A GLASS house, upside-down design and a pangolin-style project will help make up one of Bicester’s newest streets to star on televisions Grand Designs starting tonight.
Graven Hill in Bicester will be at the centre of tv stardom as the housing tv’s host Kevin McCloud takes viewers through the first ten self-build homes to be created on site.
The six-part series Grand Designs: The Street starts tonight on Channel 4 and will show the various ‘dream homes’ being built in Bicester on the land south west of the town and formerly owned by the Ministry of Defence.
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Episode one will star the shows oldest couple Terry, 61, and Olwen, 73, as well as existing neighbour Lynn, and will follow both house builds from moving from the same Northamptonshire street to Graven Hill in Bicester.
The shows oldest couple will be creating 'the blue house' as a three-bed home, estimated to cost £280,000 to build.
Terry will manage and build it himself having had building experience in the past, as well as helping out neighbour Lynn with her build next door.
Lynn, a retired design technology teacher, is also following them to the site to build her own two-bed home based on a 'pangolin design'.
The 63-year-old hoped the build would cost up to £300,000.
Elsewhere in the series the show will feature Paul, 42, and Blanka, 35, from Oxford who are currently renting but hope to build the cheapest, most sustainable house on the street.
The plan is to create a four-bed home using hempcrete, low-tech techniques and sustainable materials with Paul planning to do most the work with himself.
However, while the materials are cheap the handcrafted hempcrete house costs a lot more in labour than imagined pushing their £160,000 build budget up. The documentary shows how the family, including the pair's two young sons, are forced to live a nomadic lifestyle whilst they continue to build the street's most eco home.
Another couple to feature on the show is Peter and Anita, both 43, who already live in Bicester but wanted to upsize to a four-bed home and in a way that leaves them mortgage free.
Anita, a school science technician, and Peter, an IT consultant and robotics fanatic, had outgrown their existing home in the town but said it was impossible for them to upsize in the area. The move to a self-build hoped to combat that issue and along with their two teenage children they hope to create a home that suit everyone's needs.
One of the more expensive builds on the programme comes from Garrie and Sue who are building a home to help with Sue's severe osteoporosis.
The pairs current home with all the stairs is now unsuitable and they hope by settling in Bicester and building their own home designed around her needs that it will improve their quality of life.
The 57-year-old who was formerly a foster carer has incorporated lifts and a host of gadgets across three floors of the four-bedroom home to suit her needs.
The estimated cost of the build were originally £435,000.
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Slightly more discreet in price homes, but still just as grand in design, include the 'modular house' being built by Pauline and Godfrey at an estimated cost of £220,000. The couple hope to downsize from their current three-floored suburban home in Southampton to create a bespoke single-storey house.
The construction process on this build includes the home being built in a factory before being delivered to the site and ready to go in just nine weeks.
An upside-down home is being created on the show by Sean, 34, and Dianna, 31, who are moving to Bicester from Warwickshire.
The pair plan to build a minimalist three-bedroom home with an estimated cost of £300,000 but things take an unexpected turn for the engineer couple when Dianna excepts a job in Russia and they are forced to manage the project 2,000 miles apart.
James and Shannon are another couple signed up to build their dream home at Graven Hill and hope to create 'the good life' with their barn build. But plans go wry when the couple break up and James goes on to build the house alone.
The youngest to feature on the show include two couples Jack and Hannah, and Chris and Roxie, who both have moved in with parents during the build.
The pairs both journey through building their own homes in a bid to get on the property ladder.
Grand Designs: The Street airs tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm.
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