Grand Designs NZ

When John and Sharon Russell bought their vertiginous site above Queenstown for their shared-ownership holiday house, they thought their biggest challenge would be signing up other owners…

An hour inland from Geraldine is where arborist Li Tane and his landscaper wife Michelle are building their rammed earth, off-Grid, mountain home for their family

On a steep site in the wilds of Mahurangi, just north of Auckland, architect Felicity Brenchly is prepared to do whatever it takes to get their family home built.

Josh and Esther Perriam have always wanted to build their family home in New Brighton but with a limited budget will the design live up to their dream?

Eternal globetrotter Tessa Kingsbury’s dream is to convert an old Dunedin Sunday school into her forever home, but it comes with a twist – she’s incorporating a glasshouse into the heart of it.

Mangawhai Danish. When Matthew and Rosemarie Dunning decide to put down roots in Mangawhai, they throw convention out the window and embrace their son’s intriguing concept of a brick house in a sand dune.

Tasman-raised Mark Ahearn and his Australian restaurateur wife Liz are taking time out from their hectic lives in Perth to build a legacy family holiday home in Abel Tasman.

Sand Dune. Charles Webster, a man with a passion for technical engineering, and his wife Yvonne pour their energy into creating a home in the shape of a sand dune on the Coromandel Peninsula.

In North Canterbury Phil Metaxas takes on the ambitious task of completing another man’s dream – that of a post-modernist castle.

In Featherston, Swedish architect Josefine Watterson tackles the challenge of creating a Passive House for her young family in pursuit of both a more sustainable lifestyle.