Where The Heart Is

A brick-by-brick restoration ensures a legacy and cements personal connections in post-quake Christchurch.

- Russell Brown

In the best Grand Designs episodes, there is a resonance that goes beyond mere renovation; a piece of someone’s heart in the masonry. That’s the case in the Grand Designs New Zealand (Three, Wednesday, 7.30pm) season-opener on Wednesday.

Many New Zealanders will have heard of the visionary engineer and motorcycle designer John Britten. Fewer will know that before his early death from skin cancer, he lived with his family in a Victorian stables he converted to a home over 15 years, filling it with fittings that reflected the same unique visual-spatial thinking the world saw in the Britten V1000.