burning questions, Kevin reveals his one-sided feud with Jay Kay from Jamiroquai. There are a few mea culpas along the way as we tackle your criticisms and wonder if design can save us in a world without the communal joy of watching shows like Sale of the Century. Oh, and we’ve got a HUGE announcement to make!

You can check out Kev on Top Gear’s You Tube channel here: https://youtu.be/vpLq6r...

In a semi-desperate attempt to find meaning in service station design, Tim and Kev head to Copenhagen to visit the famed filling station designed by Arne Jacobsen in the 1930s. A far-ranging conversation was recorded in front of the bowsers for your listening pleasure, and things may have gotten a little kooky.

Also in this episode: find out how Sarah Jessica Parker has recently become a new fan.

And make sure you tune in next week...

What happens when you mix modernism, espionage, and a few Bauhaus legends in one London apartment block? You get the Isokon Building.

Tim and Kev head to North London to visit the legendary 1934 modernist icon designed by Wells Coates and developed by Jack and Molly Pritchard. Once home to Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Agatha Christie and a bunch of spies, Isokon was a radical experiment in minimalist living that has stood th...

Hooray for Mid Century Modern Hollywood! Tim and Kev are joined by Julie Berghoff, the Emmy Award–winning Production Designer for the hit Seth Rogen series The Studio.

How did she manage to secure those iconic homes as locations? How did Julie create a set that feels like a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece? And will you stick around for Tim and Kev’s Seth Rogen impersonations at the end?

It’s a M...