In the first instalment McCloud visits five architectural glories in the country. One will be instantly familiar to Grand Designs fans, the fabulous house built from four shipping containers in Londonderry. Elsewhere we visit Somerset and the low-energy timber farmhouse built at the foot of a wooded hill, a house that looks like giant wedges of flint, an eco house in Cambridgeshire and a glass-roofed villa.

Kevin McCloud explores more inspiring homes in the running for the Riba House of the Year Award, before revealing which one has made it onto the shortlist. He visits a bright orange metal clad residence in the suburbs of Kew, a modernist property built over a river in Belfast, a low budget home constructed around a series of courtyard gardens, and a hidden house that uses vaulted roof lights to illuminate its depths.

Kevin McCloud reveals five more candidates vying to be crowned Riba House of the Year 2015, including a luxurious city home complete with a basement swimming pool, a concrete an brick open-plan house in Liverpool, and a geometric homestead in Northern Ireland. Plus, a Hollywood-inspired pad in north London, and a modernist villa in north Wales.

Kevin McCloud visits three more houses competing for a place on the finalist shortlist, including a timber and steel clad home in Dungeness, a pink brick house in Belfast, and an 18th century converted mill in rural Scotland. At the end of the show he announces the overall winner of the Royal Institute of British Architects House of the Year 2015, before visiting the house and discovering why it has been crowned the best new home in Britain.