Grand Designs New Zealand - Season 1

Episodes

The Catlins: Concrete Farmhouse

Season 1Episode 160 min

The Catlins: Concrete Farmhouse

Architect Chris Moller meets Southland farmer Lachlan McDonald, who's building a modernist concrete home with a controversial roof in one of the most remote parts of NZ.

Coromandel: Earthship

Season 1Episode 260 min

Coromandel: Earthship

Chris meets Gus and Sarah whose solution to spiraling house prices is to make their first home an Earthship - an off-the-grid house made of recycled rubbish, earthen bricks and clay. An Earthship is a non-traditional home built using recycled materials such as bottles and tyres, and even mussel shells for insulation. Young Coromandel couple Gus and Sarah Anning decided to step outside the norm with their Grand Design when they realized they couldn't afford a traditional home. Enlisting the help of community volunteers, both here and overseas and using unique building techniques originally designed for the desert in California, it's not certain how this Grand Design will fare in Coromandel's temperamental climate.

Pakiri: Steel House

Season 1Episode 360 min

Pakiri: Steel House

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.

Titirangi: American Gothic

Season 1Episode 460 min

Titirangi: American Gothic

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

Wellington: 45° House

Season 1Episode 560 min

Wellington: 45° House

Chris meets architect Nic Ballara, who's planning to build a house on a steep 45-degree slope overlooking Wellington. Nic Ballara clearly has a head for heights as he starts to build a family home for him and his wife Callie and their 12-year-old daughter. Nic's site in the earthquake prone city of Wellington is so steep that it looks virtually impossible to build on, however Nic is convinced he has a solution and is determined to build his first home there. A logistical nightmare lies ahead as this Grand Design looks to be an uphill battle throughout.

Season 1Episode 660 min

Clifftop House

Chris meets Hamish and Diane Divett, who are rebuilding their house on the most unlikely spot - on the edge of a crumbling cliff top that plummets 40 metres to the sea below. Surfing Pastor Hamish Divett and his psychologist wife Diane have lived by the ocean for years, but in a dark, south-facing house that failed to take full advantage of the beautiful vista. To get the view they desperately desire, the couple have decided to push structural and logical planning to the limits. By building on a crumbling cliff with a sheer drop to the sea below, the Divetts will push their team to the edge to see this Grand Design though to completion.

Wanaka: Straw Bale House

Season 1Episode 760 min

Wanaka: Straw Bale House

After years of living apart with their separate children, Mike and Catherine are finally building an extraordinary straw bale together on top of a rocky outcrop in central Otego. Between them, Mike and Cathy have seven children from their previous marriages. With the last child finally moved out of home, the couple are going to build a Grand Design in which they will live alone together for the first time. They will be calling on Catherine's skills as one of the few female joiners in the country and Mike's talents as an inventor to build a unique straw bale and hemp house on an exposed rocky outcrop near Wanaka.

Auckland: American Barns

Season 1Episode 860 min

Auckland: American Barns

The series finale sees Marty import two old American barns from New York valley, which are raised by heritage builders and merged with a design for a modern home. Timber merchant Marty Verry and his Venezuelan wife Morella have imported two historic New York barn frames that could be considered the oldest buildings in New Zealand. With plans to assemble the barn on the couples' rural site on the outskirts of Auckland, they intend them to become part of a modernist mansion acting as a tribute to the different timber Marty loves. But will the new homes honour the history they are built on or is this Grand Design set to take on a life of its own?

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