It’s with great pleasure that I introduce another edition to the Shed of the year family TV’s Kevin McCloud – he joins Sarah Beeny, Alex from shedworking, Last years winner John Plumridge and yours truly –
so please welcome Kevin and I hope his experience with his own shed will give him a good insight into what makes a potential Shed of the year and of course his vast experience of all things design.
“Our consumption of stuff happens on a scale; from the fantastically wasteful at one end to the fantastically crafted and cherished at the other.
We all of us ‘get’ the value of the cherished object and perhaps in that experience lies the path to inner-shedness. Inner-shedness is what takes people to the allotment.
It might even encourage you to buy some woodland (people do and then go and spend the weekends there..) or grow some timber or make some furniture, repair something, barter stuff, reinvent a piece of junk or just take up a hobby and discover the magic of satisfaction..
The shed is the mini-metaphor. The shed is the way to the desert island, some peace and some self-sufficiency. The shed is the place where ideas are born and where things are mended and maybe the future glimpsed. Man maketh Shed.
Shed maketh Man.” – KEVIN McCLOUD
Kevin McCloud studied at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence and at Cambridge University. He’s best known for Channel 4’s BAFTA-nominated Grand Designs and for his annual coverage of the Stirling Prize.
He also wrote and presented his four hour Grand Tour of Europe in 2009 and spent two and a half weeks in the slums of Mumbai for Channel 4’s 2010 India season.
2012 saw the broadcast of his new series about his hand-built woodland shed, He admits to having an unhealthy obsession for buildings since childhood.
He has designed lighting for some of the finest buildings in Europe, including Ely Cathedral and Edinburgh Castle.
His books include ‘Principles of Home’, ‘Grand Tour of Europe’ and ‘The Best of Grand Designs’.
Kevin is an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA, an Ambassador for the WWF and a recalcitrant patron of a handful of organisations. His two ambitions remain to entertain and to make the built environment better – and consequently ‘make people feel better’.
For those who are not aware the Shed of the year 2013 dates are
Entries close May 3rd 2013
Public vote begins May 4th 2013
Public vote closes May 31st 2013
Winners announced Shed Week (starts 1st July)
You can add your shed here.
Photo Credit Glenn Dearing
