Grand Designs

Kevin McCloud re-visits Adrian and Corrina, who decided their first home was to be a 300-year-old ruin. The former cottage is set in the inhospitable climate of the Brecon Beacons National Park.

Kevin McCloud revisits Sharon and Tony Relph a couple who hoped to restore a dilapidated Georgian house in London to its former glory. Once 200 years of redecoration and refurbishment had been stripped away, the property boasted elegant period features, but the pair still had to overcome daunting interior decay problems.

Kevin is in Amersham to update on a project taken on by Deborah and architect Andrew. Their venture involved designing an 'invisible' house that blended in with the surrounding reservoirs.

Sue and Martin took a holistic approach when they converted a pair of Devon barns into a family home. They believed that the house should look like a natural part of the landscape. So they built it using environmentally sustainable techniques and allowed much of its design to evolve during the build. The oldest barn, dating from the 1600s, was built from stone and cob - a straw-and-mud mixture characteristic of Devon - while the newer, 19th-century barn was totally of stone. The older barn would have a thatched roof, the newer barn slates. A south-facing sitting room would overlook a double-height glass atrium, which would become an indoor garden, filled with citrus trees. Four bedrooms and a study would go upstairs.