Gem

Grand Designs New Zealand follows ambitious homeowners through the drama of building their dream home from start to finish.

A deer farmer plans a four-bedroom concrete home in one of the most remote and stormy parts of New Zealand, the Catlins on the South Island, and is project managing the build himself.

A young couple from the Coromandel peninsula on the North Island build a non-traditional home from recycled materials such as bottles, tires and mussel shells, enlisting help from community volunteers

A writer builds a sculptural steel house on a hill behind Pakiri beach on the North Island. The bold design features sloping walls and an angular, vaulted ceiling and contains hardly any right angles.

A builder and his wife create a hand-crafted American Gothic-style house, complete with ornate detailing such as a Juliet balcony, spandrels, a horseshoe window and lacework valances, near Auckland.

A family plan a gravity-defying, four-storey home on a site that's so steep it looks virtually impossible to build on in the earthquake-prone city of Wellington. Will the process be an uphill battle?

In Auckland, a pastor and his counsellor wife take structural planning to its limits by building a three-storey home on a crumbling cliff with a sheer drop to the sea below to get the view they desire

A couple whose children have now left home build a straw bale house, featuring curved walls and a spiral staircase, on an exposed rocky outcrop near Wanaka in the Otago region of the South Island.

A timber merchant and his doctor wife have imported two historic New York barn frames from the USA and plan to re-assemble them on a rural site outside Auckland as part of a modernist mansion.