Original subtitles

This week, our designers are taking on three brand-new spaces,

specifically for kids.

They're going to have to have a bit of flair...

..some imagination...

..and a whole lot of creativity.

What do you think?

Rubbish!

Everyone's a critic.

It's nursery week.

LAUGHTER

Ten aspiring designers

competing for one life-changing contract -

to transform a top cocktail bar.

Last time...

Pfft!

..the designers teamed up on eco-conscious apartments.

Thank you. You're welcome. My saviour.

It's a great statement of home.

Peter and Joanne were coming from different places.

The disjointedness is harshing my mellow.

For Temi, success was out of reach.

Everything needs to be at child level.

But it was Karl who made a sharp exit.

You had a lot of pointy corners. What about safety?

See you later.

It's week two, and the designers are arriving

at Michelle's design studio.

Hello. Are you all right?

Hello.

Back again. Back again.

I am so relieved I survived week one.

All I want is to show my style.

Fresh week, fresh start. Yeah.

I'm super excited to get started, find out what the new brief is.

Raring to go.

Have you got a game plan? I do have a game plan.

This week's a clean slate.

We're all starting from the same position again.

And I'm determined not to go on that sofa.

Hi, guys! Hi! Hello!

How are we doing? Better. Good.

Survived week one.

Only just.

LAUGHTER

Temi, Joanne and Peter,

you were on the sofa.

It's nerve-racking, isn't it?

So nerve-racking. Yeah, didn't want to be there.

I'm getting tickly belly now - you just reminding me.

Now, Joanne, you were told to be more confident.

I mean, looking at you...

I mean, how much more confidence can one woman have?

Hello? Oh, hello! You all right?

Hello. Good to see everyone.

So I guess it's all feeling a bit more real now, yeah?

Yes. Absolutely.

Well, I'm afraid to say,

if you thought challenge one was quite hard,

I am raising the bar again for challenge two.

Oh, no! I want to see how you cope with a client

who can be very demanding.

I'm talking pre-schoolers.

In the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside,

Bright Horizons provides day-care for children up to five.

Look at it!

Working in teams, there are three classrooms

ready to be revamped -

each containing an imaginative play zone,

a calm zone,

and a creative zone for our designers to renovate.

I want to see designs that inspire young minds

in active play, learning,

but also rest and relaxation,

and being mindful of the very real practicalities

for creating a safe space for young children.

Ry, Tom and Temi,

you'll be redesigning the baby's room.

Oh, yes!

Charlotte, Peter and Buse,

you will be working on the toddlers' room.

Yay! Ooh!

And of course, that leaves Jack, Monika and Joanne

to take on the preschool classroom.

We're going to have some fun. Yeah.

At the end of the challenge, the weakest designers

will be in front of the judges on the sofa,

and one of you will be going home.

Good luck. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you.

Bye.

Exciting!

Little kids are my nightmare brief, I'm not going to lie.

It kind of freaks me out.

This is a really challenging brief for week two.

A nursery. None of us expected that.

Anyone know any two- to three-year-olds?

The teams must first assign the calm,

creative or imaginative zone

that they will be solely responsible for designing

within their classrooms...

I would like to try my hand at the calm corner.

I'm really happy you said that.

LAUGHTER

..and allocate space within the classroom

that each of their zones will occupy.

This has got a sink in it,

and if we've got paint and sand, you need to be near water.

OK.

Team Toddlers' clients are aged between two and three.

So I thought, why not put a rope wall on the side?

With these little platforms barely off the ground

for getting the kids moving, getting them really interactive?

I think that's a great idea.

I was thinking about keeping quite a neutral colour palette.

You just love the natural. Yeah, I love natural.

Yeah.

I haven't looked into colour theory, and I feel like that's something

that we really might need to research.

Psychology of colour. Yeah.

I think that we maybe should go with a woodland theme.

It's a really lovely natural setting.

You can have the different shades of green,

and the blue for, like, rivers and things.

Yeah. So, like, lots of nature.

They're calming colours. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm excited. Yeah.

I love colour, naturally,

but I'm not set on colour if it makes our spaces cohesive.

For Team Baby, the imaginative play zone

is replaced with a sensory zone to stimulate sight,

touch and sound.

Something coming from the ceiling that they can look up at,

I thought, would be a good idea. Yeah.

Hello! Hi, Alan!

Tell me everything. What colours are you thinking?

Bright colours? No, we're doing very neutral, very tonal.

Would you believe, Alan, I'm paring down my colour?

The children are the colour. Oh, my God.

# Children are the colour? #

Oh, yeah!

Is this like the B-side to Heal The World?

Right, well, listen. Good luck.

I can't wait to see it.

I literally can't wait to see it.

See you later. Bye. Thank you, Alan.

This is a bit of a curveball, isn't it?

It is a bit of a curveball.

But you know what? Being a good designer

is about being adaptable

and being able to flex beyond your comfort zone.

So that's what I wanted to test them on.

So you want to see some cohesion?

Always about cohesion. Always.

But it's also about getting down low

and seeing your design from their perspective.

And safeguarding, of course. Oh, yeah.

Cos, I mean, designing a nursery

is a health and safety nightmare, isn't it?

It potentially could be.

I mean, bottom line, environment is so important

for how a child develops.

I mean, for me, I was always in the creative area.

Where were you? In the cellar.

I was an ugly baby.

Aw!

I thought what we could do is build up

some kind of multi-functional house shape,

which would then become a doctor's or a theatre or a shop.

It's whatever the children want it to be. I love it.

Taking on the preschool classroom are Jack, Joanne and Monika.

What about you, Jack?

Er, I like the idea with how tall the spaces are.

Like, the height could potentially bring a nice centrepiece.

Like, all hanging hot-air balloons and clouds and stuff.

Oh, that's beautiful, Jack!

I just thought a bit of drama could be a bit of fun.

A bit of drama's always good.

I'm really pleased with the group that I've been put in.

I think there's a good energy there.

Monika's got all the crystals and the good vibes,

and Jack's really fun and practical.

We're going to work really well together.

That's the tree. The tree.

And then you can hang your wet art for it to dry. Peg them on, yeah.

And it's like a kind of display area.

To be perfectly honest, this brief is not for me.

I have to press pause on my style, unfortunately.

I would have to say that my design style is "granny goth".

We have this, like, faded glamour vibe that I absolutely adore.

But then, on the other hand,

the alternative in me, the emo kid in me,

just keeps on coming out.

No-one is going to do what I do.

That's way too cocky.

This is not an easy brief.

There is a lot... A lot to do.

..of stuff to think about. Yeah.

But I have faith in us.

Me, too. I said it without any faith.

Previously a stately home...

Oh! Wow! It's like a castle!

..our nursery has three classrooms for our designers to transform.

OK, I love this space, guys.

It's such a lovely atmosphere!

With skilled tradespeople on hand to help realise creative visions...

What have we got today?

..and a budget of £1,000 per person...

It's a shame it's a nursery. I want it to be my house.

Yeah, same!

..they will have just two days to complete

their interior designs.

I can't stop!

LAUGHTER

Make it stop!

Tackling the preschool brief for children aged three to five

is Monika, with team-mates Jack and Joanne.

Are you all ready for a hard-working day?

Yeah?

LAUGHTER

Jack and I are in this room.

I'm doing that end. Jack's doing this end.

I have my separate room.

The biggest job I have is I'm actually replacing

the whole floor.

Because all the other rooms have this beautiful

wood-effect flooring and that room has this grey, really meh vinyl.

And we've got a week for this?

LAUGHTER

Yeah,

Yeah.

Monika's creative zone will benefit from new flooring,

wooden wall-mounted trees to display artwork

and tailor-made hidden desks.

In the main room, Jack's calm zone has tree-covered seating

and balloon and cloud installations,

whilst Joanne has designed a versatile structure

for imaginative play.

I am being more confident this week.

I am going big and bold.

I've designed a huge structure

because that's something that Michelle said last week

on the couch to me.

I was really excited when I got this brief

cos I love children and being a mum's, like, my favourite thing

in the whole wide world.

Let me do it!

Poke you.

I've got three daughters

and I've been a foster carer for about eight years now.

And I've absolutely loved it.

But it's time now for me to do something for myself.

Oh, that looks really good!

I'm really quite an insecure person

and I don't have confidence in myself.

So hopefully, by doing this,

it'll make me believe in myself a little bit more.

Really happy with the colours of the paint.

I think we've got a palette of six base colours,

so it looks like it's been done by the same designer.

I think I've listened to what she said.

Hey! Morning! Hello! Morning!

So I've got a bench seat that wraps all the way around the room.

Down the hall, the Baby Team have big plans for their carpenters.

I'm doing, like, a curvy bookcase-y sofa sort of situation

that we'll be building together.

Baby-sized? Baby-sized, yeah.

It's a chaise longue for babies. Oh, right.

LAUGHTER

The babies' classroom benefits from a neutral colour palette,

with Tom's bespoke curved seating dividing his calm zone

from Temi's sensory zone,

whose wall fixtures will appeal to sight,

touch and sound.

Ry's creative zone in the adjoining room

has the same colour scheme

and is complete with customised tables and bubble machine.

This is my trough table here.

Trough, trough, trough.

So the kids can, you know, mingle, play

and do what babies do.

I don't know what babies do!

So that is your space... Yeah. ..over here.

So this is where my tree's going to go.

And it's going to take up quite a lot of this space.

In the toddlers' classroom,

Charlotte and Peter will be sharing the main space.

This is all my space, kind of from that corner to over here.

It's good, because when you walk in you'll see my kind of theme.

So it's good when we walk in because we see YOUR stuff?

No, I just mean... I'm only joking.

I have to admit, it was super hard trying to divide those zones.

We were asking, were we going to utilise those spaces correctly

if we took them?

And if not, could the other person use them better?

Shall we go and see yours? Yes.

Yeah? Exciting.

It's darker in here, isn't it?

Yeah, it does make me a bit nervous.

Maybe the place just needs fresh paint.

If it's not bright while it's white,

I don't know what's going to happen when it's brown.

Is that your colour? Are you going brown?

I'm going brown.

Initially, my room feels a little bit darker.

It does make me worry a little bit about my colour scheme.

I'm hoping the bright colours that I am using

are going to make up for the fact that I'm also using dark colours.

Buse's creative zone boasts a brown colour palette,

sandpit and wood-clad walls, like she used in week one.

Next door, woodland-themed wall murals

are incorporated throughout the room,

with Peter's imaginative play zone

occupying the majority of the space,

and Charlotte's custom-designed tree

the focal point of the toddlers' calm zone.

So, this tree... Yeah.

It's going to be a bit of a team effort. Yeah, OK.

This is going to be the seat that the practitioner sits on

to read the books to the kids.

This week, I want to prove that I can do something

really imaginative.

It's going to be tricky,

because we're going to have to pilot hole all of these.

I can help with that. Mm-hm.

It's a big design. So it's 2.8 metres high.

And there's quite a lot of work involved in it.

I'm definitely taking a risk doing this tree.

It might be kind of one item,

but I think it's pretty impressive.

So nice.

Oh!

I'm sorry!

It's fine. Buse's commitment to reusable materials

means she must fill and sand

the surfaces of her wall-cladding before fitting.

Although it was slightly harder,

I feel like I was really, like, morally happy

with the fact that I used reclaimed wood.

So I'm using it again.

This wood is from 1945.

Just a side note. I'll carry on.

This is my dead tree.

But it looks a little bit more alive now with the leaves now.

It's reincarnated. It's reincarnated, yeah.

In the preschool calm zone,

Jack is taking advantage of the room's generous dimensions.

So, as soon as you walk through the door, it is like, bam!

And I wanted that. I wanted a bit of drama for this room.

It's a big, big grand room,

and a big grand room needs some big grand things in it.

I think I have been born in the wrong decade.

I feel like I should've been brought up as a Georgian.

What makes me stand out, I think, is I can get the look for less.

I think the other designers might be a little bit baffled,

because sometimes you can't put the face

to what goes on inside my brain.

I've had to take these foliage leaves off these trellises,

which you get in, like, most discount retailers.

And they've got a little hole in the bottom of them.

And I'm just planting it -

ooh, there it is -

onto the end of the branches.

So, in my childhood, I thought about, like,

trees and looking up at the clouds and lying on fields and stuff.

So I'm bringing the outside in, which...

I like it. I think it's working.

OK, so that's the hill going down. It's just a plummet.

It's not! It's not Everest! Yeah.

Down the hall, Charlotte is channelling

her inner toddler in the calm zone.

I'm just drawing out some abstract trees.

Basically, I'm calling them abstract because at the moment

they look like children's drawings.

Do you think I've started the hills at the right height?

The main thing... They said, basically,

imagine this is the height of our child.

Do we have a child together that I don't know about?

Er, you do not know much about me if you think I have a child.

With the challenge well under way, it's time to pay them a visit.

GASPING

# We are young

# We run green... #

Why did I think it'd be a good idea to cycle from London?

# See our friends... #

What are you looking at? # Feel all right... #

Never seen an out-of-breath celebrity before?

# Got some cash Bought some wheels... #

Nothing to see here!

# Took it out 'cross the fields... #

Why does everything stink of poo?

Oh! # Feel all right... #

HORN HONKS

# Are we like you?

# I can't be sure... #

Oh!

I can't wait to see what they've done with the place.

# We are strange In our worlds... #

Hi, Peter. What's the crack, Alan?

What is this?

It's anything you want it to be, actually, Alan.

This space is all about encouraging imaginative play.

They can enclose it.

They can create a fence.

They can close it.

They can create a fence.

Yeah.

Yeah! Well, yeah.

They'll have to have a lot of imagination. Yeah.

LAUGHTER

Are you going to colour it in at all?

No, I want it to stay like cardboard,

because I also think these days kids are surrounded

by all these, like, fantastic toys.

And I'm like, "Cardboard is just as good."

Did you have a Victorian childhood? Because...

"Kids don't need colour!

"Give them gruel as well!"

Slop.

Well, I'll leave you to play in your pen

and I'll see you a bit later. Thank you.

See you later. Bye, love.

Peter's zone is small world,

and it's all about stretching a child's imagination.

But I wonder, has he stretched his own imagination enough?

Halfway through day one, and our designers' ideas

are starting to be realised.

So this is my little bird house,

and I'm putting a bubble machine inside it.

I mean, who doesn't love bubbles? Even I love bubbles.

The teal is going from the skirting board,

all the way up the wall, across the ceiling.

Everything else is going neutral.

And how is the floor getting along?

It looks amazing.

Is it easy for you?

It's going down fine, actually. Yay!

It's just every...

Every run has got an awkward cut at either end.

Monika's had a carpenter working tirelessly

in the preschool creative zone.

Mid-afternoon before it's finished.

Yeah, OK.

MONIKA SIGHS

My to-do list, then.

If I have to say this is the job number one.

Yeah. But then I have three smaller jobs.

I'm not the best at making plans.

I'm not the best at time management.

That is definitely something I struggle with.

Yeah, at this point there's a lot of pressure,

so, yeah, I really need to have this room finished.

I think Monika thinks this isn't as big a job as it is.

I think she was hoping it would take an hour.

Cos we've got quite a lot of other stuff to do.

But it'll get done.

It's just whether she needs to do some other stuff.

It's gorgeous. Really love the colour.

Do you like it? Yeah. Do you?

I don't care what your opinion is.

The Baby Team's neutral colour palette

is being spread far and wide.

I mean, I'm calmed by it.

Just looking at it.

Myself and Ry are very happy with the colour.

It's very beige.

LAUGHTER

Er, I think we might have to tweak it a little.

We'd always intended to do a more pared back,

muted tone for our baby spaces.

Leave these white. Yeah.

Paint all that beige. Yeah.

No, no. You want to paint the walls beige? Yeah.

What? Are you thinking about painting it white?

I've got that rock salt.

I had been hit in the face with beige when I first walked in,

which is just not a colour for me.

It's difficult because you've got a sensory space

next to a calm space.

Because it's going to have all the sensory stuff on it,

it's just not going to look...

Cos remember, I've got those coloured mirrors,

acrylic mirrors. On beige - it's not going to work.

So what I'm doing, I'm painting blackboard paint on here,

and then use it as a chalk board as well.

So, my youngest memory...

I can remember having them Crayola crayons,

and I can remember all the names of the crayons.

And I had a sharpener and I'd put them all in order.

I used to get really excited.

Hi, Monika. Oh, hey, Alan.

You've had enough. You're packing your cases.

You're leaving the competition.

Please stay! Please!

Because I'm a furniture upcycler, a furniture painter... Yes.

..I wanted to upcycle something.

Make it all fun and cool for the kids.

Oh, good!

How are you coping with everything?

Because of the flooring situation - yeah, I'm really...

I am stressed, I'm not going to lie.

I am quite stressed about it.

Cos, let's be honest,

it's a really tough challenge, this one.

Especially, I think, because my style is so different

than all of this. Yeah, Yeah.

Kids don't want to be introduced to road kill

before they go to school, do they?

I mean, you know, no-one wants to see a dead badger.

No, there will be no death in my creative workshop zone.

There's so many little holes.

I am just wood filling.

It does take time.

Obviously holes in it. It's been used.

Oh, look at that! It's so flush and lovely!

I love you!

I actually do.

You're amazing!

It's going to be big.

LAUGHTER

It is going to be big. How big's my ladder?

In the toddlers' calm zone,

Charlotte's contemporary corner piece

is ready for installation.

Once the tree is up, I'll feel a lot better

because if I don't get the tree up,

then my design is just murals and cushions

and some rugs.

This is number two. Are we going to count all of them?

Well, it is nursery, so...

One down.

TOGETHER: Two down.

There you go.

It's really nice that the construction part

has finally begun.

As day one draws to an end,

the classrooms' transformations are well under way.

I'm pretty pleased with that.

A lovely tree nook. Yeah!

I am happy, yeah.

Colour is the only thing I feel like I have quite a good eye for.

Go, team! Go, team! Go, team!

Thanks, guys... Beautiful!

..for putting up with my colour neurosis.

Ta-da!

What time do you call this?

Super happy that they're here now. A relief.

It looks amazing in orange, doesn't it?

Amazing and orange. Amazing and orange.

A bit like you.

I am tired. This is, like, not easy work.

A backbreaking day has taken its toll on Buse.

Things are taking longer than expected.

Er, the sanding was basically the bane of my life.

Also, the decorators - because I haven't been there -

have done barely anything in my room as well.

And obviously that does make me nervous.

Of course it does. But at the same time,

I think I could pull this off.

I just need to be very, very clear

and firm with what I'm doing tomorrow.

Monika, is it fair to say that you thought

this would be a quicker job than it's turned out to be.

I somehow thought this might take, like, four hours,

so it has been a bit more.

For Monika, replacing the floor has taken the entire day.

It always takes longer than you think. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's something I'm learning.

Jack and Joanne's room has had such an amazing progress on day one,

and my room - comparing to theirs -

looks like almost nothing has been done.

I honestly don't know if I finish.

I don't know.

I need to push through today.

I need to push through.

We're going to get there. You'll get there.

It's the second and last day of the challenge...

You had your Shreddies this morning?

Good.

..with 12 hours for our designers to stake their claim

in the competition.

Morning, guys. Morning, sir.

Every single wall has a little bit of carpentry

and a little bit of painting to do.

Day two is the walls.

Painting the walls, attaching all my MDF to the walls.

Yeah, just making the walls look pretty, basically.

Still so much to do.

But also, there's a lot of things that I can't actually do

because the carpenter is cutting everything for me.

So I can't paint so many things...

..just yet.

So, this is the mural that I'm painting.

Now, the question is, do we paint the background in brown?

And then I do the mural drawing on top?

Or do we cut around it?

Buse's walls in the toddlers' creative zone

are also a blank canvas.

I know your hesitancy, because the background is so dark.

Trying to cut in, particularly around all this detailing

you've got here... Got it.

..will be very fiddly. Got it.

It is a flat colour. It shouldn't take that long.

I need to just get that room painted.

I'm going to paint it and see how I get on.

Next door, the rest of Team Toddler are also tackling

their wall murals.

I think this is the beauty about kids' things.

Like, doesn't have to be absolutely perfect,

I'm hoping.

Peter and I have worked together with the murals.

I think that when you go into Buse's room,

it's just quite different.

Mostly because of the brown.

And I can see what she was doing -

she's going with the woodland theme -

but I'm worried that Michelle's going to think

that there isn't much flow there.

I'm happy with the brown so far.

Our colour schemes are quite different,

which was why I was kind of happy that I got

the other separate room.

I felt like I could do a different vibe in there.

I think it looks good.

It's a real contrast to outside.

TEMI: I need these two moving in slightly.

Keep going. Keep going.

Hurry up, Ry! I'm trying!

Hurry up!

Across the hall in the baby classroom,

Temi's suspended sensory creation is being put in place.

We're going to do sort of globulous clouds of paper lanterns.

I'm doing all white.

Temi's doing black and white.

And Ry is doing white and colour.

And then higher up. Higher up.

Actually having something that you had drawn

and then seeing it in real life is just an amazing feeling.

I love that.

I feel like a little cosy den.

It's really good.

I absolutely love it.

Pleasure. Joanne, if you got pink open?

Have I got what, sorry? Have you got some pink open?

So, in school, I used to have anxiety and stuff.

So I think, like, I may have benefited from somewhere

just to, like, soothe and calm down and, like, not be so dramatic.

In the preschool calm zone,

Jack's home-made hot-air balloons are about to take off.

So here's one I made earlier.

I always wanted to say that!

That's a bought basket. I cut the handles off.

This is actually a beach ball, which I've primed and painted.

And these are my tea towels from home that I cut up.

And my boyfriend keeps telling me off.

He's like, "Can you stop cutting our stuff up?!"

Er...

Yeah.

But it looks so pretty. So he can deal with it.

We're all systems go at the moment.

So trying to get it all together in one day.

I've bought some pieces of furniture,

but you can take these out.

You can say, "Everybody go and pick up ten pieces

"and put it in there."

I'm making clouds.

So I'm just fluffing these balls up...

..with some wadding.

I'm going to put lights in them and they're going to twinkle.

It is very much like your hair! Yeah.

It's like Jack and the Beanstalk. LAUGHTER

I think the left needs to go higher. Right.

Yeah.

Oh, it's lovely. It's like a little crown.

It's what I imagined and more. It's great.

We're going to add some lights to it, though.

I can stick and you can cut?

Awesome.

In her creative zone, work on Monika's walls

is finally gathering pace.

Preschool, three- to five-year-olds, they're incredibly creative kids,

from what I read.

So I need this tree to kind of be the display area

for all the art that is going to be made in this room.

If this room will be finished,

I really think it's going to be a great room.

The biggest problem now is time.

Buse! Hi, Alan.

Hello. What's going on?

I've got a lot of cubes.

One lump or two?

Look at these!

So what are you doing, then?

They're going to sit on them.

And then, when you turn them back, it's a blackboard.

Oh, that's a clever idea! So they can draw on them.

Do you want a hand doing it?

Oh, my God, I'd love that.

So I know you're doing toddlers. Mm.

Why have you gone with brown?

I mean, listen, you expect to see that inside a nappy,

but not in a creative space like this?

I disagree.

I feel like it feels like a hug, you know?

"Oh, this is nice and brown." Exactly.

And then... And then the kids can draw

while they're being hugged by the brown. Yeah.

LAUGHTER

Perfect. Perfect.

Halfway through day two,

and big ideas are beginning to take shape.

This is where the climbing wall for the kids is going to go.

This is just your everyday sandpaper,

but it'll give their feet better grip.

All about safety with this.

This is where Kevin McCloud comes in and goes,

"Well, you've spent a lot of time and money on that

"and you've not achieved very much, have you?"

These are my touch cut-outs,

which are going to be removable from the wall.

Sound is going to be over there with these copper pipes.

PIPES TONE

Yeah, happy with that. That's looks good.

And then we have sight.

Hey, Monika. How you doing? You all right?

Hi, guys. How are you getting on?

It's looking phenomenal.

It's looking like a massive mess!

Do you think you're going to finish?

To be honest with you, Jack, I don't know.

Yeah? That's my honest answer.

I don't know. Well, I won't take up any of your time.

Just give me a shout if you need me, please. Yeah.

I have so much left to do.

And there's not enough hands.

And there's not enough hours.

Last one. Perfect, thank you.

However, for some, their zones are ready to be dressed.

Slowly coming together.

It's that last little kind of push.

Spin, spin, spin. That looks good!

I'll vacuum it.

I wanted to kind of integrate the logs

and have it be an organic space.

They should be safe.

There's lots of tree trunks outside.

That's all right. Kids can't reach that, can they?

For part-time musician Charlotte,

it's time to unveil her secret weapon.

I've recorded a little nursery song that can be played

while the children go to sleep.

And, yeah, I thought it would be...

Give me an edge that no-one else is going to do.

So, what it's like...

MUSIC PLAYS

# When the robin needs to sleep

# He closes his eyes... #

CHARLOTTE SIGHS

I'm just having a moment of still.

Just to test out the song. Oh, are you?

Yeah. Do you want a moment of painting?

Or do you want a moment of, like, tidying or...?

I think it works, so I'd better actually...finish.

Here you go, darling. Thank you.

You look like a little cherub. All you need are some wings.

SHE LAUGHS

If I was a child and I walked in here

and I was looking up,

I'd find this quite fun, entertaining,

but also quite calming.

I'm happy.

It would calm me right down.

That can go there, I would say.

Might need a little drill bit to pilot hole them.

Have we got...?

I don't know where my drill is at all.

In the toddlers' creative zone,

Buse's flat out.

Actually, further. Higher than that.

It's getting there. It's getting there.

It's getting there.

What do I have left to do it?

I need to bring in all of the tables and chairs and dress the place.

As the clock ticks down,

it's a race to the finish.

Monika, give me a job to do.

Repeating this to here...

I'll do that for you. ..with glue gun.

I then go...

..ta-da! I can do this in 15 minutes.

Tell me when, yeah? Over that way.

Perfect.

It's going to go in the middle, actually.

It's just, like, crunch time now.

Ah!

LAUGHTER

Sing to me.

Helping Michelle judge this week is interior expert

and undisputed queen of colour Sophie Robinson.

So, Sophie, here we are in Oxfordshire

looking at a nursery that used to be a stately home, no less.

This is a massive challenge, isn't it?

You know, creating separate zones within an open-plan space.

I'm going to be looking at clever use of colour, texture, layout.

It's got to be really practical. And not to mention safety.

And it is also about empowering the children.

It's not about imposing things on them.

This is potentially one of the most difficult

client briefs I've ever seen.

They are quite demanding. It's true.

Are you ready? Shall we go check them out? Yeah! Let's go.

The first space to be judged is Team Babies.

I'm really proud about the design elements this week.

Although they're simple,

I think I managed to achieve everything I set out to.

Ah-ha!

Welcome to Baby World, Sophie.

Oh, it's magical!

Well, I can see this is a sensory area,

because already the colour palette - full of contrast.

We know babies don't always see full spectrum of colour

when they're very young, but they do see black and white.

So I'm really impressed by this sort of paper ball installation.

This feels like a really solid, straightforward design.

I think my niggle is just it's possibly

a little bit too simple for me.

I think I would've liked maybe another two rugs, perhaps.

And I don't know,

maybe some kind of super-textural cushions as well.

These things look quite intriguing, don't you think?

I mean, I know, for example,

little ones love a door handle and chains and locks.

So I think that's really clever.

I think it shows that some kind of proper research

has been done as well, doesn't it?

And I think they've even got sound play over here,

which compels me to have a go on it.

I must bash these pipes with a spoon.

Oh, that's very therapeutic.

Very sensory, Michelle.

Absolutely!

I am quietly confident about my space.

I think it did deliver on the brief.

It's a really quiet place,

so I think I'm quietly proud of it.

Don't you just feel calm, looking this way already?

I think the lack of colour, it's allowed it

to be not so stimulating.

And a similar insulation on the ceiling,

but getting rid of that striking contrast of the black and white

and just going for all the soft white.

Really feeling a good sense of teamwork here,

because although the colours are knocked back,

they're also super complementary. Mm.

This is going to be a child's first experience

of any kind of non-home environment.

So you want that kind of homely feel.

And I think that really achieves it.

I mean, I think this piece of furniture

that's been designed is genius.

It kind of works as a room divider, so you're turning your back

on all the colour and the sensory stimulation behind you.

And it just feels like a warm hug.

There's so many different areas and zones

where you can just find something creative and fun to do.

I'm generally happy with the space and how it's turned out, yeah.

MICHELLE: Bubbles!

This is amazing!

I love it!

And we've got lots of action happening really low down.

I mean, this is someone that has sat on the floor and thought,

"OK, I need it all to operate here."

These look really clever and interesting.

And I think these little blackboard boards can be used

to then cover this over.

So then you've got ultimate multi-functionalism.

I'm feeling a really strong sense of cohesion

with these three designers

to create three unique spaces that really work strongly together.

Yeah, you're right. In terms of creating flow -

similar colour palette,

another great installation with the paper balls,

but again switched up a gear.

So they understand how to work as a team

and they understand how to make different spaces

with different activities and different feelings

all work together.

So hats off to Team Baby, I think.

Shall we go see the toddler room?

I am super happy with my design.

The space looks vibrant, and I had a huge area.

So I hope, when it comes to judgment,

that is taken into account.

MICHELLE: Peter has taken on board the imaginative play area,

so this is the equivalent of Temi's sensory room.

This is playful in spades, isn't it?

I mean, it's just...

There's so much to delight the eye.

I mean, from the get-go,

there's a really strong colour story here.

It's light, it's vibrant, it's joyful,

it's energising, it's putting a smile on my face.

This is obviously, again, a bit of product design,

which we love to see - a kind of playpen.

I think this is going to be one of those things

that can be anything you want it. I'm seeing a fort.

Oh, OK!

I like the kind of zoning with these little mats.

They're slightly scratchy.

I'm thinking a couple of grazed knees.

They could've gone a little bit softer, perhaps, with those.

But I like the idea of them.

There's something that feels very coherent again,

and that's a word that I do love.

My favourite part of my zone is the tree,

because, you know, I've put a lot of effort into it.

It might be kind of one item,

but I think it's pretty impressive.

I feel I really need the quiet space to balance

all the energy that's going on kind of behind me.

And I'm just not convinced this delivers,

both in the amount of the space I've got here

and also what I'm seeing, which is two mats and a fairy tower.

This age group desperately needs that quiet time.

It's really important.

And I just feel like this space

has really swallowed up Charlotte's area.

But I'm not sure that's the problem of Peter.

This space doesn't have an identity to me.

I think, unfortunately for her, Peter's kind of, like,

really showing her up, isn't he?

Cos they both got the same amount of time,

the same amount of money, and one's produced all of this content.

And here we've got a pretty mural and a throne,

but not much else.

I hope that Michelle and Sophie

will see the vision that I had and appreciate it.

Cos I think that I did do something different,

and that is kind of the type of designer I am.

Oh! This is quite a different space in terms of visual language.

No, I completely agree.

It's also really rather dark for a nursery.

Which is a surprise, isn't it?

I can imagine maybe taking the colour down dark

to lower the energy

and create a calming space that we're looking for.

But that is not the role of this room.

There are bits that I'm kind of drawn to on a design level,

like our kind of tree stumps and the sort of sand spilling over.

But I know that's going to be a no-go

in an active, actual nursery.

And those tree trunks to me look like little fingers

could get stuck in them and they could kind of fall over.

But they look great.

I'm feeling that kind of the fact that they look great

is what has sort of sold them to Buse,

along with kind of the reclaimed wood.

And I mean, to finish off all those kind of surfaces

so that they're actually not going to even be a splinter hazard

is a whole job in itself.

So I kind of wonder, why bother?

Why...? Why? Why do that here?

One more room to see.

Preschools. Shall we?

It looks better than what I had in my head.

It looks, like, really good.

We've created dramatic spaces,

but there's still lots of room.

In terms of first impressions,

this is knocking it out the park for me.

You've got a giant tree!

You've got balloons and clouds floating through the air.

This is setting the scene perfectly.

The strongest sense I get is of welcome.

It's just... It's warm, it's embracing.

You want to walk into this space and take your little stool

and just be part of this group.

What's really lovely, though - it's not just the tree, is it?

It's the tree plus the lanterns.

It's the tree plus the table underneath.

And the mat. On its own, that's a really beautifully

thought-out piece of design.

I mean, we're being gifted by a lot of fabulous architecture here.

I mean, you're right. What a gift is this window?

But this is a sign of a great designer to me.

Picked it out in a colour

so he can create this amazing feature,

complete with floating clouds and hot-air balloons.

I mean, it's just a dream.

I'm proud of my design.

I think I made all the improvements that Michelle asked for.

I hope she's delighted with it.

I am just so compelled to go in here, aren't you?

I mean, isn't this just the dream?

A little Wendy House!

It's a clever use of flat-pack furniture,

with also some bespoke joinery.

I find myself wondering, though,

why this hasn't been mirrored on that side of the room.

Because what Joanne's has done is she's taken furniture

that's ready-made, flat-pack furniture,

and then added a clever frame to it.

So that's speed and that's economy.

So give me more of it.

You could've doubled it up.

Because this space feels a little bit empty to me.

Last week, my feedback to Joanne was, like,

"Go bigger, go bolder, have courage."

She's done that.

She's gone up a little leap.

But is it enough?

MONIKA: This whole experience and challenge

was so out of my comfort zone -

and I did it.

I actually think I have delivered a space for kids at that age

where they can do whatever they want in that space.

Ooh, clouds and sunburst over here!

It's a really happy room, isn't it?

Big, bold statements with the wood cut-outs

and sort of the tree motifs.

And pulling that colour scheme through,

it feels coherent, and yet it has got a different vibe.

I feel a lot more energised in here.

I know that Monika spent a lot of time

getting this back to being a good floor, which it is.

Just something that's not quite gelling for me in this room.

This is supposed to be the area that I'm feeling inspired

and creative and messy

and getting down and dirty with my paints.

And it's not making me feel like I could do that.

Maybe something about the two little box shelves feels a bit school-y.

Or this is just a bit neat.

I think it's about overcomplication.

So too much going on in too small a space?

That's what I'm trying to say.

Got it!

LAUGHTER

Somehow, I think perhaps having to spend all that time

on the floor has slightly compromised her

getting down on that low level and going,

"Let me feel this room as a three-year-old."

I think the challenge has been enormous.

I've been really blown away, actually,

by the creativity and the resourcefulness.

I just want to know who you're going to put on the naughty step?

I'm not sure. Let's go and think.

Before our teams head back to the design studio...

Wow!

Ooh, very colourful!

..they have a chance to eye up their competition.

Wow! I feel, like... Calm.

..relaxed already, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, can I join you? Yeah, please do.

The hot-air balloons are beautiful. They're beautiful. They are.

Because he made them from scratch. Did he? Yeah. No!

Yeah. Wow.

I love... The colour scheme is just so gorgeous. Yeah, it's very soft.

This is so different to ours.

I know.

Whoa! Wow!

OK. This is different.

You know what? Thank God that she's added something

quite bright up there. Yeah.

Because this is quite dark. It is quite dark.

So I feel like everyone is so good.

And seeing this is kind of like, "Urgh!"

So I'm like... Your space is beautiful.

Your space is also good. We're biased, though, aren't we?

Because we're like... No, I'm really honest.

LAUGHTER

It's the results day,

and the designers have returned to Michelle's design studio.

I really wish I had the confidence to feel

I was going to avoid the sofa,

but I think anybody could be on it at this stage.

Everybody feeling nervous? Just a little bit.

I tried to do the things that I know Michelle was looking for,

but the standard's just so ridiculous.

Hi, guys! Hi, Alan.

So, did you enjoy Oxfordshire?

Yes. Yes. Nice.

How did you find working in a nursery?

Challenging.

Mm.

Anyone spit their dummy out?

Was there tears before bedtime?

Yeah.

OK, well, listen, I won't keep you in suspense any longer.

The judges felt there were zones in all three classrooms

that really succeeded.

But there was one room that showed clever creative spaces,

showed evident teamwork and hit the brief.

And that classroom was...

..babies. Ooh!

Well done.

Temi, Tom and Ry, you're through to next week!

Well done, guys.

So happy!

We actually really did work together.

It was really lovely, you know, that they could see that.

Out of the remaining two classrooms, there was one area

that deserved a special mention.

Congratulations, Jack. You're through to next week.

Yay, Jack!

And, Peter, congratulations.

You're also through to next week.

It feels really, really lovely to have, like, stood out

to Michelle this week. Just tried to tap into my inner child,

have a bit fun with it. And fun paid off.

Unfortunately, that means Monika, Joanne, Buse and Charlotte,

Michelle would like to speak to you all in the office.

But one of you WILL be going home.

Good luck. Thank you.

Oh, guys! You OK, Joanne?

Yeah, you?

Why are they on the sofa? Let's start with Monika.

Poor Monika. She was so flustered towards the end.

Well, I know. I think we understood that she had some kind of

dilemmas with her room.

Interestingly, it was for the design that she did.

It wasn't kind of allowing the children

to do what they wanted.

"You WILL sit at the two little tables,

"you WILL be at the blackboard,

"or you've got to sit on the rug behind me."

And that's not the way that I think it should've worked.

Let's talk about Joanne.

She's got to really stop shopping and start designing, hasn't she?

I think so. If she's going to get much further

in the competition, for sure.

What I want to talk to her about, though, is that bigger sense

of designing a space.

So she sort of went all for it on one side,

and then it was very quiet on the other side.

And I think it's just that understanding of context.

Buse, she had some good ideas, didn't she? Absolutely.

I mean, all good schemes start with ideas,

and Buse definitely had some of those.

Yeah, and she was daring to be different.

I mean it was a stand-alone room.

She was really using a very different, punchier,

bolder colour palette. It was also a room that wasn't blessed

with a lot of natural light,

so I don't think she considered the environment

that she was trying to create.

She locked on a concept

which wasn't appropriate for what the brief was.

Let's talk about Charlotte.

There didn't seem to be a lot going on.

That's it in a nutshell.

Where was her section?

She created a soundtrack!

Did you know this?

We did know this. This is not Interior Song Masters, is it?

I thought it was Interior Design Maestros.

Oh, I see what you did there!

To be fair, it was a really tough challenge,

and you've got a really tough decision to make.

Now, for those that have not been on my glorious sofa before,

remember, this is all about feedback.

I just want to understand and learn why you did what you did. OK?

So, Joanne, I'll start with you.

I know you were on the sofa last week

and your feedback was to go bigger, go bolder. Yeah.

Well done. Thank you. I really took that on board.

No, I saw that. I felt that. And that's really good.

Yeah. And this discussion really is about design.

So can you talk me through what you feel

you designed for this challenge?

I did buy some of the units, but I upcycled those

and I painted them. And I designed the building

so it could be a multifunctional area.

You had the sort of entrance space,

so you had this opportunity to create a kind of entranceway.

So I find myself thinking,

why did you not mirror your lovely kind of house on both sides?

When I saw the space, I did think about moving

the building to that side. That was my first reaction...

No, not moving it. Doubling it.

..but doubling it would've been a genius idea.

That would have been... Yeah. Why, thank you.

Yeah. I thought that the design was charming,

but I think, again, picking up on the shopping element,

painting a piece of flat-pack furniture is not upcycling,

it's painting a piece of flat-pack furniture. It's painting it.

So I'd urge you to be a little bit more creative.

You're up against people who are doing

some amazing product design.

Somewhere to work on. Thank you. Yeah.

Monika. Hi.

It is incredibly important at this age group

that children really are allowed to kind of express themselves

and decide how they want to play with the furniture

and the designs that you present them.

I found your design a little bit dictatorial.

There were a pair of desks,

so you have to sit at the desk, with your back to the room.

Right. There was a blackboard, so I can only

use the blackboard as a blackboard.

I actually didn't want to tell the kids what they can do,

so I tried to offer a little bit of everything.

This is the messy play area. Yes.

How am I going to really get down and dirty with my paints

and my plasticine, or whatever the kids are playing with today?

I did focus on the walls.

I wanted the kids to enter that space

and feel the creativity.

I guess I admit that what was happening

in the middle of the room...

..I didn't think about that, I guess, enough.

No, no, the ideas were great.

I think sometimes when we have great ideas, though,

the hardest thing in the world

is to actually do slightly less.

It's really getting down and thinking about how the space

is going to be used, and not make a space

that is so beautifully designed with so many ideas

it actually engulfs the children.

Actually, I'm going to go to Charlotte.

You did a lot less, in my opinion.

We had a beautiful storytelling throne and two mats.

Yeah, so I think I concentrated too much on the tree.

I wanted to do something that was new and innovative,

but I understand. There was just something about it

that I just wasn't happy with.

And maybe it was that I just didn't do enough.

I think you've got to think about...

Look who you're up against.

And they are rinsing their budgets

and they are pumping every second out of the 48 hours

that they are given.

And a beautiful tree throne, though it is,

perhaps isn't enough.

I mean, did you get a chance to see any of the other calm areas?

I mean, they had a whole area.

They owned an area of a room.

When we discussed at the beginning how to divide the zones,

Peter said, "Look, I'd like more space in the room

"because I've got lots of things that I want to put on the wall

"and in the middle."

In hindsight, I could've done more if I had more space.

It seems to be that, in your initial design,

you didn't plan a whole zone. Yeah.

Would that be fair?

That would be fair.

So, Buse, you had the messy play area.

Talk me through your choice of colours,

because your room was not blessed with a lot of natural light.

So we were a little surprised that you'd gone quite dark.

The idea was really creating this hub,

a cocoon-like space,

which was the reason why I picked the colour that I did.

You know, I think of two- to three-year-olds -

full of energy, quite chaotic,

but you totally thought out of the box and went,

"No, I'm going to go dark, cave-like,

"where they're quietly drawing and being creative."

I just... Whether that actually works for this age group...

It would've worked for me. I was like a sloth as a child.

Because let's talk about practicality

and safeguarding children.

Because, visually, loving the tree trunks and the sand spilling out.

It's a lovely, kind of beachy feel.

It's not really going to work

in an active day-care environment, is it?

There was some very rough logs there

and some very rough kind of wood on the walls.

And so, when I'm talking about safeguarding children as well,

I'm thinking splinter hazard.

The backsplash was all reclaimed wood,

and the grain was so beautiful on it.

So I thought, if I manage to sand this down well,

it will look so beautiful within that space.

Again, I can feel the creative cogs working,

but don't get so wrapped up in a concept... Mm-hm.

..that you forget the big picture,

which is you are in service to the brief.

So, ultimately, this challenge was about making

a space that was deeply appropriate for the age group

that you'd been assigned.

I wanted to see rooms that were welcoming,

inspiring, but also safe.

So, for that reason...

..the person leaving us this week...

..is Buse.

I just feel that at a practical level,

it really wasn't going to work.

It's all right. Yeah, yeah, I'm OK.

I loved what you did do,

but I did want to see more.

But thank you.

Thank you.

I am really disappointed.

There's no hiding that, really.

I had a lot more to give.

That's the part that's a bit of a shame.

Buse had some great concepts,

but I sent her home because they just weren't appropriate

for this brief.

Next time... Look at this!

..the designers take on their first solo challenge,

a five-star luxury hotel.

No!

With contrasting briefs...

He's my Scottish lobster.

We're going white. Ah!

..and a double elimination...

I've lost... I'm just lost.

..the competition is heating up.

It's like hellfires.

That was extreme, actually.