George Clarke's Amazing Spaces: First Home
Britain is in the grip of a housing crisis, with many people unable to afford a traditional bricks-and-mortar home. George and his long-time collaborator Will Hardie meet the proactive and determined people finding creative ways to create a place they can call home. From buses and boats to former toilet blocks and tiny homes, the series follows couples and families transforming unexpected spaces into affordable homes of their own.
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George Clarke turns his attention to the British housing crisis, meeting proactive individuals who are putting a roof over their heads with hard work, determination and some clever left-field thinking. First up he meets a woman who is having a tiny eco-home handcrafted for her in Wales and a 17-year-old who plans to single-handedly turn an old refrigerated lorry into his first home, on the small budget of just £5,000. George also heads to the Netherlands to see what lessons he can learn from how the country is solving its housing issues.
George Clarke meets a young couple who are creating a home on a bus to save the money they used to spend on rent, and an older couple who are building their dream retirement home in Cornwall on the site of a derelict toilet block. And on his visit to the Netherlands, George visits a pair of houses made entirely of recycled and leftover materials from the building industry, that could well point the way to building cheaper houses. Will Hardie meets the couple who have turned an American RV into their full-time home, before visiting a very modern micro-apartment in a 1930s block of flats in London.
The architect meets a man who's turning a shoebox studio flat into a five-star micro-apartment through the power of great design, and a woman who's moving up the property ladder from her small live-in van to a seven-tonne lorry that she's calling a one-bedroom apartment on wheels. George also discovers how the Dutch are solving the shortage of space for new homes by building houses in the water. There's also a skip that's been turned into a home, a lighthouse boat that's been converted into a house and one of the most colourful and characteristic van makeovers ever - inspired by the owners' two dogs.
George finally gets to see an American school bus home that's been four years in the making, and discovers factory-created tiny houses, built at a low cost to help tackle homelessness. He meets an innovative couple who create an affordable house by putting a shipping container on the base of a barge to create a unique floating home, and travels to the Netherlands to see how a tiny home can be reconfigured four ways, to create a mightily impressive place to live.
