Kevin McCloud: Grand Designs Presenter on his love of architecture and his tour 'Keith McCloud's Home Truths'

Those with even a passing interest in architecture and design will know the name Kevin McCloud.   The award-winning presenter and broadcaster of Grand Designs UK, the show running for 25 years.  Kevin McCloud has ridden its wave of success as he takes viewers on a tour of astonishing homes and wondrous architecture.  The presenter has a love of architecture, telling Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking that the extent to which people take a “piece of nothing” and turn it into something is fascinating.  “Ever since we, you know, crawled out of a hole, or out of the water onto dry land millions of years ago, we’ve been attempting to try and kind of straighten the earth a bit.”  “Make it in our image almost.”  McCloud told Hosking that he’s sure that every architect has the desire to try and defeat the universe and build something that lasts.  “What the universe wants to do is, basically, turn every mountain into dust.”  “And then every human being wants to kind of, somehow, lift up the dust and form it into something.”   There is one thing McCloud will critique about architecture though, and that’s scale.  “I think generally we, we do build really too big.”  “We spend all this money on stuff, and ideas, and all were doing is just trashing our planet, trashing resources, trashing, you know, trashing our bank balances.”  McCloud told the Newstalk ZB host that in his opinion, that money should be spent on storage, clever design, joy, craftsmanship, and perhaps fewer bathrooms.  “We tend to build houses with more toilets than occupants, which I don’t understand.”  He’s bringing his love of architecture to kiwi audiences, taking to the stage for ‘Kevin McCloud’s Home Truths’, bouncing around telling stories and showing slides.  Unlike what his producer might want, it’s not much of a song and dance but he does want audiences to enjoy themselves.  “That’s what it ought to be.”  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.