Constraints: putting the Grand into Design

Last night I watched the first episode of season 15 of Grand Designs, 'Living in the City'. It's a 'flashback' episode where they look back over fifteen years of spectacular architecture and focus on what makes these ambitious, beautiful, and frequently tiny city dwellings a work of art.

Usually this is where I'd have a whinge about flashback episodes being a sign of either lazy writing or budget cuts. Not this time. Instead I was transfixed by a realisation that could only have come with the comparison of a cohort of similar builds.

These incredible city dwellings are truly grand designs not in spite of their constraints, but because of them.

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