Returning: Grand Designs

Kevin McCloud is back on ABC1 next Sunday for a new nine-part series of Grand Designs.

Season 13 aired in the UK last September.

Entrepreneur Gwyn Ap Harris and his wife, Kate, were desperate for more space for their growing family so decided to build a traditional new house for themselves and their two sons, Jac and Dylan. But their plans changed when they fell in love with a decaying classic 1920s cinema in the heart of their home town, Thorne in South Yorkshire. With little knowledge of either restoration or building, they boldly set about renovating and extending this wreck to make a family home. Their idea for a conventional place to live is challenged by an old school friend now architect who convinces them to use concrete – and masses of it – to turn their dilapidated building into an unlikely homage to modernism.

Behind the beautifully restored 1920s facade, concrete walls emerge along with massive expanses of glass. Gwyn hopes this will include his eccentric ambitious idea of a hydraulic glass wall which will open up one side of the house to form an impressive UV filtered canopy. This stark design concept is totally alien to Gwyn and Kate who are forced to take an almighty leap of faith and believe that concrete will make an outstanding monument to brutalism and offer them a unique place to live. Plus the restoration of this landmark building might just help kick start the regeneration of this historic former mining town.

7:30pm Sunday June 8th ABC1.