Grand Designs

Kevin McCloud returns to East Sussex where concrete fanatic Adrian and wife Megan's cutting-edge concrete bunker is now complete. Is this raw, exposed concrete home really the ultimate 21st century country house?

In South Devon, Joe and Claire’s family house will be a giant sculpture inspired by the local landscape, 70 meters long and featuring 34 enormous angled zinc shards jutting out in all directions. But it proves astonishingly complicated to build.

Carpenter Olaf creates an oasis for himself and partner Fritha on a small slice of land in West Sussex, squeezed by a mainline railway and a busy road. All they’re left with is a very small triangle on which to build their future life together.

On a Scottish country estate architect Lain and his wife Jenny build an enormous new black, square building inside a beautiful old walled garden, connecting it right through the high garden wall into a dilapidated gardeners’ bothy on the other side.

Bereaved Gretta returns from Malaysia to build a single-story, burnt wood and glass pavilion on the land of her sister Mary and brother-in-law Fernando. Also designed by her nephew Carlos, it’s a real family affair, a story of recovery and renewal.

Architectural designer Dan and interior designer Nina want to build a sleek, unique larch clad family house. But their biggest challenge is to convert a swamp on the plot into a sweeping, biodiverse waterscape with a beautiful natural swimming pond.

Young Cumbrian couple Rob and Ruth take on the ruins of a 200-year-old former Blacking Mill, their bold vision to conserve as much of the original structure as possible and within the walls slot in an entirely new sharp edged, modern building.

Ex-advertising man Geoff builds a dramatically cantilevered house on a flood plain in Essex. It’s one of the challenges of his life: a flood resistant architectural marvel on the coast, designed to survive a one in a thousand-year flood event.