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Short filmTranscript
00:00If you cannot, for love nor money, find yourself a plot of land to build on then I suggest you stop looking
00:07and instead turn your attention to the foreshore, that bit of the river between water and earth,
00:15that nether space where planning and building control regulations are sort of a bit of a grey area,
00:20and that gives you carte blanche, that gives you a blank canvas to build your dream on.
00:26In the middle of the city, for example, super accessible, you could do a houseboat or a floating home,
00:31which, given sea levels, I mean, could be climate change resistant even.
00:36Wow! I can't think of anything not to like, can you?
00:40Oh no! What's... what's... this happens twice a day?
00:56MUSIC
01:10Howard, an architect, and his wife Sarah, an interior designer,
01:14have spent the last 30 years creating a series of challenging homes for themselves and clients
01:20in the unlikeliest of places.
01:24This one, on the Isle of Wight, was a radar station during the Second World War.
01:32So our perfect project is something that's almost unimaginably difficult
01:37and everybody else looks at it and just thinks, oh, my God, that was just a brothel!
01:42But it has some sort of spark of, you know, excitement, interest,
01:46an amazing view or an incredible location.
01:50So we need that sort of strange combination of very difficult
01:54but also potentially marvellous.
01:57Pursuing that dream that is fully firm from an early stage, usually, but takes a really long time.
02:03So it's not just the design, you also have to be able to figure out how to
02:07virtually physically get involved and build them ourselves.
02:11Just providing a warm place to sleep isn't enough with architecture and design.
02:17You have to enable things that are extraordinary.
02:20And if you can do that, then you've achieved something.
02:25For the past 15 years, Howard and Sarah have lived in this small town
02:29on the south coast near Worthing.
02:32And while they gear up for their next big project, they're renting this four-bed family home.
02:39We've got a little bit more independence now.
02:42Ray's off at university, Frank's having a gap year, Iris is doing array levels.
02:47There has been a bit of a realisation in this that, you know,
02:51we've got to really get on and do the next project.
02:54We haven't got a huge number of projects left in us.
02:57And each one's kind of precious.
03:00So now, after 30 years of architectural experimentation,
03:04Howard and Sarah have hatched a plan to build an astonishing new home
03:09amongst this community of houseboats,
03:12on a tidal riverbank, a stone's throw from the English Channel.
03:17One day, we were walking along the towpath by the river,
03:21and we both kind of stood there in a lightbulb moment.
03:24Sort of a wonderful community and life going on,
03:27completely seduced by the kind of happy sounds on a summer's evening.
03:31But also, it's a kind of, there's a twang of anarchy in the air that we like.
03:35There's something about that that really appeals to us.
03:40This is wonderful.
03:44Everything about it is a bit wild, it's a bit hairy.
03:54Next door to a 1950s German torpedo boat
03:58sits a derelict World War II landing craft
04:01on a river plot that Howard and Sarah have bought for £255,000.
04:09It's sadly beyond restoration,
04:11so this old warhorse will need to be got rid of
04:14before work starts on their new floating home.
04:19Hello.
04:21Sarah, you're far too well-dressed for this.
04:24This is spectacular.
04:26That's something in the state of tidal clouds.
04:29So you're going to build a new boat in its place?
04:33Yes, it's a completely new structure.
04:35So it's not going to be a boat, it's going to be a floating family home?
04:39Built on a floating platform,
04:41it will be a really highly engineered steel structure
04:44and that will create an extraordinary living space on the top.
04:47It will be drenched in south sun and also have views out over the estuary.
04:52And then below decks, there will be the cabins, our office and a cinema room.
04:58So, you're an architect, you're a designer,
05:01you've worked all your lives together.
05:03You could design the most fabulous home on dry land.
05:06Why are you doing it?
05:08We've spent all of our life looking for exciting projects
05:11and quietly at the same time becoming addicted to this location,
05:16which is amazing, where our children have grown up
05:20and actually we were looking for the next real challenge,
05:23but actually within this location.
05:25We see a thing, we fall in love with it
05:28and we do it because we want to live there.
05:30All our projects have to do with delight,
05:32finding an opportunity that we think we can transform into something magical.
05:36The first challenge will be figuring out
05:39how to extract the 80-year-old landing craft from the mud.
05:43It's disintegrating, so that's likely to be a complete pain.
05:47Next will come the off-site fabrication phase,
05:50where 16 enormous floats get made from polystyrene
05:54that's given a tough weatherproof fibreglass skin.
05:57Also being made off-site is a hugely complicated steel frame.
06:01Now get this, shipmates.
06:03Howard and Sarah are going to assemble this new structure,
06:06not in a boatyard, that would be normal,
06:09but on site, in stages on the ever-shifting tidal riverbed,
06:13in water for anything up to three hours a day,
06:16on mud the rest of the time.
06:18At low tide, four floats at a time will be moored together on the mud,
06:22connected by the hastily bolted steelwork.
06:25The steel frame will then be sheathed in industrial insulated cladding.
06:30Then at high tide, that first section will be floated out into the river,
06:34making way for the assembly of the second, third and fourth sections.
06:39The steel frame will be placed like a truss bridge
06:42to provide rigidity in the face of floating rogue objects in the river
06:46that could get stuck under the structure at low tide.
06:49The angled walls also add stability.
06:52Permanent moorings will lock the 30-metre-long structure in position.
06:57Access will be via an aluminium bridge that will echo the steel frame design.
07:03Inside, below decks, a large circulation space will connect to four bedrooms,
07:08three bathrooms and an office in the stern,
07:11with a cinema room at the pointy end.
07:15A no-frills marine staircase will take you up to the main act,
07:19a magnificent vaulted steel space that encloses living, kitchen and eating spaces,
07:24all generously lit, not least by a giant triangular roof light.
07:31To the rear, a large outdoor deck
07:34will provide magical, ever-changing views across the estuary.
07:39While at the front, a huge hydraulic lifting window will access the foredeck.
07:46This is a wonderfully experimental piece of Imagineering,
07:50and as you'd expect, so many details are yet to be finalised.
07:55Is there a budget for the construction, can I ask?
07:59So I'm in charge of the budget, and 385 is my number.
08:04Absolutely would have a limit of...?
08:06450, we start to feel uncomfortable.
08:08OK, and when can I come along and see a finished building?
08:142023? Yeah.
08:1618 months is a good ambition.
08:18Book it in, Kevin, book it in.
08:20And how's it paid for?
08:21We sold our house to find this silly project,
08:24and now we're renting a house, luckily, just along the beach.
08:27In cash, in other words.
08:29Can you get a mortgage? Because you can't get a mortgage.
08:32No, OK. You can't get a mortgage. Of course not.
08:34Yeah, we've been quite un-mortgageable for a long time in terms of our projects.
08:38So who's going to project manage the whole thing?
08:41We are. OK.
08:43You can't put this out to a main contractor,
08:45this kind of person doesn't exist. No.
08:47So what are the challenges that this project presents?
08:51We don't want to be on the mud, the mud's incredibly difficult to work on,
08:55so we're looking at really a new way of building,
08:59which is going to involve lots of prefabrication
09:02so that we can avoid basic sort of manual work on the mud.
09:06Actually going through this process is going to be really hard.
09:10You know, if you said to me,
09:12you've got to use Howard and Sarah to design and build your home, Kevin,
09:16I would say brilliant. I'd love that.
09:19Because they are so good at what they do, and they're such a team.
09:23But I think they've bitten off more than they can chew.
09:26And look at this place.
09:28They're not building on earth, dry land, or sand even.
09:32They're not even building on water, they're building on mud,
09:36which is so unpredictable,
09:38and subject to the tides ebbing and flowing twice a day.
09:42Oh, my Lord, there's far too much complexity here.
09:45It's impossible to predict how this project will go.
09:48I mean, all bets are off.
09:56A few weeks later,
09:58Howard and Sarah have organised a motley crew of helpers
10:02to start demolishing the old landing craft, including their son, Ray.
10:07I had to borrow some money off my mum and dad,
10:10and now I'm paying them back through some work on the site.
10:14Another helper is Angel, who has a surprising link to this ship.
10:18My connection to this boat is we basically lived on here
10:21probably from about the age of seven, around 2000, we moved down here.
10:25It's an interesting project to be a part of
10:28because it's physically taking apart my childhood.
10:31There's some kind of symbolic element to that.
10:33It's nice that I am involved, rather than just watching it
10:37kind of come apart from afar.
10:40They're discovering that dismantling a decaying 80-year-old
10:44stuck-in-the-mud landing craft is so slow.
10:47They're expecting it to cost £25,000.
10:52Labour's obviously the biggest part of it, it's people's time.
10:55The skips are phenomenally expensive,
10:57but, you know, waste has to be got rid of carefully.
11:00We're recycling as much as we possibly can.
11:02I think we're about to get into the really difficult bit of the boat,
11:06the armour-plated hull.
11:09So I think we've probably got a couple of...
11:12maybe a couple of months.
11:14It does not help that everything coming off site
11:17must pass over this 3.5m high seawall and down some stairs.
11:22But wait, Howard has a new toy to help with that.
11:27So this is my crane, the Skyhook Magic.
11:32Lift anything, anywhere.
11:34The economics are pretty simple.
11:36We're going to need this for probably a year and a half,
11:39including the demolition.
11:41So it costs £400 a week to rent something like this,
11:45and we chose to buy it for about £25,000.
11:50So this is what they call a pedestrian-operated crane,
11:53so it's all operated by a remote control,
11:55which is very, very simple.
11:58Most of the time.
12:00I don't know why it's doing that.
12:02It's a mystery. I'm going to phone my crane man.
12:08It's making... It's obviously not very happy.
12:11Oh, God, yeah, the cable's really tight.
12:14Yeah, it's not moving at all.
12:16When Howard's not figuring out how to crane the old landing craft
12:20off the marred in pieces,
12:22the architectural wizard is racking his brains
12:24as to the kinds of materials that will be light enough
12:27to crane onto the mud.
12:30So this is a life-size sample
12:32of the current standard technology for houseboat floats,
12:36which is a slab of polystyrene
12:38that's been covered in about half an inch,
12:41slightly more, of cement.
12:44So it's good stuff. It's durable.
12:46But Achilles' heel is that it takes a very light material
12:50and makes it incredibly heavy.
12:52So it'll be incredibly difficult
12:55to lift those concrete-covered floats over the wall.
13:02Which is why Howard's going to wrap his float
13:05with something he knows well, fibreglass.
13:08So our plan is to use basic surfboard technology.
13:13A paddleboard I made about 15 years ago
13:15was my first experiment in making surfboards.
13:18And that's polystyrene again, the same basic material.
13:22But as you can see, the whole construction is very light.
13:26It's bigger than the sample we had,
13:28but I can lift that on my own very easily.
13:30We can make them in a workshop,
13:32which means we can control the quality.
13:34And it also manages the costs,
13:36because we're not having to rent a huge shipyard
13:38to build the whole thing in one piece.
13:40But as far as we're aware,
13:42no-one's actually used this technology
13:44to make a floating home before.
13:46So we're in the unfortunate position of being the experimenters.
13:51The radical ethos of this project is hard-core self-built territory.
13:58But two months in,
14:00progress continues to be hand-strung by the old boat.
14:04Extracting it from the mud is still nowhere near finished.
14:10The reality of actually taking it apart has been incredibly complicated.
14:15Just the metal plates have required all the rivets
14:18to be individually removed by angle-grinding.
14:22You get into the sort of ritual of every morning
14:24you've got to get up and do a thing
14:26that you're not really enjoying doing any more.
14:29It is draining our kind of energy,
14:32and I think it's really hard as a couple to be doing this project.
14:36Delaying construction of their new home until next year
14:40is the last thing they want.
14:42But that's starting to look increasingly likely.
14:45There will be a time when we can look back on this and smile.
14:49I'm not quite sure when that will be.
14:54Ideally, we would like to be getting on with the build
14:57before it gets too cold.
14:59We've really got to get this thing out, you know, before midsummer.
15:06Right now, I hate this boat.
15:13MUSIC FADES
15:20Near Worthing, wrestling the marooned landing craft from the mud
15:24ends up taking Howard and Sarah over six months,
15:28three times longer than anticipated.
15:31As a consequence, they've been forced to delay
15:34building their new home until next year.
15:38Our original plan was to try and demolish the boat
15:41and start construction this year.
15:44And, you know, we've decided to slow down the construction,
15:48actually defer the construction,
15:50and just concentrate on getting the boat out ourselves
15:53and do it slowly, and that's what we'll have to do.
15:58Howard and Sarah are almost a full year into the project
16:02by the time they and their son Frank
16:04start fabricating the 16 enormous polystyrene floats
16:08at a workshop in Sussex.
16:11Hold on a second.
16:12Shall I try and wedge it so it's not going to roll around?
16:15Well, we're using about 200 cubic metres of polystyrene,
16:19which... I mean, polystyrene's light,
16:22but when you get to those kind of volumes, they weigh a lot.
16:26It's quite... It's hard.
16:29We're going to stick them together with polyurethane glue.
16:33That's right.
16:35The foundation of their home is being made from 20 grams worth
16:38of polystyrene stuck together with 400 litres of polyurethane glue.
16:44You put this on and then you activate it just with a spray of water
16:48and it starts to foam up.
16:50So the key thing is, from the moment we start spraying it,
16:54we've got to be pretty quick getting it all assembled
16:57and strapped together so that we close the joints up nice and tightly.
17:04Quick as you can, yeah. Go, go, go, go, go.
17:10Just come back a bit.
17:12It's a really inaccurate block.
17:14We didn't offer it up, did we?
17:16Fuck me.
17:18I should have checked this first.
17:20It's not a great start, but mercifully, with quick thinking,
17:24the other end provides a snugger fit.
17:26Yeah, that's good.
17:28Once the polystyrene blocks are glued together,
17:31OK, then.
17:33they use a heat cutter to trim the floats to the right shape.
17:37Timber! Here it comes.
17:39Yes!
17:40Finally, the floats are sealed,
17:42the bottom in a glass fibre and super-strong polyurethane recipe
17:46developed by Howard.
17:48Roll it down there.
17:50The top with a fibreglass matting and an epoxy resin mix.
17:54This will give tensile strength and also make it nice and durable
17:58so we can walk on it while we're erecting the steelwork.
18:03It's hard to imagine 23 tonnes of steel
18:06sitting on top of all this polystyrene, isn't it?
18:10But that's exactly what's being fabricated down the road in Chichester,
18:15to some bewilderment.
18:17The polystyrene obviously floats and steel obviously sinks,
18:21so at some point they've got to come together
18:24and hopefully float rather than sink.
18:28Hopefully the engineers looked at that and worked all that out,
18:31but it were...
18:33Polystyrene doesn't seem like a solid material.
18:36It doesn't help that constructing a steel frame
18:39strong enough to withstand the impacts of rogue objects in the river below
18:43involves absurd levels of complexity.
18:46The most complex thing is the acute and obtuse angles.
18:49Everything's at a different angle.
18:51They're all different. You've got two 33s there
18:54and then you've got a 34, a 90, 56, 79.
18:57They're all different and every drawing has a reference number.
19:00These precision-cut angled sections then need steel plates fitting,
19:05again, all at different millimetre-perfect positions.
19:0934 millimetres there, 41 this side, as per drawing.
19:18Voila.
19:19Everything's double-checked before it goes out or before it's welded up,
19:22and then it's checked and then ready to go.
19:25We're mad to do this job, really.
19:27Normally we would supply and install a job.
19:30Howard was adamant that he was going to install it himself.
19:33We've just got to wait and see how they get on.
19:40By the time the first floats and steels are on site,
19:43ready to be installed on the riverbed,
19:46Howard and Sarah are 18 months into this project.
19:50Hey, you guys. Hello. Hi, Kevin.
19:53By which point they'd hoped to be living in their new floating home.
19:57So what's the plan for getting them over the wall?
19:59These are upside down. We have to turn them over
20:02and then one by one we'll hoist them over the wall into the mud.
20:06We haven't tried it yet.
20:07We haven't tried putting these on the mud and manoeuvring them,
20:10so we're not entirely sure.
20:12They've got to be in exactly the right spot relative to each other
20:15for the steel frame to fit.
20:17Exactly, yeah. Just a little bit.
20:20Yes, one of the things that's been keeping me awake at night
20:23is how we get all those moving parts to come together.
20:27It just strikes me you've got, thanks to the water and the mud,
20:31the tide and even the wind,
20:34there's a risk there of the ties between the steel and this
20:38distorting, ripping perhaps.
20:40We don't know it will work.
20:42We don't know whether it's worked for another ten years or so.
20:47The experimentation here is beyond belief.
20:50A far cry from the tried and tested approach to building on water...
20:56..that's been developed over hundreds of years
20:58at dockyards like Chatham in Kent.
21:01Morning, Richard. Welcome. Thank you very much. Pleasure.
21:04A tradition that continues today.
21:07We've been building wooden boats since 1710.
21:09We've moved around, up and down the Thames a bit.
21:12We're probably one of the biggest houseboat builders
21:14in the whole of the south-east. Amazing.
21:16So just how big is this boatyard?
21:20Kevin, we'll go up on the walkway here, above my gates.
21:23These gates here are huge, like an aircraft hangar.
21:26So we've got 65,000 square foot here.
21:29Good Lord! Do you mean you could build a submarine in here?
21:32There were submarines built here.
21:34The last one was built in the 60s.
21:37So this is an ex-Royal Navy facility?
21:40Ex-Royal Navy.
21:42It's hard to imagine a more controlled environment
21:45for building submarines.
21:47Or, for that matter, any floating structure.
21:50This is an absolutely vast space.
21:53Protected from the elements.
21:55You've got plenty of light because of the glazed roof.
21:58With a crane overhead to allow you to move stuff around easily.
22:02We do. We've got a ten-tonne overhead crane
22:04and a three-tonne on the other side.
22:06A dry dock, effectively. What's the flooring?
22:09The Royal Navy very kindly put a granite floor in,
22:12which is indestructible.
22:14As a boat builder, would you ever be tempted
22:18just trying to build something in the water?
22:21Never. I can build out there in the elements.
22:25It would be very inefficient. You need a controlled environment.
22:28But the tides change every day.
22:30You know, there are a lot of variables.
22:32Building a new structure in between tides,
22:35that doesn't tickle my fancy.
22:37No. No.
22:41But our mavericks, Howard and Sarah,
22:44don't have the budget for boatyards.
22:47They're building their floating home directly on the tidal river
22:51with the help of a temporary crane and their mate, Luke.
22:56What we've got to do is lift the platform up
22:59and turn it onto one side,
23:01drop it down to the floor,
23:03and then, of course, with the crane, over to the river.
23:06The crane's limited reach means the structure
23:08can only be installed four floats at a time.
23:11The steel frame and cladding can then be fitted to that section
23:14and the whole section floated out,
23:16making way for the next four floats and so on.
23:19Yuck. So stressful, I think, this moment.
23:22Right, Sarah, so can you concentrate on...
23:24Just don't worry about that. Just hold your rope.
23:27Hold on. OK.
23:29Yes, well done, guys.
23:31By early afternoon, their first mission is accomplished,
23:35the four floats sitting perfectly level and aligned on the mud.
23:42First of many.
23:46But now they need to fit nine steel beams on top of the floats
23:51to keep them aligned before the tide comes in, in an hour.
23:56Next phase is critical, getting the steel in,
23:59making sure that all comes together nicely.
24:03Mind your fingers.
24:05Yeah, well, we're trying to beat the tide now,
24:08so I think we've probably got an hour to get this together
24:11before the thing starts to float,
24:13and that's going to make it a bit more complicated than we want.
24:17Wow, so this is the moment where you worry about every junction,
24:20how accurate all the drawings have been, I guess.
24:26The first of the nine beams is fitted within minutes.
24:30I reckon that's pretty good.
24:32It looks like a great fit.
24:36But there's a problem.
24:40It's the wrong way around. OK.
24:44Fuck!
24:52With the tide about to come in,
24:54the rush is on to position the steel correctly
24:57and install the other eight beams.
25:00Here comes the tide.
25:02So pleased with ourselves.
25:04What do they say about pride coming before the fall and all that?
25:08It seems to be stuck.
25:10Somehow they manage to get four more in,
25:13but there are a further four still to go.
25:15Here comes the fucking tide! Look at that!
25:18Too many variables here. We're running out of time.
25:24Somehow they've gone out of whack again.
25:26They're like a piece of shit.
25:31And this is just the first of four floating sections.
25:46Near Worthing, as they battle the tides,
25:49it takes around ten days for Howard and Sarah
25:52to complete the first of four floating steel sections,
25:55ready to be clad in these industrial panels.
25:58A sandwich of insulation filling and two skins of coated steel.
26:05Even now, Howard's having to accept
26:08the floats may not line up as precisely as he'd hoped.
26:13So I've had to come to terms with the concept
26:16that not everything is going to be perfectly aligned.
26:19I've spent probably a week trying to true the frame
26:23and get the floats perfectly aligned and get everything just right.
26:27I mean, the reality is we're building a house on a piece of mud.
26:30You know, we're not in a workshop.
26:33At least they do have temporary moorings
26:36to stop the structure floating away.
26:40Over the next six weeks,
26:42the second batch of floats and steel spring up as anticipated.
26:46This is remarkable.
26:48So I'm standing... This is the top of...
26:51Oh, it's good and tough, isn't it?
26:53The epoxy. Yeah.
26:55Nice surface. Yes.
26:57Now, these cladding systems, which are used conventionally
27:00in bicycle and motoring equipment shops,
27:03what I like about this cladding system is it's external skin,
27:07internal skin and insulation all in one.
27:09And it just slots together.
27:11It's fantastic.
27:13I mean, it's six or seven trades all in one afternoon.
27:17I really like it. And there's no painting.
27:19Cos it doesn't look so good on the inside of my local DIY store.
27:23But here, for some reason, it looks exquisite.
27:25So where we're stood, this area, that's the first stage.
27:30That's the first quarter of the boat beneath us.
27:32Of the four phases, we are stood in phase one.
27:35You are.
27:36And then another, consequently, two more to arrive.
27:42But with winter around the corner
27:45and the first floor section still to go in,
27:48it's a nerve-wracking time.
27:50The crucial thing is getting all the cladding on
27:52so that we can work our way over the winter.
27:54OK, that's got to go in there somehow.
27:56You'll be lucky. Remarkably...
27:58Just sort of swing this end in towards you.
28:00..within six weeks...
28:02That ends in. ..the first floor steels are in.
28:05Bingo.
28:07Good job. Well done.
28:10But now they face another, more serious setback to getting watertight.
28:15Heavy storms have made Howard and Sarah realise
28:18they need permanent moorings
28:20before they continue cladding and glazing this hulking great structure.
28:24Our temporary moorings aren't really big enough
28:28to prevent the whole boat flowing away, really.
28:30The boat's quite big. It's got a big side area.
28:33And if we're not fully moored, it'll blow away.
28:39But getting permanent moorings designed, engineered and fitted
28:43is going to take time.
28:45It's just frustrating.
28:47Obviously, what we'd hope to do is get the whole thing enclosed
28:50before the worst of the winter started.
28:52You know, there might come a point where we have to just...
28:56..shut up shop for the winter and try and mothball it.
29:00It should be a great shame.
29:08Three months pass before the permanent mooring installation
29:12can finally begin.
29:14OK, that's it. It's in.
29:16All vital engineering to prevent their huge and heavy structure
29:20from drifting out to sea.
29:22So the tide's going to come in, the boat's going to float,
29:26we're going to push it over and clip it on to the bracket,
29:30the bracket onto the pile, and then we'll be properly secure.
29:34Right, we're definitely going to float.
29:36It's been quite a painful build-up, so this is a big day
29:40where hopefully we're finally secure
29:42and then I think Howard can get on with putting all the cladding on
29:46and move the whole project forward.
29:48They only have a half-hour window to attach the steel brackets
29:52before the boat lands once more on the mud and another day is wasted.
29:57It's caught. Is it caught over there? Probably not.
30:07Well done, mate.
30:09It's in.
30:13With a further three moorings secured over the following few weeks,
30:18finally attention can return to getting the superstructure clad
30:23and then glazed, including this extraordinary triangular roof light.
30:29Here we go, Robbie. Beautiful. Well done.
30:32As Howard and Sarah's toil on the riverbed enters a third year,
30:37they have an almost watertight structure to show for it.
30:41It's like an LV superstore.
30:43No, it's really beautiful. Thank you.
30:48And the new addition to the riverbank is already starting to raise eyebrows.
30:53My first reaction was, it's an extraordinary design
30:57that people would have to get used to.
30:59And be puzzled about.
31:01More than modern, if there's a word for that.
31:04Quite a shock, actually.
31:06It is at the moment currently looking a little bit like
31:09a floating warehouse, I would probably say.
31:13Well, will you look at that, eh? Is it a raft? I mean, is it a house?
31:18Is it a new addition to His Majesty's flotilla of stealth frigates?
31:25Morning. Morning. Hi, Kevin. Welcome aboard.
31:28Thank you so much.
31:30It's pretty, pretty extraordinary.
31:32It's like a 21st-century Royal Navy warship.
31:35It's like this for a reason. Yeah.
31:37That's purely for stability, you know, so by bringing the sides in,
31:41we make sure the centre of gravity is over the centre of the base.
31:45Yeah. How are you in terms of, kind of, programme?
31:48So, the whole, er...
31:51God, that's a long time. It is a long time.
31:53It's like Churchill said, when you're going through hell, keep going.
31:56I think at some point there was definitely why we're doing this.
31:59What was the answer?
32:01We're still searching for that one.
32:03Every few days, we have to remind ourselves why we're doing it,
32:07because this is an absolutely magical place.
32:10It does make sense. It is...
32:12It's a magical place.
32:14It's a magical place.
32:16It's a magical place.
32:18It does make sense.
32:20It's apparently insanity, but it's absolutely sensible.
32:27Having built this mind-boggling complex structure
32:30to withstand the elements,
32:32all they need to do now is to fit it out.
32:35But 200-bit years in, how much more time do they actually have?
32:40The thing about doing everything in bespoke,
32:42all of that adds complication, which adds time.
32:44You do have a deadline, don't you?
32:46We will be in by the 5th of July,
32:49because our landlord wants us to move,
32:52and that is not so far away. 12 weeks.
32:55More like ten. I reckon you need four months.
32:58That's when we'll be a little bit more finished,
33:00but we will be through the door in two months.
33:04So what we need is to be watertight,
33:07to be able to get onto the boat
33:09and to have a bathroom, for starters.
33:12Ideally a kitchen.
33:17The deadline approaches,
33:19which is why Howard gets cracking welding his own aluminium bridge
33:24that will provide access from the riverbank.
33:27This is really kind of critical now,
33:29because to close the front of the boat up,
33:31we need to get rid of the temporary access,
33:33and that means putting the permanent access in,
33:36which means welding up this really big bridge section,
33:39which is quite a production in its own right.
33:42Given the imminent moving-in deadline,
33:44you might imagine a simple wooden pontoon would do,
33:48but not for Howard.
33:50It's like a scale model of the boat,
33:52because the boat itself is exactly that.
33:54It's a Warren Trust. It's very stiff.
33:56It's as light as it can be.
34:00Below decks, Howard's friend Luke...
34:03God, I've got to admit my age soon and buy some glasses.
34:06..is grappling with how to install rectangular bathroom units
34:10into a triangular angled space.
34:14There's so many little aspects on this.
34:16It's an interesting challenge.
34:22Meanwhile, Sarah's started a woodworking course in the evenings...
34:26Mate?
34:28No, God!
34:30..to build some striking storage for their new home.
34:34Are the angles correct or not?
34:37Er, I don't know.
34:40And Howard is being Howard.
34:44Fabricating the hydraulic lifting window for the living space...
34:48This section is the bit that's going to open up.
34:51..and conceptualising an unusual kitchen island.
34:58Come collapsing ping-pong table.
35:00Fucking hell.
35:02I do hope all this effort's worth it.
35:05I mean, Howard and Sarah's home is surely going to be
35:08a radical architectural duel.
35:11Or maybe some kind of peculiar floating warehouse.
35:31Spring is on the horizon in this small town on the south coast,
35:36near Worthing.
35:38And it's three years since Howard and Sarah set about building
35:42a distinctively 21st-century floating home
35:45amongst this motley crew of houseboats and vessels on the tidal river.
35:52So, what's the new addition like?
35:56Oh, my word. Look what's just docked from outer space!
36:02Well, there is absolutely a new kid on the floating block.
36:07Oh!
36:09What a thing.
36:11What a pointy end.
36:13What a sharp shape.
36:16I mean, it is architecture, this.
36:18It's floating architecture.
36:20And it is magnificent.
36:23Who'd have thought that retail shed construction
36:26could lead to a home like this?
36:29The insulated cladding looks forbidding, strong and military
36:33now that it's been capped with that sharp aluminium trim.
36:37And Howard's homemade truss bridge is fit for a modern stealth frigate.
36:42This looks like Darth Vader's boathouse.
36:45Goodness me, does it lift the place.
36:48It's no longer like visiting Grunge Central on the mud.
36:52It's more like visiting some secret naval base.
36:56Ahoy! Ahoy!
36:58Sorry, that's the end of the maritime puns.
37:01Welcome. Thank you.
37:03What a thing.
37:05What a beauty.
37:07So, first of all, how are you both?
37:09Never better. A little weary.
37:11Yeah? Very well. Very excited.
37:13Well, it's good to see you, Kevin, because this means it is the end.
37:17It looks remarkable.
37:19This place transforms from low tide to high tide.
37:22Yeah. Yeah.
37:24Well, you're in for a massive treat. It's a high spring tide,
37:27so we're going to get probably three or four feet of water,
37:30so the boat will rise up, we'll probably see over the beach huts,
37:33the landscape will completely change, you'll be all at sea.
37:37We're governed by the moon, Kevin.
37:39People go off and do yoga in foreign countries
37:42in order to connect to the cycles of the planet and the universe.
37:46You've got it on the mudflats.
37:49It is incredible. Come on in.
37:52An elegant wedge sliced through the steel cladding.
37:55Gorgeous.
37:57This is so, so radically different.
38:00Marks the entrance into a surprisingly elegant hallway
38:03lined with tiger bamboo.
38:05It's fabulous, it's like walnut.
38:07It's such an exquisite colour, isn't it?
38:09I'm standing in something that feels like half beautiful high-tech house
38:14and half craft.
38:16But this is just a prelude.
38:18What a lovely, lovely thing, and so simple.
38:21Because up Howard's home-welded aluminium staircase...
38:24Well, the staircase widens and you've got good grief.
38:27..is the main act glorious soaring living space.
38:31Oh, goodness me. It's terrific.
38:34With a triangular roof light from a Star Wars episode.
38:38I'm walking up into a steel cathedral.
38:41It's a great space up here, isn't it?
38:44The kitchen in the centre is lean and modest.
38:48It's flanked to the stern with the rear deck,
38:51while up some steps at the prow is a dining area
38:54with a view of beach huts and the sea.
38:58Just a fabulous place to breathe, move and enjoy.
39:02It feels joyful to me.
39:04It's a lovely place.
39:06It's a fabulous place to breathe, move and enjoy.
39:10It feels joyful to me.
39:12It's about how you extract the maximum joy
39:15out of any particular location.
39:18Not getting in the way of that,
39:20making as little between us and the environment, really.
39:24This space is also a showcase for Sarah's fine joinery talents.
39:29These are beautiful.
39:31This is the kind of pinnacle of my woodworking course so far.
39:35It's finer than anything I've ever mastered.
39:38With some fine joinery tailored to fit a space.
39:43So, what became of Howard's kitchen island-cum-ping-pong table?
39:49This is the finished item.
39:51Well, yeah, I think so, hope so.
39:53How easy is it to work? There's a hidden switch.
39:56So you can take it right up to kind of standing desk height.
40:01You can? But this is good and it's solid.
40:04And then somewhere in the middle would be kitchen worktop height.
40:08It's very good for pastry and pizza rolling.
40:11Good, but this is also...
40:13You've made this to the exact size of a table tennis table.
40:16Yes.
40:17Table tennis height.
40:20Well, it's the full length. There you go.
40:22Kind of there.
40:24Now, don't go trying too hard to beat me.
40:27Oh! Nice rally!
40:30Howard's engineering ingenuity is admirable.
40:33And the enormous gas-strut hydraulic lifting window
40:36to the front deck is working too.
40:38How easy is it to live? Cos that's a huge piece of glass.
40:43Look. Oh, my word! Just straight up.
40:45How elegant is that, eh?
40:47How beautiful.
40:49And it transpires there's more than just living space up here now.
40:54This is Sarah's workshop.
40:58Hey! It's a full-down workspace.
41:02It's actually my workshop,
41:04rather than going to a little workshop out the back.
41:06Yeah. Have a space that we can enjoy being in.
41:08It's really clever.
41:11Their conceptualising ideas space, their design office,
41:15is back downstairs, overlooking the river,
41:18which, as the tide rises, also lifts the spirits.
41:22What a great place to work.
41:25It is magical.
41:27The tide coming in is absolutely mesmerising.
41:30It's extraordinary, the wildlife here.
41:32But you are right in the middle of a town.
41:34Yeah. The only thing that's really missing is a sofa.
41:37Then we really wouldn't do any work.
41:42At the other pointy end is a cinema room.
41:46Tucked into the ship's cosier heart are four cabins,
41:49including Howard and Sarah's.
41:51It's a proper cabin. Yeah.
41:53Timber-lined.
41:55Mirrored, to sort of give the illusion of scale.
41:58Glitzy, spacey, for the spacecraft effect.
42:01Dig that, yeah, cos it's a spacecraft you live in.
42:05This home is a triumph of architecture, engineering and imagination.
42:12But it was supposed to take just 18 months to build, not three years,
42:17and meant to cost £385,000.
42:22How much in the end did you spend?
42:24Well, I don't think we're finished,
42:26but we are at £465,000.
42:31OK.
42:33And it's taken longer, quite a bit longer.
42:35Yeah, and the other thing is that you have to sacrifice
42:38three years of your life.
42:40We've both given everything to this for three years.
42:43Which, if all it's done is driven a wedge between you as individuals,
42:47damaged the emotional relationship,
42:50created tensions and stress, arguments and pain,
42:54then it ain't worth it.
42:56But if, on the other hand, you emerge from this triumphant,
42:59stronger, better, you know? Yeah.
43:01Well, I think we are unstoppable
43:03when we're both wanting to achieve something,
43:06and that's a fantastic feeling.
43:08That feeling where you're really working together for a common goal
43:11is intoxicating, I think.
43:13So you've built before, you know, you've worked before together loads.
43:17You understand the stresses of that.
43:19So was this any different?
43:21Doing any project, it's like doing 15 rounds with a heavyweight,
43:25old grizzled heavyweight champion, isn't it?
43:27You give it your best shot,
43:29and they just smile at you with a toothless grin.
43:32It's like, is that all you've got?
43:34It just has a cost.
43:36Cost is stamina and patience and will and energy.
43:42It consumes, but it also gives back.
43:45The joy of doing it is far greater than the difficulty.
43:49It must be, because otherwise we'd be crazy to do it again, wouldn't we?
43:53And perhaps even produce a little more happiness.
43:57Yeah. Yeah.
43:59I mean, it's the stuff that absolutely is what we're about together.
44:03It glues us together. Yeah.
44:13For Sarah and Howard,
44:15designing, making and building aren't just a means to an end.
44:19They are their way of living, of thriving.
44:22And alongside their talents,
44:24they have the necessary human qualities in space.
44:27Stamina, patience, will and energy.
44:32So, obviously, this is a houseboat.
44:35I mean, in as much as it's a house and it's a boat,
44:38it's a raft, of course, and it's a craft,
44:41it's some kind of spaceship.
44:44It's a fantastic machine for connecting people to each other
44:47and to where they are, but also to the universe,
44:51to the movement of the stars and the orbits of the planets
44:55and the power of the sun.
44:57In that sense, it's an astrolabe and it's also a barometer.
45:00It's a slightly translucent building to which you can see and hear the world
45:04and feel the movement of water and air.
45:07That is a fantastic thing, and it has only come about
45:10thanks to the joint efforts of two people,
45:13Howard and Sarah, who share so much.
45:18Now, in many relationships,
45:21one person has their foot on the gas and one person on the brake.
45:25I mean, that's kind of not uncommon,
45:27but here are two people who both have their feet
45:31so firmly pressed to the floor on two accelerators.
45:37Of course, it means twice the risk,
45:42but it also means twice the adventure.
45:53We're taking an old barn...
45:55They're crap, aren't they?
45:57..and we're going to make that into a beautiful modern home.
46:00The whole place is shaking.
46:02This pier has shifted off of its support.
46:04What a state it's in.
46:06I would say that is structurally useless.
46:0840% of it is rotten and it has to be rebuilt.
46:11The original budget was 420.
46:13I'm going to come in at 700.
46:15Looks a right state.
46:16Doesn't look a right state. It looks absolutely lovely.
46:38Ooh!