Ben and Rachel Hammond have spent a year searching London for somewhere exciting to live with their two daughters, and they have finally stumbled on a 1950s home on a unique plot, situated within the leafy depths of a park in the south of the city. The only problem is the house itself - an ugly, inefficient and uninspiring property - and their solution is to radically redesign it into a sleek, modernist masterpiece. But this is no easy task, as Kevin McCloud finds out.

Michael Butcher and Phil Palmer fell in love with Christmas Farm, near Newbury, and decided to give up their urban media jobs and move to the country. Michael and Phil want to bring a touch of urban glamour to their new home at Christmas Farm by creating a modern farmhouse that combines an open-plan party pad with functional spaces below. As the builders set to work on the handcrafted flint exterior, complete with a vast trapezoid window, the pair juggle construction with farming the land, and in an attempt to make the project work financially, they set up a microbrewery in the barn.