Back in 2013 engineer Richard Bennett and his partner Felicia Böhm set out on a giant reinvention scheme.
The goal to transform a vast, dark underground water reservoir near the Humber Estuary in Northern England into a light, airy courtyard family home for them and their four-year-old daughter.
And they wanted to do it in 9 months, for just £150,000, almost entirely on their own without the help of a designer or an architect. It is ambition bordering on wild optimism.
From the start, it proves an epic task. They are demolishing the concrete roof while keeping the reservoir’s walls and floor intact takes a mighty feat of engineering.
Grinding hundreds of square metres of bare reservoir walls to become the interior of the living spaces is exhausting. Design and layout decisions stretch their abilities and the schedule to the max.
But all this is put into perspective when life-threatening illness strikes out of the blue.
