Broadcasting

Broadcasting

Tom has written and presented many series and one-off documentaries for television and radio, including four seasons of Netflix/BBC2’s primetime series The Great Interior Design Challenge, BBC Radio 4’s The Design Dimension, Channel 4’s The Secret Life of Buildings, in which he looked at the effects of architecture and spaces on our brains and bodies, and BBC2’s seven-part series Saving Britain’s Past, in which Tom examined the UK’s obsession with heritage. He also wrote and presented many short and full-length documentaries on architecture, cities and design for BBC television’s long-running weekly arts programme, The Culture Show; wrote and presented I Love Carbuncles, on postwar brutalism, for Channel 4’s The Art Show; and co-presented Channel 4’s Grade Designs: Trade Secrets, a spin-off from the popular property show.

He regularly appears on broadcast media as a design, urbanism and architecture expert. Appearances include: Channel 4 News, BBC News, BBC Radio 4 (Saturday Review, Loose Ends, Saturday Live, Front Row, Start the Week, Profile), BBC Radio 3 (Nightwaves), BBC Radio 6 Music (The Lauren Laverne Show), BBC2 (The Genius of Design, Building the Dream: the 2012 Olympics, Celebrity University Challenge, Celebrity Eggheads, The Chelsea Flower Show) and Channel 5 (The Wright Stuff).

Praise for The Secret Life of Buildings (Channel 4)

“A punchy, thought-provoking series,” The Daily Mail.

“I do like Channel 4’s new architecture series, The Secret Life of Buildings. Specifically, I like its presenter, Tom Dyckhoff, who is so wonderfully natural on-screen, without ever being cocky. He is perky, sincere, unassuming and willing to make a fool of himself occasionally,” Rachel Cooke, New Statesman.

“In this age of trendy orthodoxies, it is a brave man who squares up to the big guns of architecture,” David Chater, The Times.

“A thought-provoking exploration,” The Observer.

“A fascinating investigation,” Sam Richards, The Sunday Telegraph.

“Chirping of voice, thick of specs and trim of beard, he calls to mind an eight-year-old boy disguised as Elvis Costello. I liked him. I just didn’t like what he was saying,” Michael Deacon, The Daily Telegraph.

“Hats off to Channel 4 for giving him a soapbox,” Brian Viner, The Independent.

“He does us all a service by bringing architects face-to-face with the people who live and work in their creations everyday. Should they forget the ‘wow’ factor and think more about wellbeing? We say yes,” Adrian Pettet, The Sunday Express.

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The Great Interior Design Challenge
2013-Present
BBC2

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Tom presents BBC2's primetime The Great Interior Design Challenge (Studio Lambert), now on its fourth series, the search for the UK’s best amateur interior designers. The designers have 48 hours and £1,000 to redesign rooms in some of the country’s most beautiful and fascinating architectural settings.

You can find clips and more information here and here.

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The Design Dimension
2015-Present
BBC Radio 4

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Tom writes and presents The Design Dimension (Falling Tree Productions), a regular series on design for BBC Radio 4. Find episodes and more information here and here.

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Archive on 4: Pevsner – Through Outsider’s Eyes
2016
BBC Radio 4

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Tom goes in search of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the art historian and perennial outsider who did more than anyone else in recent memory to open our eyes to the art and architecture of Britain.

Listen here. 

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Rooms with a View
2014
BBC Radio 4

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Few things show our social status as clearly as windows. From ancient stained glass to towering skyscraper, windows are the ultimate luxury item. Tom tells the history of these holes in the wall. He visits an Elizabethan mansion built when glass was as valuable than gold. He pushes up a Georgian sash window and handles the pulleys from 10 Downing Street. He speaks to an estate agent and finds out the cost of a south-facing window in the suburbs. Standing in one of the world's tallest glass buildings, he asks what price we pay for a room with a view.

Listen here.

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An Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
2013
BBC Radio 4

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Richard Buckminster Fuller was an eccentric polymath. Perhaps best known for his innovative geodesic dome designs, he was also an inventor, a poet and a philosopher. In all of his varied work, Buckminster Fuller was dedicated to principles of sustainability, to doing 'more with less' and striving to 'make the world work for 100% of humanity'. Fuller was ahead of his time and his principles are arguably more relevant now than ever. 

Listen here.

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The Secret Life of Buildings
2011
Channel 4

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We spend our lives surrounded by buildings. But do we really know what they are doing to us? More importantly, do the professionals who build the spaces in which we live, work and relax, know what they are doing to us? The three-part primetime series The Secret Life of Buildings (Renegade Pictures) examined the latest scientific research on how our bodies and brains are affected by the environment around us, and applied it to buildings both everyday and celebrated. It discovered new-build homes that can seriously affect the health of their inhabitants, that the addition of something as simple as a pot-plant can vastly increase work productivity and how the designers of shopping malls use sparkle and sex to compel us to buy.

See the trailer here.

See episode two, ‘Work’, here.

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The Culture Show
2006-2014
BBC2

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Tom wrote and presented many short and full-length documentaries on architecture, cities and design for BBC television’s long-running weekly arts programme, The Culture Show, for which he interviewed figures from Oscar Niemeyer to Frank Gehry, and fronted special episodes on subjects from the Stirling Prize for architecture, to Lego toys, Chinese culture and Britain's housing crisis. 

Watch selected clips here.