What’s the most impressive thing you can do for an overseas visitor?

Wrangle them an invite to the official residence of the Governor-General?

That’s exactly what Tim managed to do for Kevin. In this very special episode, they take a tour of Admiralty House and sit down with the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Her Excellency the Honourable Ms Sam Mostyn AC.

The conversation is a relaxed one, a testament to Sam’s vision to modernise the role of the Governor-General and her desire to open the residence to as many Australians as possible.

Which well-known Australian randomly turned up in the garden? This, and many other questions, are answered in a conversation full of optimism, a celebration of kindness, and the enduring warmth of the Australian spirit.

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guest: Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Her Excellency the
Honourable Ms Sam Mostyn AC (@gg_australia)
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kevin on the dance floor?

The ultimate 1970s party house is on the menu as Tim and Kev hit the Perth suburb of Dianella to visit one of the city’s most talked-about homes.

Designed by Bulgarian-born architect Iwan Iwanoff in 1976, the Marsala House is a sculptural, concrete-block Brutalist wonderland that boasts a Saturday Night Fever-style dance floor.

The current owner, Greg, flings open the doors to reveal the stories of this iconic house.

Iwan Iwanoff (1919–1986) was a Bulgarian-born architect who trained in Munich before emigrating to Western Australia in 1950, where he worked with Krantz & Sheldon and later established his own practice in 1963. Known primarily for residential work, his early designs were influenced by post-war modernism, but from the mid-1960s he developed a distinctive, sculptural style using modelled concrete blockwork. Combining expressive forms with rational planning, his later houses - such as the Marsala and Tomich houses - read as bold works of architecture that verge on abstract sculpture.

There’s a couple of great Iwanoff books:
Perth born photographer Jack Lovel has documented many of his homes in this excellent publication – Catching Light – robinboyd.org.au/product/catching-light

Warren Anderson definitive Iwanoff book is a must read – The Architecture of Iwan Iwanoff – crowbooks.com.au

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guests: Greg Eastwood and Vespa Eastwood
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Enter stage left: Neil Clerehan, the Melbourne architect who helped bring modernism to the suburbs - and a handsome, charming raconteur who waltzed his way through Melbourne society. A talented writer, his wit found a regular home in newspapers for much of his life.

In this very special conversation, Tim and Kevin head to the leafy inner-city suburb of South Yarra to sit down with Neil’s daughter, Esther. With inherited wit and razor-sharp precision, she shares the fantastical tales of his life with warmth, wonder and at times, good-natured, sheer disbelief.

“In Australia, no one has continued to write in the popular press in the way that Clerehan has, where he has been able to recall - always with the brevity and wicked humour of Waugh or Wilde - the zenith and nadir of professional and popular tastes of successive generations.” Phillip Goad.

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guest: Esther Clerehan
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when two young architects build their own home with little money but plenty of ideas?

Tim and Kev head to London’s Hampstead to visit Patty Hopkins, one of Britain’s most influential
architects and the co-founder of Hopkins Architects, the practice she started with her late husband
Michael in 1976.

For this very special interview she opens the doors to the iconic glass and steel home the pair designed for themselves that same year. It remains one of the most compelling residential examples of High-Tech architecture, a style that celebrates technology by exposing structural elements like steel frames, ducts and services as part of the design.

In 1994 Patty became only the third woman to receive the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture from the
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and in this intimate conversation she shares the story of her
radical house, the practice she built with Michael, and the quiet wisdom that comes from a life in
architecture. 

You can read more about the house here – hopkins.co.uk
 
Here’s a great new book about High Tech British architecture: High Tech Britian – c20society.org.uk

And the video Tim and Kevin talk about by Ned featuring Nick Grimshaw can be found via this link: Vimeo

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guest: Patty Hopkins (@hopkinsarchitects)
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tim and Kev head to Brisbane to meet architect John Ellway, who has quietly built a reputation for
transforming one of Australia’s most iconic house types - the Queenslander.

Working almost entirely in his own neighbourhood, John carefully adapts these classic timber-and-tin
homes so they can handle contemporary living while still embracing the subtropical climate that shaped them.

Recorded in his own inventive house, John is one of a number of local architects responsible for some of the most exciting Australian architecture of recent years. In a typically laid-back Brisbane manner, he unpacks the thinking behind his work and explains why relationships with clients are central to his
practice.

Follow John Ellway on Instagram @jellway and more details on his website jellway.com

Other Brisbane architects doing interesting work include:
Vokes and Peters – vokesandpeters.com
Russell & Co – russelwith.co
Owen Architecture – owenarchitecture.com.au

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guest: John Ellway
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tim and Kev head to Melbourne to visit Ben Shewry, the chef behind the world-famous restaurant Attica, who lives in the 1966 home designed by émigré architect Ernest Fooks.

Ben, who has a deep passion for architecture and design, had long admired the house from afar, but he never thought he’d actually own it.

In this episode, he not only flings open the door to his incredible heritage-listed home, but he shares the story of how he ended up living in his dream mid-century modern home.

A natural storyteller, Ben effortlessly draws parallels between cooking and architecture, and reveals his long-standing passion for chair collecting in this wide-ranging chat in one of Melbourne’s finest houses.

The Chef: Ben Shewry is a New Zealand–born Australian chef and owner-executive chef of Attica. Since taking over in 2005, he has made Attica one of the world’s most celebrated restaurants, known for native Australian ingredients and deeply personal storytelling. Shewry was featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table in 2017, which profiled his creative philosophy and journey.

You can check out his restaurant website attica.com.au and get his best selling book here: Uses For
Obsession

Follow Ben on Instagram here: @benshewry

The Architect: Ernest Fooks (1906–1985) was an Austrian-born architect who helped shape postwar
modernism in Melbourne. Trained in Vienna, he fled Nazi Europe and brought continental ideas of
functional planning and light-filled design to Australia. Fooks designed houses, civic buildings and
synagogues, and later became a respected educator and town-planning advocate in Victoria.

You can find out more about the house on Docomomo Australia.

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guest: Ben Shewry
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tim and Kev head to the Sydney inner-city suburb of Marrickville to visit artist Leila Jeffreys and musician James Roden, who have spent a decade transforming a modest weatherboard cottage into a small but carefully considered home.

Their dream? A small sustainable home that works for them and connects them to nature by creating
habitat for birds and native species while rethinking what a suburban block can become.

The result is a house which nods to Australian modernism that Kevin wants to move into and a
conversation that will definitely be good for your soul.

Leila is an award-winning photographic artist whose images of birds have been exhibited all over the
world and have featured in a number of best-selling publications. You can visit her website here:
leilajeffreys.com

James Roden is a musician who has also worked for record labels and as a band manager. He’s now the studio manager of Leila’s practice.

You can check out his latest musical project here: snakeheads.com.au

The house was designed by Will Fung at CO-AP Architects. co-ap.com

Will has a great Instagram page (@will.fung)

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guests: Leila Jeffreys and James Roden
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can you imagine living in a museum?

Tim and Kev head to Surrey to visit The Homewood, the modernist masterpiece Patrick Gwynne
designed for his family in the late 1930s. Completed in 1938, The Homewood is one of the most
remarkable examples of pre-war modernist architecture in Britain.

Gwynne later gifted the house to the National Trust in 1999, with the stipulation that someone must live in it and that it be opened to the public for part of the year.

That person is Lou, whose family has called it home since 2004 while welcoming visitors inside this
extraordinary piece of living history.

I bet you’ve got questions already. We certainly did - and we’ve probably asked most of them in this
fascinating interview, recorded around Gwynne’s own custom-made round dining table.

Thanks to Lou and The National Trust for assisting with this episode. You can learn more about the house and when you can visit here on their website: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/surrey/the-homewood

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guest: Louise Scott
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when you try to fix the housing crisis without destroying the suburbs we love? You get
density by stealth.

Tim and Kev head to the Perth suburbia to visit Giuseppe’s House, a 1960s home recently restored by
local architect Kate Fitzgerald. Beneath the terrazzo floors and colourful character lies a bigger idea: how to add more housing to our cities without flattening their identity.

Kate shares her approach to preserving streetscapes while quietly increasing density, rethinking
backyards, laneways and overlooked spaces to create the “missing middle” between apartments and
traditional homes. Along the way, they unpack Perth’s boom-and-bust development history, the rise of
migrant architecture, and why small, clever infill might be the key to housing affordability.

Check out Kate’s work on their website - https://www.whisperingsmith.com.au including her home (House A) and Giuseppe’s House.

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guest: Kate Fitzgerald (@whisperingsmith_)
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re back with Series Two!

Tim and Kevin head to Birmingham to explore a city defined by industry, reinvention and the home
of Peaky Blinders, Black Sabbath and ELO.

Over tea and biscuits with journalist and campaigner Mary Keating, they examine the fight to save the
Smallbrook Ringway Centre, one of Europe’s longest modernist buildings and a rare surviving example of Birmingham’s post-war ambition.

In the decades following the Second World War, Birmingham was radically reshaped by modern planning and the rise of the car. New roads, new civic buildings and bold architectural experiments transformed the city, reflecting a belief that modern design could deliver progress, efficiency and optimism. Today, many of these - particularly brutalist - buildings are under threat, dismissed as outdated or expendable. The Ringway Centre sits at the heart of this debate, raising the question of whether a city’s confidence can determine which buildings survive.

Follow Brutiful Birmingham (@brutifulbirmingham) and Birmingham Modernist (@birminghammodernist) on Instagram.

To view images from this episode, head to our Instagram page - @big_design_adventure
And be sure to follow Tim Ross (@modernister) and Kevin McCloud (@kevin.mccloud1)
We’d love to hear from you, reach out to us on [email protected]
Know someone who would love this podcast? Please help us share this exciting new adventure.

Big Design Adventure is proudly sponsored by Space Furniture (@spacefurniture), the Australian Institute of Architects (@institute_architects_aus) and is produced with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation (@alastairswaynfoundation).

 

Hosts: Tim Ross and Kevin McCloud
Guest: Mary Keating
Big Design Adventure is produced by Modernister Films on Wallumedegal land, Australia.
Executive Producer: Shelley Kemp
Audio Production: Madeline Joannou – Mylk Media
Music: Kit Warhurst (@kitwarhurst)

Please note this podcast is not currently available in the UK or Ireland.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.