Hemal and Kapila have busy lives, juggling a new business start-up and raising three children who are all under seven, but their house is not helping to ease the pressure. They want their four-bedroom house near Stockport to give them the flexibility for easy, family time together, even when they’re working from home. Hemal and Kapila also yearn for a welcoming home where sisters, aunts, cousins and grandparents can congregate in comfort. But all of this seems like a distant dream.

The room that should be the heart of their home, the kitchen, is in a dark corner separated from the dining room by a wall which forces them to ferry food through the hall and living room to reach their guests. With barely any storage space, all food and drinks are kept in a cold and damp lean-to which is so cold they often put a coat on to go in. Their home is office is also causing problems, as it’s two floors up in the attic, which separates them from family life.

Hemal and Kapila have wrestled endlessly with how to improve things, but the project has not moved forward. Hemal thinks the answer is more space, so he wants a large extension, but Kapila believes they just need to reconfigure the existing footprint.

Desperate for an idea that will unite them, they have invited two competing architects, Will Foster and Lizzie Fraher, to turn the house that divides them into one which unites the whole family. Each architect interprets the brief in wildly different ways, but which design will the Hemal and Kapila choose? Show less