PREVIEW: Grand Designs (September 2021), Channel 4

Few of us would think of building a home to look like a work of art. But on a hill overlooking a beautiful valley in South Devon, Joe and Claire and their young children are doing just that.

Their new house will be a giant sculpture inspired by the local landscape, 70 metres long and featuring 34 enormous angled zinc shards jutting out in all directions. It will be astonishingly complicated and expensive to build.

But Joe, who's young, wealthy, ambitious and fearless, intends to invest a large part of his self-made fortune into making the impossible possible, and build 'one of the greatest homes on the planet'. But right from the start the problems are mind boggling.

Major structural engineering changes are necessary to contend with high winds hitting the shards, and the £835,000 budget virtually doubles before the first walls go up. A team of local builders struggle through all weathers to build a vast, intricate wooden frame, but the prefabricated timbers don't fit together.

As delays mount, making Joe's dream a reality seems further away than ever. What should have been a masterpiece is in danger of becoming a white elephant.

Grand Designs returns Wednesday at 9pm on Channel 4.