GRADUATE VISION IS GRANDEST DESIGN 
05 September 2019
A unique home created in 2013 by Queen’s graduate, farmer and architect Patrick Bradley (BSc Architecture 2001, BArch 2004) from four shipping containers, has been revealed as Kevin McCloud’s all-time favourite.
The disclosure came in Kevin's Grandest Design on Channel 4 last month (28 August) in which a number of the presenter’s most loved projects featured in 180 episodes of the Grand Designs home build series over the last 20 years, were revisited and celebrated in what the presenter described as a ‘heady Grand Designs cocktail’.
First featured in a programme in Series 14 broadcast in 2014, Grillagh Water House is located near Maghera, the structure was designed and created by local architect Patrick Bradley over a period of 10 months.
Located on the family farm on the banks of the Grillagh River in the picturesque Drumnaph Woodland, it was built for £133,000, from £10k worth of four 45ft shipping containers, merged together to form two large overlapping cantilever forms.
Blending effortlessly into the tranquil rural landscape, the award-winning home maximises the views over the countryside and creates inside/outside living using large sliding doors to an external patio providing a functional family dwelling.
A member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), The Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland and the Architects Registration Board, Patrick is also a Conservation Registrant on the RIBA register. He set up his architectural practice in 2008 and now runs it from another self-built container premises, Grillagh Water Studio, on the same family farm.
After the programme aired 5 years ago, Patrick was inundated with requests from around the world to design similar container homes.
“Everyone thought I was completely mad,” said Patrick, speaking in Kevin's Grandest Design. “But it’s actually part of the charm because I always knew what the vision was going to be.”
Despite it going on to win a number of prestigious awards – most notably a coveted Royal Institute of British Architects regional award for Northern Ireland – amazingly Grillagh remains the only one.
“The biggest negative of a container house is people can’t get it funded because companies don’t see it as traditional construction, and that’s really disappointing,” Patrick told Kevin.
Having initially speculated that it was a ‘disaster in the making’ when he first visited Northern Ireland in 2013, Kevin McCloud’s view had changed completely by the end of the original broadcast, something he reiterated in the latest edition of the programme.
Describing it as an ‘architectural delight’ when revisiting Drumnaph Woodland in August, McCloud said it was if: “into the fairy kingdom has landed, quite gently, something from Battlestar Galactica.”
Other memorable and ambitious self-build properties to make it onto the Grand Designs shortlist were a house nicknamed Miss Tiggy Winkle’s mansion in Herefordshire, an 800-year-old cave in Worcestershire and a Kennington Water Tower conversion, dubbed by Kevin as an ‘obscenely expensive’ project.
Referring to Grillagh Water House, McCloud said: “I have to say, it’s probably my favourite.
“It hasn’t lost its magic this place; if anything I think it has multiplied.”
Grand Designs isn’t Patrick’s only foray into broadcasting. In 2018, he joined the popular Home of the Year on RTÉ 1 as one of three judges selecting Ireland’s favourite home over an 8-week programme run.
On a more personal note, while filming Grand Designs back in 2014, Patrick's mother Ann put out an unusual appeal to find him a ‘gorgeous girlfriend’. And, much to Ann’s delight, that appeal was successful. Patrick and fiancée Victoria, who have been together for three years, are due to be married in 2020.
Now part of the 3-person Patrick Bradley Architects team, South African-born Architect and Office Manager Victoria Howard joined the practice in 2018, three years after another Queen’s graduate – Katherine Thompson BSc (Hons), MArch, ARB, RIBA – did so.
“This project is so close to my heart; inventive, low energy and low impact…and it is not just a beautiful house, it is architecture that enhances the beauty of its setting,” concluded Kevin McCloud in the closing credits.
Kevin's Grandest Design is available to view on Channel 4 until 27 September.
To submit graduate news items, or for general enquiries about this story, please contact Gerry Power, Communications Officer, Development and Alumni Relations Office, Queen's University Belfast or telephone: +44 (0)28 9097 5321.
Main & headline photo credits – Channel 4.
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