Grand Designs Australia Season 12 is to Premiere on ABC (AU)

Lynne and Paul have found a beautiful stretch of coastal wilderness with panoramic views over the Tasman Sea. With plans to build a huge modern home, Paul will project manage while living on site.

Obstetrician Gary and nurse Clare left the hustle and bustle of Sydney for a more peaceful pace in the lush, rolling hills around Nimbin, NSW. But it wasn't just the rural life they were seeking - Gary had long held plans of building a dome-shaped house, reminiscent of the beautiful vaulted structures he'd seen while travelling through Europe in his younger years.

With plans to trial an experimental construction system for their remarkable spaceship-like home they struggle with every step of the project from collapsing access roads to blocked cement trucks! With money running out and the project running over, Gary and Clare's relationship is strained, and hopes for relaxing country hideaway turn into what seems to be the impossible dream!

Building a big house in inner city Melbourne is a tricky business stymied by heritage overlays, a lack of available space and soaring property prices. But architect Annalise and project manager Kim have a plan to thwart those hurdles and turn their tiny 1850s Carlton terrace into a multi-storied modern home with a large garden and a triple car-stacker. Their secret - to dig down and build up and out - creating a remarkable home that bridges the old and the new, and redefines living in the inner city. The catch - Annalise is based in Dubai with the kids, while Kim is left to project manager this complex and unusual build in the face of border closures, lockdowns and construction delays. As the project drags on with his family on the other side of the world, the pressure tests Kim's resolve and his relationships.

In 2016, a fire destroyed the much-loved old family homestead on Alistair and Belinda's dairy farm, in Inverloch, Victoria. And while a lifetime of happy memories went up in smoke, the couple were determined to create something new that would reflect the family's farming history, while providing a home to entice their kids to stick around. With Belinda supervising the build, they embark on a bold new project to create a comfortable home that looks like a dairy shed, complete with silos for bedrooms. But trying to recreate an authentic looking 100-year-old barn using both old and new materials is harder than it looks, and it's not long before Belinda feels the pressure to get it right.

Trevor Robinson loves a challenge and there's nothing he likes more than flying his ultralight aircraft over the NSW Snowy Mountains. It's a pastime that's all the more remarkable for the fact that Trevor was paralysed when hit by a car on his motorbike a number of years ago. Now Trevor and wife Jeanette are looking to build a very special home close to nature in which Trevor can move about easily in his wheelchair. When a 15 acre block comes on the market in the Snowy's spectacular Goobarragandra hills they pounce with plans to build a remarkable underground home overlooking their 1.5 kilometre river frontage. With Trevor as project manager the build gets underway, but as the months roll on his health starts to deteriorate not only impacting how much time he can spend onsite, but whether he will be able to move to his underground retreat at all.

Marc and Felicity have dreams of building a non-toxic, passive home and after years of work, the unthinkable happens – a fire sweeps through their beloved home just as they are about to move in. Will their dreams be shattered forever?

Joe and Hayley design high-end homes for others, but this is their chance to build their own. The curved, bold design includes a monumental staircase and a full-sized tennis court – but is it too ambitious?

Dion and Turi have big plans but a limited budget when they build a new, harbourside home. As the daring build, with a lap pool running through it, becomes all-consuming, there are doubts they will finish.

Simon and Lauren want to convert a tiny 150-year-old church into their family home. This means honouring the history of the church while creating a modern house – will they succeed?

Perth couple Angelo and Kasi love the bulky concrete buildings from the 1950s. But when they see the plans for their new family home, there are a few surprises. Will they embrace the unique design?

Matt and Eloise leave Melbourne for Tasmania. But the budget for their build means Matt has to do most of the work himself. An injury, pregnancy and a giant Great Dane puppy all add to the chaos!

David and Jenny have a dream to live in a super-modern terrace house in a traditional suburb. But their daring plan to create a three-storey home really pushes stress levels and finances to the limit.

When Rob and Sally buy land for their new home, they are faced with endless challenges. The build must withstand the elements, celebrate the amazing views and blend effortlessly into the surroundings. Is it possible?

In the Melbourne suburb of Northcote, the Skipping Girl Vinegar Factory was a siren call for sustainable architect, Adrian Light. But old buildings have a way of resisting change and this one is no exception. Adrian has big plans to turn what is essentially a four storey red brick warehouse with 20 huge concrete vinegar vats into a four bedroom sustainable home for his family. At every stage he is confronted with the realities of reworking a stubborn old, wet factory. As the months turn into years this really is a question of who will win?

Canberra couple Barbara and Bill Coyle have been lucky enough to live in houses designed by Australia's best known architects. They love modernist architecture so they engaged the right architect to design them something 70's. Bill an orthopaedic surgeon, has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Their new house with its curved roofline and glass entrance is designed for the future when he'll be in a wheelchair.

Draftsman Nigel Eberhardt is a conservationist at heart – a passion he shares with partner Nina, a school teacher. Their love for the natural environment saw them purchase one of the last remaining native bush blocks in Turners Beach, a beachside suburb brimming with neat houses and manicured lawns, on Tasmania's north coast, where they build a house around the already established trees.

Mark and Karen Bartkevicius restore an old hydro-electricity substation at Launceston in Tasmania and convert it into a two-bed home, salvaging original antique bricks and using old-school lime render.

While in the inner city suburb of East Melbourne in Victoria, a very small block is set to make way for a three story totally green home with geo-thermal heating and cooling and a rooftop garden and spa. Photographer Ralph Alfonso has a very strong sense of how precious our environment is and how little space we really need to live in. His downsized style of living focuses on being as frugal as possible, using a ground-breaking and innovative environmental design. The thing is… the house footprint measures just 5 x 4 metres, making it grand in design, although miniature in size.

Chef Dan Zeidan and his partner Vicky Kordatou want a truly sustainable rural escape, building a zero-waste home from recycled and recyclable non-toxic materials at Kinglake, one hour from Melbourne

B&B owners Art van Dyke and Troy West build a three-level, one-bedroom, contemporary home bookended by an 1850s stone cottage, near Harcourt in Victoria, on land that comes with its own granite quarry.

Sculptor Ben Gilbert and his brother Chris, an architect, build one-bedroom living quarters at an abandoned sawmill in Yackandandah, Victoria, using an off-the-wall design crammed full of innovation

Before Matt McLelland's wife Anne died six years ago, they'd been looking for a rural property to build on - a place to call home for them and for their four adult children to come to visit. So when Matt stumbled across 40 acres in central Victoria with spectacular views to Mt Alexander's granite hill side, he knew he'd found the spot.

Peter Maddison meets Daniel Leipnik and Andrew Preston, who plan to build a slick, pavilion-style home, huddled around a pool and propped up by poles on a coastal hillside outside Cairns.

Peter Maddison meets Rod Moore and Di Foggo, who plan to build an ultra-modern, fixed-price, flat-pack house high on a rocky outcrop overlooking the town of Kyneton in Victoria.

Peter Maddison meets Anne and Michael Potter, who plan to build a modern version of a retro home, featuring curved steel and walls of glass, overlooking the harbour in Sydney's Five Dock.

Peter Maddison meets retired engineer Bernie Ryan, who plans to use an eccentric, industrial design, a minimal budget and a cowboy attitude to build a new home in Paynesville, Victoria

Over the years, Nick and Anna McKimm have almost made a hobby of renovating, selling and moving on. But with three young children, they're ready to lay down permanent roots and build their dream home. A sleek, modernist, 60's inspired family residence on a large, half acre block in Melbourne's bayside suburb, Brighton.

Ian McDonald and Rob Wilhelm build a spectacular $1.8 million dollar home overlooking Port Phillip Bay on the Bellarine Peninsula.

Drew Muirhead builds a spectacular Balinese resort style mansion in leafy Cottage Point. The end result has a private beach with boatshed and speedboat, but the journey to the finish line isn't easy with the slope of the block and access to it posing a number of building challenges

Engineer Peter Riedel and his wife Mary purchase an 1870's church for $20,000 and re-build it into a beautiful home.

On their 4,000 square metre block, Steve and Lisa Morley live the American dream and build a Hampton's style home in the Gold Coast hinterlands.

Trevor and Francoise Sullivan (and their friends) build a cyclone proof tropical tree house that is windowless and based on the shape of a 50 cent piece.

Julie and Patrick Eltridge purchase an asbestos-riddled house in Sydney's beachside Clovelly and in its place build a modern architecturally designed home using a Melbourne firm of 'pre-fab' builders, who custom build them a modular home that is trucked to Sydney and assembled on site.

Jan and Ed Gillman painstakingly restore a tumbled-down weatherboard (one of the oldest homes in the region) in Southport, to its former glory.

Architect Domenic Alvaro and his partner Sue Bassett purchase a tiny corner car park (7m x 6m) and turn it into 220 square metres of fantastic living space. Despite a rapid pace of construction using prefabricated concrete components, their vertical build faces many interesting challenges. The design won a 2011 World Architecture Festival award.

After spending 2 years building his dream home in Callignee, Victoria, the worst bushfires in Victoria's history (Black Sunday) burnt the home of Chris Clarke to the ground. After recovering from the shock, Chris decides to rebuild his home on the same site, and the idea of Callignee 2 is born. Follow Chris on his journey to build his spectacular new home in the Australian bush.

The new season of Grand Designs Australia opens with a one hour special Kevin McCloud's Top 10 Grand Designs Australia premiering Thursday, April 20 at 8.30pm on Foxtel's Lifestyle.

Set in historic Homewood House in Surrey, England, Grand Designs Australia host Peter Maddison and Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud sit down with a cup of tea and an old fashioned slide slow to reminisce about the design features of each of the ten homes, selected from the past six seasons.

The design gurus talk cladding, tiles and form, and with whisky in hand, engage in some gentle banter over each other's take on the architecture of their favourite builds. While the special looks over the past, it also serves as a teaser for the upcoming seventh season.