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Production researcher Nick Watson explains how the series was put together.
Anglia, the producers of the show, developed ideas for a series of challenges, then consulting engineers Arup helped refine the ideas and ensure that they were practicable.
They created three concept scheme designs for each challenge and identified materials and tools for each. The key feature in this process was that they developed designs using unusual materials and largely avoided the normal ones – steel and concrete. This helped to provide novelty and interest to the designs the teams produced.
We recruited our teams from all over Britain and Ireland. We asked loads of the trade magazines to run editorials, and people at Contract Journal, Building for Leisure, The Engineer, New Civil Engineer and The Builder were very keen to help. Of course we also contacted every professional body out there like the Institute of Civil Engineers the Institution of Structural Engineers and the Institute of Demolition Engineers.
After thousands of phone calls, the crew started to match up interested people from the same area and had a huge selection of people in the construction industry from all over the country. We had some great help from industry heavyweights like Charles Moran, who used to run Controlled Demolition Group who do some of the biggest jobs in the UK.
With the teams and expertise in place, it was time to assemble the materials. We acquired our building supplies from all over and received an enormous amount of goodwill. Anyone who works in the trade will tell you that getting suppliers to deliver on time is a nightmare – and they have months to do it in. Sometimes we had just days. We were saved by having a great team at Craddy Pitchers in Bristol. They helped with what we should be buying for each challenge. Consulting engineers is one thing but we also relied on the sensible views of the man at the coal face – Paul Wright at Jewson. Without him our teams would have had nothing to build with.
The logistics of producing the show were a challenge in themselves. For the final we had the fire brigade pumping nearly 40,000 litres of water and a 120mph wind machine mounted on a truck, all on a set in the middle of nowhere with no water or services!
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