Grand Designs Handbook: The Blueprint for Building Your Dream Home [Paperback]

I think the review by D. Lundholm says almost everything that my review of this book would say.

Just a couple of additional observations:

* This is more of a how-to (think about and then build your own home) book than a book of ideas you can directly use. Not a bad thing, there are plenty of other glossy books to get ideas from.

* Related to that, there are no floor-plans for any of the designs referenced. Personally, I would have preferred to see some, but it doesn't really detract from the usefulness of the book.

* It is an engaging and thought-provoking book - certainly well worth buying at half-price!

* My only real gripe is the way the text references pictures of properties that are not adjacent to the text. i.e. reading page 100 you might be referenced to pictures of the building concerned on pages 94 and 115-117.

Overall, highly recommended for both dreamers and those seriously planning to build their own home.

This is an intelligent, thoughtful book by one of the most articulate commentators on modern architecture and building design. For many UK TV viewers, Kevin McCloud's regular Grand Designs programmes are compelling viewing, illustrating both the practical issues that self-builders and developers face, as well as challenging the motivations that inspire people to create their own homes. This is far from just a "book of the series". It's a guide to building your own home - equally of value for extenders, developers or those thinking about how to improve the design of the space they live in - written in three sections - thinking, dreaming and doing.

Thinking challenges lots of the traps self-builders and remodellers fall into - in a way that engages you and walks you through the process of trying to identify what we want of of our homes. I guess there's a danger post Grand Designs that we all tend to think it's easy to articulate exactly what we want, and what we need, and that programme only engages after the thinking has been done (and it probably doesn't make for great television either, seeing people try to figure this out). But (from personal experience) it's actually the most difficult bit, yet the bit that makes it more (or less) likely that you're going to end up with a house that truly delivers what you hope it will.

Once you kinda know what you want, and you've engaged with an architect (a theme that runs very strongly throughout is to seek professional advice, at every stage), the dreaming section illustrates 5 different approaches to build - from New Urban, New Suburban, New Rural, New Use (eg change of use from industrial to home) and New Life - renovation and repair. Amply illustrated with houses from Grand Designs, and others, you get lots of helpful comments that don't just detail what the owner/architect has done but also explain why it delivers more light, adds more space, gives more connection with the outside. Even if you think you know why you "like" what you see, having it explained in this way helps you identify whether it would work in your planned home.

The final "doing" section is lots of practical "how to move you through the phases - from initial plans, the dreaded planning application, working with drawings, building regulations and how to manage the project and its finances. Well organised, step by step, guidance that I suspect I'm going to refer to again and again.

Throughout, there is plenty of checklisted, "think about this", do this and don't do that, stuff, and there are several hundred illustrations, mainly of homes featured in Grand Designs.

IMHO, it's an opinionated, highly approachable guide, written with clarity, laced with wit and Kevin's laconic observations.

If you like what you've seen on Grand Designs, you enjoy Kevin's style, and you're considering extensions or self-build, I'd recommend this very highly.

If you don't like him, or Grand Designs, he does forewarn you: "You might find the range of my choice [of homes] rather limited. But if you don't like any of them, you probably don't like what I have to say either, and so shouldn't have bought this book in the first place".

Quite.

The subtitle including the word "blueprint" is probably a bit misleading - this is not a practical design book - it's a book about concepts and ways of thinking about your new "dream home". Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily - there are plenty of other good self-build titles out there that cover the practical aspects of house building.

The book is well illustrated with attractive pictures - it reminds me of Jamie Oliver cookery book in fact. But the general tone of the text is slightly condescending - there are many ways to build a house, but McCloud's way is unquestionably the best way. There is little discussion of pros and cons of various design, procurement or construction options, just Kevin's opinion of the right way to go about the project.

Which is fair enough - it's his book after all! But unless you're a massive fan of Kevin, his style and the Grand Designs programme, this is a book to borrow from the library and flick through, rather than buy and keep as a reference for your building project.