The regeneration of Castleford is the most ambitious yet of all the projects that Kevin McCloud has become involved with for Channel 4. So, what drives him towards such difficult but inspiring goals? How did he think the regeneration went? And how does he believe the rest of us can achieve similar results in our own towns and cities?
Kevin: We started filming in 2002 and 2003, but I was already involved in 2001, when we started making visits to towns across Britain. We were looking for places that were already on the cusp of doing something about their grimness. We looked at quite a few, but in the end we chose Castleford because the community wanted to take on work, and their goals were not ridiculous but were exciting, such as the new bridge and the town centre. Importantly, it was all community-based and low key. We didn’t want to go where there were developers. We wanted to be able to measure the transformation of the lives of the people there. We wanted to see whether beautifully designed projects could transform people's lives.
Kevin: Sometimes the process is the galvanising thing, not the design itself – and projects have failed where they haven’t been community projects. With the Stirling Prize, for example, it’s unusual to see a building that hasn’t had a client who has championed it and wanted the best. You don’t get brilliant buildings from committees and they’re not commissioned by councils, generally. You need individuals who say, ‘I want this to be my contribution’. You get that with private individuals, private companies and communities who elect representatives to lead them and become local heroes. They’re the people who are the heroes and heroines of the series. The result is spectacular.
Kevin: Making programmes about it. For me, it is simply that design is one of those processes we all do. We get up in the morning and decide which pair of shoes we’re putting on, which route we take to work. Putting together a meal for people to eat, how to decorate our houses - a lot of our daily decisions involve design. Processing it, absorbing it, and getting a result. Designers and architects are just better and faster at doing it.
Working with brilliant people and creating a vision out of scraps of earth and rubbish to build beautiful structures with lasting resonance – these are great things. It’s about human expression and civilisation. And that what drives me. We make things and transform the planet.
Kevin: It’s a ridiculous idea that design is elitist. At the top end, fashion companies have created labels and that’s elitist. Most people have a car and change it – chiefly on what it looks like. Same goes for our houses. Every day we choose to buy and use things that give us pleasure because they’re well designed.
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