Grand Designs

Professional make-up artist Zara and her partner Giuliano from Reading take a leap of faith as they build the 400-square-metre malthouse-inspired home of their dreams in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Giuliano, who works in tech, faces the challenge of a lifetime as he manages the project with no building experience and it's not long before the pair run into difficulties that force them to get far more involved than they ever anticipated

Holistic therapist Kara and electrician Jonny are building a striking stone and zinc four-bedroom family home in the rolling hills of West Yorkshire, for themselves and their two young children. The need to build has been motivated by Kara's recent paralysis, caused by a rare autoimmune condition. Their ambition for the house is enormous, as Kara wants to create a home that is not only beautiful but will help her regain some independence. With money tight, Jonny needs to take on a lot of the work himself. As the build progresses, and despite the challenges coming thick and fast, compromise is not an option with both form and function so essential. Building their single storey pushes both Kara and Jonny to the edge of their emotional and physical reserves, but if they can pull it off, it might just redefine what accessible design means

Physical therapist Ara and researcher Tony set out to create a home focused on health and wellbeing on a woodland clearing near Henley-on-Thames. The pair plan to live on site to cut costs with Tony taking on the task of project managing to save Ara any stress that could compromise her already fragile health but as problems arise both Ara and Tony end up labouring onsite and what was meant to be a house of healing is in danger of becoming the opposite

Adam and Tassy take on an abandoned water tower - a concrete column stretching over 20 metres into the Northamptonshire sky - and turn it into a fun family home. Their radical design includes a concrete interior with curved walls, slides, secret rooms, a fireman's pole and - up in the tank itself - a swimming pool and a sky garden. The plan is to sell their terraced house and get a mortgage to raise £400,000 and do most of the conversion work themselves - even though they have two young children already and a third on the way. It's wildly ambitious and gets off to a slow start when a steel reinforced floor takes forever to excavate, and they have to build a sound wall to reduce the hum from a nearby electricity substation. As concrete pours, their walls start to leak and it looks like their water tower doesn't want to be lived in without a concrete-soaked battle of biblical proportions