I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s Live Your Own Way Podcast chat with Designer, Craftsman and Maker William Hardie.

If you are fan of Channel 4’s Amazing Spaces and Shed of the Year with George Clarke, you’ll have seen all the incredible creations he has come up with. over the years. Too many to fit in to one conversation but we most certainly covered a lot of ground about the show and his company Studio Hardie who are a team specialising in a variety of unusual high profile projects in many disciplines including architecture, playgrounds, interior design, furniture, exhibition spaces and public art.

They’ve worked on commissions including John Pawson for The Design Museum, Walmer Castle, Vivo Barefoot and a Timber Frame Farmhouse in Isle of Eigg, Scotland.

Studio Hardie are also often are asked to work on interiors of homes so my natural question was how do they choose which to work on ?

The futuristic rotating home has to be one of my personal favourites. Such a, quite frankly, mind bogglingly clever design. The gimbal shelves were my favourite part of it.

There have been some really memorable trips on Amazing Spaces  – The Northern Lights in Finland ( including the infamous dip in the freezing lake ) and William visiting and going under the Glaciers in Canada.

Did you see the episode where he went in to the underground city in Helsinki ? If not, you must try and catch it. Really interesting.

Oh, and the Observatory – another good one.

When it came to talking about Shed of the Year – how on earth does he choose a winner as a judge with so many unique conversions – it must be hard surely ?

We discuss all all of the above.

The converted 80’s caravan that William and his team worked on for George and his young family really stuck in my mind. Certainly left a brilliant impression for a first series. It was almost unrecognisable even though they had used elements and the frames, yet still delivered George the holiday home he craved from his own childhood. Opening up the whole front of it was such a clever idea.

You can listen to the full Podcast chat on any of these channels.

All my other episodes are here.