Grand Designs Live to showcase U-Build System at show

This year’s Grand Designs Live, sponsored by Anglian Home Improvements, will offer visitors the chance to watch a live build take place, as they create a home using the U-Build concept. 

The show, this year, is set to take place in the ExCeL London between 4-12 May, as part of the National Custom and Self Build Week. ​The show will offer attendees the chance to watch the construction grow each day, as well as the opportunity to take part in assembling components to be used in the final build.

As developed by Studio Bark with help from Structure Workshop and Cut and Construct, the U-Build building process is a revolution in construction, providing a robust and affordable self-build solution, which can be assembled by a small team, as demonstrated in Grand Designs: The Street.

The Studio Bark structure at Grand Designs Live is designed to showcase the benefits of self-build. Studio Bark, together with Kevin McCloud and the visitors, will continue making and adding further modular U-Build components onto the stand each day to demonstrate its flexibility and functionality.

In partnership with Fologram, a company that creates augmented reality environments, Studio Bark will also allow visitors to see the full potential behind the build, by offering the chance to see the end product using HoloLens, an AR headset with transparent lenses.

By using the Microsoft HoloLens, Studio Bark will explain the advantages of using augmented reality and holographic instructions to help self-build enthusiasts realise their potential within an immersive teaching environment. The system promises to save time and improve the quality of finished construction.

The U-Build construction system makes it easy to build, enjoyable to inhabit, uses natural materials and is simple to deconstruct at the end of its useful life.

Plus, the system removes many of the difficulties associated with traditional construction, allowing individuals and communities to construct their own homes and buildings, with little or no construction experience, using simple hand tools. It also allows for certainty of cost in terms of material and quantity, as well as a high degree of flexibility and adaptability in design.

The system uses precision CNC machining to create a kit of parts, offsite from a build, thus reducing waste on site, and allowing waste timber produced from manufacture an easy transfer to a specialist recycling facility (as opposed to timber waste on build site, which is often contaminated). For the exhibition installation, Studio Bark will be using WISA-Birch and WISA-Spruce plywood supplied by UPM Plywood, showcasing their “Biofore – Beyond Fossils” approach to sustainable materials.