Kevin McCloud: Consumption doesn’t make you happy

Kevin McCloud is best known as the longtime presenter of Grand Designs, but his career began on a different kind of stage. A Cambridge Footlights alumnus with a background in theatre and lighting design, he went on to train in architecture before setting up his own crafts business, laying the groundwork for a lifelong exploration of how we live with buildings, objects and landscapes.

In this conversation for The Skylark, McCloud reflects on the value of making over buying, the emptiness of consumption, and his early experiences on a Tuscan farm that shaped his connection to nature. He speaks about resisting commercialism, why the way a space makes you feel matters more than how it looks, and why the natural world remains his most honest measure of how well we are living.

Consumption doesn’t make you happy. It’s also a terrible ill for the planet and its survival, and for the survival of all the other species of which we are just one. For me, that’s what’s most upsetting: the creeping commercialism, the way we’re told this product is going to solve every problem in our lives.

I’ve espoused the opposite all my working life. I started out as an architectural historian, then as a designer, then running a crafts business, and eventually television. One of the things I’ve always liked about television is that, at least in the UK, advertising is very clearly separated from editorial. It’s been a long time since anyone has asked to have a brand appear on Grand Designs, because they know the programme isn’t about selling.

For me, the process of building or commissioning a house is one of the last great acts of patronage available to us. You can have something made especially for you. Sometimes that act is driven by vanity, by an assemblage of brands. But sometimes it results in a well-made thing built from what’s there: stone from the ground, wood from the forest, mud from the pond. The closer we get to that, the better.

Back in 2007 I wrote Principles of Design, a plea for a new kind of consumerism; ethical, nourishing, comforting, rather than wasteful and sad. The luxury of buying something just to dispose of it is strange. Think of perfume. The liquid itself is ethereal, intangible, gone once it evaporates. Yet the bottle is heavy glass, gold trim, elaborate packaging; the most tangible, wasteful part, which we then throw away.

I’ve never understood it. I once tried to become a collector because I thought I should. I tried watches and chairs, but I wasn’t interested. I bought a few, got told off at home for bringing in chairs without a table, and realised I wasn’t doing it for enjoyment. I still have a handful of watches in a drawer, but they don’t mean much. The ones that do matter are gifts. My wife gave me a 1940s officer’s watch; beautiful, battle-scarred, filled with history. Another was made by a friend who is a jeweller and watchmaker. It’s based on his great-grandfather’s designs, and I have to wind it twice a day. Those objects matter because they’re tied to people and stories.

A pair of jeans made in 11 countries, shipped around the world, comes with a story you probably wouldn’t want to hear

It’s the same with a belt I bought when I lived in Italy at 18. I’ve worn it ever since. I should probably be buried in it. In fact, if your world can fit into a coffin – a belt, a watch, a pair of shoes, maybe a ring – then that’s a good measure of the things that really matter. Better still, perhaps, to give them away, so their stories carry on through others.

Authenticity lies in those crafted, well-made things. Branded objects are different. A pair of jeans made in 11 countries, shipped around the world, comes with a story you probably wouldn’t want to hear. One of child labour, natural destruction, polluting dyes and chemicals. But a pair of jeans handmade in Wales, by contrast, has a story of craft and place. One is compelling; the other, fake. For me, authenticity and sustainability go hand in hand.

Architecture is about experience, not ownership. It isn’t about saying, “Look at that sofa” or “I’ve got that fridge.” It’s about the way a space makes you feel. It could be something simple and inexpensive; a small dark room leading to a big light one. That transition can be profound.

Making is noble. It’s assembling dust into something in our image. If you’ve ever put up a shelf or thrown a pot, you know it gives you a different respect for resources

A lot of what I do now is storytelling. That’s my job. I enjoy awakening imagination, explaining the experience of buildings. On Grand Designs we spend a huge amount of time on what we call “geography.” It’s easy for a viewer to lose track inside a half-built home, so we use models, CAD sequences, and repeated language. We say, “Here’s the library,” even when it’s just a slab. We film walking through that space again and again, so that by the end, when the front door exists, you’ve seen us walk through it from the start. It’s all about helping people feel the building, not just look at it.

This is why I dislike Grand Designs being called a property programme. It isn’t about property, ownership, or consumerism. It’s about human experience, about design as something that shapes feeling. I once saw a bathroom in Italy tiled entirely with tiny mosaics. There were two taps and a central spout. Among the mosaics, one red square marked hot, one blue square marked cold. That’s design: clever, subtle, unbranded, almost costless, but deeply thoughtful. That’s what stays with you.

When it comes to sustainability, I’ve grown sceptical of phrases like net zero. They can be defined in a thousand ways and often feel like empty bags of hot air. Brands do their best to fill them with spin. What matters more is the primal reality of how we live in relationship with other species, with resources, with biodiversity. The key distinction is between buying and making.

Making is noble. It’s assembling dust into something in our image. If you’ve ever put up a shelf or thrown a pot, you know it gives you a different respect for resources. It’s therapeutic and grounding. It gives you time to reflect. That’s why I’d replace “get the look” with “get the feel.” Like slow food, slow tourism, slow cooking. Slow design.

My own love of nature has roots in Italy. After school I went to Florence to study music and Italian. In the late 1970s Florence was still quiet, almost empty out of season. I ended up taking a job on a farm just outside the city. The man who ran it, Nardo, had been an advertising executive. He dropped out, took over the family farm, and wanted to do things differently.

It was only about 50 acres of olives, grapes, some wheat, a few pigs. He farmed biodynamically, organically, with the rhythms of the sun and moon, without chemicals. At the time I was naïve; I thought all farming was like that! I’d get up early in the mist to pick olives, trample grapes. It was like something from a novel, and I was spellbound by Tuscany. Reading Forster, discovering the landscape, living simply.

Later I realised most farming was not like that at all. The disappointment and anger of that discovery never left me. We should be able to feed ourselves without trashing every other species and the environment they depend on. That farm experience shaped me profoundly.

Since then, I’ve campaigned for zero-carbon housing, for insulating buildings, for better housing quality. But in the end, I keep coming back to the same conclusion: the natural world is the guide. It is magical. It is essential. And it is the truest indicator of how well we are living.

This conversation took place on 27 August and has been edited and condensed for clarity and flow.

Grand Designs starts on 1 October at 9pm on Channel 4 with the Grand Designs Podcast, Grand Designs: Deconstructed following at 10pm on More4. 

Our thoughts

Making builds meaning

People who work with their hands, whether it’s mending, gardening or throwing a pot, report lower stress and greater wellbeing. It seems that fixing or making something gives us a respect for resources that buying never does. Programmes such as Repair Café International are helping communities revive those skills and cut down on waste.

Authenticity beats consumption

A pair of jeans can travel through 11 countries before it reaches a shop floor. Along the way, it racks up pollution, water use and often poor labour conditions. Campaigns like Fashion Revolution are reminding us that what we wear carries stories, some we’d rather not tell.

Buildings and carbon

The built environment is responsible for almost 40% of global energy-related emissions. Shifting to low-carbon design and materials is one of the biggest levers we have in tackling the climate crisis. The UK Green Building Council is leading that conversation in Britain.

Nature is the measure

More than 40% of UK wildlife species have declined since the 1970s, according to the State of Nature Report. Our partner, the Soil Association, and organisations like Rewilding Britain are working to restore biodiversity through organic farming and large-scale habitat recovery.