Home, Grand Designs: House porn is exactly the soothing TV we need right now

Forget the curvature of the human body, what about the curvature of a building? If it’s house porn, sign us up!

Show me a person who doesn’t love house porn and I’ll show you a liar.

House porn is the perfect combination of voyeurism and aspiration, sprinkled with some good old-fashioned judgment – why (why?!) would anyone paint their walls purple?

So it’s no wonder there’s so much of it around.

There’s the grand dame of house porn, Grand Designs, now running for two decades and with various spin-off versions the world over including in Australia on Foxtel.

Kicking back with an episode of Grand Designs is a rare treat, listening to Kevin McCloud intone about clean lines or subtly admonishing someone for not using an architect. Or the way he really hits the CON in CONvention or CONstruction.

Oh yes, it’s very, very delightful viewing. It wraps you in a hug, when the worst that could happen is someone ordered the wrong bolts for that industrial-style staircase.

(There are those episodes when the stress of the build drives people to get divorced, but you never rewatch those chapters.)

Oh yes, we do love a bit of house porn Supplied by ABC-TV

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You could also tour design marvels around the globe on World’s Most Extraordinary Homes, abodes with jawdropping features set in some stunning locales – like that house on its own mini island in Scandinavia where the waves lap up beneath the kitchen windows.

There’s the quaint Escape to the Country where calming hosts show barn conversions and “chocolate box” cottages to a couple looking to make the move somewhere rural while you keep murmuring “how do they get the grass so green?”. They say very British things like “this house has much to recommend it”.

These shows are different to The Block with its confected reality TV dramas and a “one of us”, “Aussie bloke” host who actually lives in a multimillion-dollar Vaucluse mansion. The Block is way too stressful and relies too heavily on petty fights to be soothing TV (while being too tedious to be exciting TV).

Apple TV+’s new house porn series, Home, falls into the former category, maybe even more so than the others. It’s as if it’s been designed specifically to be as calming as possible.

Home is a nine-part globe-spanning docuseries that explores our relationship with the physical structures we live in, but also its connection to the community that surrounds it.

There’s an episode in Sweden in which a house is built inside a giant greenhouse so the family that lives within it can recreate a Mediterranean climate in the far north.

It’s a house within a house

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Another episode is set in Maine and the self-built eco house is surrounded by nothing but woods. The house is beautiful and stark and the young family even dyes their own clothes as a way to keep nasty chemicals out of their lives.

It’s probably not a bad place to be self-isolating right now.

There’s a great episode set in the southside of Chicago and follows the story of how renowned contemporary artist Theaster Gates has revitalised his impoverished neighbourhood with investment and architecture, cementing that bond between hope and our environment.

But, as with all shows that jump around, not every episode is as successful. There’s an episode set partly in Mexico about poor, indigenous families who live in what could generously be described as a shanty with makeshift walls of sheet metal.

They’re a really sympathetic subject but half the episode is given over to the American start-up who will build them and others like them a 3D printed home.

The mission is all well and commendable but the extreme earnestness of Silicon Valley do-gooders certain of their righteous cause can be tiresome and makes for frustrating TV. The more they talk about doing good in the world, the more you’ll roll your eyes, like you would at a corporate video from a company like Apple.

Home clearly had some money thrown behind it because the production values are impressive, there’s a real sheen to it.

It is also almost slow TV with its rich photography, frequent use of slow-motion and an inoffensive soundtrack, so if you need some zone-out house porn that’s not going to stress you out, it’s worth a look.

Home is streaming now on Apple TV+, Grand Designs is on Foxtel Now and iview, World’s Most Extraordinary Homes is on Foxtel Now and Escape to the Country is on 7Plus and Foxtel Now

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