Piers and Caroline travel to Norway to see a charming family cottage, a summer house built around a rock, a daring concrete home and a rugged retreat.
They begin in California, viewing a property built from the wings and tail fins of a Boeing 747. In Arizona, the pair stay in a modern house with an innovative take on an ancient technique of absorbing the heat during the day and releasing it at night. In New Zealand, Caroline and Piers view a house camouflaged using cedar cladding, while their last stop takes them to a hexagonal alpine chalet with a steel chimney core that anchors it to the mountain.
2017 • Design
Architect Piers Taylor and actress Caroline Quentin explore unusual homes built in or near areas of forest. After trips to properties near Madrid and the Catskill Mountains in New York State, they arrive in Piha, New Zealand, to a house built within an indigenous forest of pohutukawa trees. Navigating very strict environmental laws, this wooden-cladded and glass-roofed property mimics the branches of the surrounding trees, while its huge sliding glass walls open up to allow the surrounding forest to become an intrinsic part of the house itself.
2017 • Design
Piers Taylor and Caroline Quentin visit an island in Norway, spending two days in a house built on a footprint of just 100 square metres. In Spain, the pair head to a home built into a steep cliff face overlooking the Mediterranean, featuring a cantilevered terrace offering maximum sea views and a swimming pool as well as an unusual tiled roof. After viewing a house in New Zealand crafted from two separate wooden cladded structures, the duo explore a home in Canada inspired by two ships in dry dock, designed to peer over the coast, allowing the sea to pass underneath.
2017 • Design
Piers Taylor and Caroline Quentin explore unusual homes built underground. In Greece, they view a house hidden beneath the landscape that still boasts stunning sea views. In the Swiss Alps, they visit a house made so invisible it has to be accessed via a tunnel. Next it's over to New Zealand's South Island to a house built underground to soften its impact on the landscape as well as withstand the threat of earthquakes, before the pair inspects a Dutch house created by deep excavation, which features a huge, light-filled open-plan living space.
2017 • Design
In Switzerland, Piers and Caroline tour a modern chalet, a concrete retreat, an S-shaped home and a house built for it's owner's classic cars
2018 • Design
For over fifty years, Dieter Rams has left an indelible mark on the field of product design with his iconic work at Braun and Vitsoe, and his influence on Apple. So, at 87 years old, why does he now regret being a designer? Rams is a design documentary, but it is also a rumination on consumerism, sustainability and the future of design. Dieter's philosophy is about more than just design. It is about a way to live. The film also features an original score by pioneering musician Brian Eno.
2019 • Design
Bicycle, an 86 minute documentary, asks the question why is cycling and the bicycle back in fashion? The film, which is directed by BAFTA winning director and keen cyclist Michael B.Clifford tells the story of cycling in the land that invented the modern bicycle, it’s birth, decline and re birth from Victorian origins to today. The film weaves bicycle design, sport and transport through the retelling of some iconic stories and features interviews with notable contributors Sir Dave Brailsford, Gary Fisher, Chris Boardman, Ned Boulting, Sir Chris Hoy, Tracy Moseley, Mike Burrows and many more plus great archive, animation and music. Bicycle is a humorous, lyrical and warm reflection on the bicycle and cycling and its place in the British national psyche.
2014 • Design
Sarah Hall designs architectural glass for buildings around the world. Now she installs one of her most ambitious designs to date, a series of giant solar energy collecting windows in a cathedral. It will be the first Cathedral in the world to incorporate solar energy into its design.
2/6 • Great Minds of Design • 2012 • Design
In Switzerland, Piers and Caroline tour a modern chalet, a concrete retreat, an S-shaped home and a house built for it's owner's classic cars
S2E3 • The World's Most Extraordinary Homes • 2018 • Design