One advantage of the reduction of house prices now happening is that it makes us think more about connecting with our homes again – they become a place with which are going to have a long term relationship. The investment factor becomes less and we will be forced to consider enjoying it once again. A return to these traditional values is welcome. Several other advantages spring to mind including more time spent in the garden fixing it up and perhaps getting a veggie plot in as well. Good for health and stomachs. Another option is building a pergola or an area for Al Fresco eating. It’s a fantastic way to bring us into an outdoor room. Less ugly uncomfortable and ill used conservatories.

Secondly more cared for house - inside and out. I often think DIY has been high- jacked by the makeover mentality. Maintenance is one, big, important element of your relationship to your surroundings. Designers and home dwellers need to choose finishes and materials that can be maintained and age gracefully. Less PVC, more wood, natural paints and home made shelves, furniture, benches, blinds and linoleum.

Thirdly, the longer we stay in our homes the more we increase our connection to our neighbourhood. This makes for more inter-household support, less crime and better quality local activities.

Modern British housing hardly checks it customers into heavenly paradise. Genuine creativity in design of homes is limited, but there is a huge skill base in Britain’s design and house building community and with plenty of appetite for change that could meet some of our appetite for a home of our dreams. I ran a conference on this title last June.

The car purchaser buys into a sophisticated pre-researched product but the house buyer buys into high priced land, a thin veneer of design. The result is an experience short on well-being and the idea of home that people hold in the hearts. Most would agree that Britain’s house building industry needs re-inventing. Other countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Holland have exciting, well designed and reasonably priced modern housing. Why can’t we do it here?

What will we leave behind for our children? We could choose to live in sustainable, stylish, humane environments that are affordable, not built next to motorways. We have to work at it though creativity, research and better integration between the different constituencies of the housing industry.

I asked leading experts from the house building fraternity to talk to the conference about their vision and frustrations as well as their solutions - and to debate some of the major issues we face so that we can relearn the art of creating homes. Check out the websites of Ben Derbyshire at HTA architects, Wayne Hemingway at Hemingwaydesign for his project in Staiths near Newcastle and at Dartford. Bob Tomlinson at Living Villages.com. His company have been awarded the National Housebuilders Award for the best new home design. Also look at Urban Splash for their inventive and eye catching projects in Manchester.

For a thoughtful analysis of the housing industry look at the work of Yolande Barnes at Savill’s; for a humane analysis of what it is like growing up on a housing estate get a copy of Lynsey Hanley’s book Estates.

One year later we have a collapse in the financing for private house buying. What seems to me id s that those companies who build desirable environments will win out on the few sales opportunities as buyers get more power. But whether the big housebuilders – who spend an average of £150 on design per dwelling take any notice is another matter. The new sustainability focus might mean that they provide a few more trees and better bicycle paths but they still need to address the wider issues of poor internal design, lack of community focus, poor placing of housing either near noisy main roads or in hard to reach locations without public transport access and design style that has all the appeal of Harry Potters Dearsley’s ersatz tudor fusion estate.

If there isn’t a war inside your head you are in trouble. The art of cultivating inner voices maybe a sign of madness to some but for artists and designers it is a necessary form of creative turmoil. Howard Jacobson, the writer and critic said in a recent article on LS Lowry, the painter that inner dissensions are a vital spur to self development. By way of this I surmise he means going beyond the clichés of style and straight design issues to exploiting self doubt and the craggy edges from the hinterland of psychology and cultural history.

The way of giving design vitality is, rather than jogging along with the certainties of function, ergonomics and stripped down aesthetica, to go risky and push to the point of discomfort. After all you have to teleport yourself into newness so you might as well take it a stage further.. But it’s no use challenging a client with a cutting edge design unless you have had that inner dialogue. Gravitas comes via confidence, borne of preparation and meditative analysis infuses your argument with depth, gives your story a rich narrative. A visit to an unfashionable architect’s building, reading an obscure tract in Praise of Shadows, struggling with a dystopian novel, making a foray into an-edge-of-design topic like the role of mess or philosophy of maintenance or simply trying out practical ideas by trial and inconvenient error – all these mini journeys even frustrated ones count.

There is no substitute for depth and authenticity and that is achieved through a combination of curiosity, experience, courage and a wide band width of interest.
Design more than some other professions is about the future. We need the gift of foresight because the physical world, unlike software and the world of media, hangs around a long time, is more expensive to change. How we will live in twenty years time? We need to suss out what social changes there will be. Will we be still living in houses with loads of small rooms for example? Are green issues going to change our use of space? Will changes in our behaviour be requiring separate kitchens? If not then we may no longer require architects, kitchen and interior designers but wholistic ‘interior architects’ who understand peoples emotional needs. This will this make many of us obselete.? Perhaps we might need ‘emotional’ designers who focus on human needs as much as practical ones? As is happens the science of happiness is now big news and will be available as a tool for designers through neuroscience.

So we need to go for inspiration to the fringes where writers, artists, scientists, futurists, psychologists and street wise graffiti merchants, independent thinkers and provacateurs live.. We should read not just design magazines but the New Scientist rather than design magazines, Resurgence (Green and philosophy) or books by dissidents, economists and political activists like No Logo, the text of Anti globalisation movement to Affluenza by Oliver James, the Alexander Technique by John Gray or Happiness by Richard Layard. I could go on. Take advantage of being in a profession that can justifiably investigate the savannah and the dark forests of civilisation to make the umbrella for life.. Summarise, link together, disseminate and put it to use when you draw up your next design project. Even if it only changes the colour scheme or adds a different shaped window seat you have brought your wisdom into play and society has gained from your awareness. Start that internal war now or perhaps I should call it dialogue.

Design is essentially applied thinking and not just solving the problems of measurement. It means not doing what everyone else is, challenging client’s expectations and having the skill to carryout your ideas. In this way life moves forwards, we have more fun and serve our clients better.