In a brand new series Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud is determined to find out whether creativity and simplicity can make us happier. He’ll be going off grid to build a cabin in the woods. He’ll be recycling, re-using and re-purposing to create his very own self-designed and self-built haven.

“Everyone dreams, in their more fanciful moments, of a place to hide from the pressures of the modern world; where life could be simpler, slower and possibly more rewarding.” Channel 4 say.

Kevin is setting out to recapture a pleasure he believes many have lost: making things with our own hands. His cabin will be away from the world of uniform relentless mass production and packed with ingenious design solutions. He hopes it will be a structure that is so distinctive he’ll be proud to say he built it.

Kevin’s hand-made haven will be a shed of architectural ambition, oak framed and shingle clad, filled with incredible objects of his own making. Its construction will be an adventure from start to finish and is destined to push him out of his comfort zone and into the “shedzone” of mad creativity. This project will fulfil his boyhood dream of owning a shed in the woods he can escape to, design classic pieces in, and watch the sun go down from.

And at the end of it all, Kevin hopes to answer his nagging question “is simple better?”

Kevin McCloud said: “This is the shed of my imagination; a shedtastic opportunity to explore off-grid ways of living, meet craftspeople of all ages and disciplines and ask whether living a life where we make and do is better than one where we simply buy and consume. A life-changing experience.”

This four part series is made by Optomen Television from an original idea by Kevin McCloud, and co-produced with his company Concrete Telly.

The series will air on Channel 4 in the autumn. Grand Designs’ repeats can be regularly seen on More4