After renting the local schoolhouse for 20 years, Chatham Islanders John and Bridget Preece are finally embarking on their own dream build. But will the challenges of building on a remote island prove to be their undoing?

In Kerikeri, local weekend market and café owners Warrick and Judy Hyland are building the biggest house they can on a budget.

On the shores of Lake Tarawera, kiwi fruit farmers Stew and Gill Moss are building a final family home in time for Gill's 60th birthday party.

Carefree childhood memories are the inspiration behind 32-year-old James Davis' complex build on the Kapiti Coast.

Tony Hodge discovers that building with the humble container is not as easy as he thought it would be on his unforgiving, vertiginous, bush clad site on Waiheke Island.

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.

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

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.