It was a day for those who love ideas and stories. Last month, I participated in TEDxObserver in a format more camp-fire than classroom.

Twenty-one speakers talked about survival, campaigning and making a difference, in sixteen minute slots. They broadcasted the best currency available, their own brand of optimism. For many, it was a response to difficulties faced in their own lives, but also for the purpose of making the lives of others more worth living. For others it was giving something back, whether as entertainment, or ideas, both big and small.

It is hard to know whose performance to start describing – maybe the dancing psychologist/researcher, Peter Lovatt who got us dancing in our seats. (See the video of him here.) I found out later he and his wife dance in their kitchen. Mark Solms is a neuro-psycho-analyst, wine-making farmer who offered a historical solution to South Africa’s land problem. Or maybe Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian who lost his three daughters to Israeli shelling while they were at home together. He is the embodiment of anti-hate messages with a personal philosophy that we could all use at times, especially in the world’s most troubled region. Another standout was Renee Redzepi, the Danish chef whose restaurant Noma was voted best in the world. His menus combine wildness, fresh flavours and sourcing of ingredients in a way that is unshakably connected to its origins. He has set up a gastronomic research institute in Copenhagen. I so want go and taste them.

My response to the talks involved a full spectrum of emotions. I was alternatively enchanted, appalled, worried or inspired. Music provided necessary breaks to accommodate the intensity of the lectures. Young British soul singer Alice Russell and Senegalese musician Baaba Maal took us away from the conference chambers into a place where we could rest, especially necessary after hearing about the experience of British Paralympic athlete Martine Wright, who sat next to the 7/7 bomber and found herself alive with no legs.

Ex-Downing St policy adviser, Geoff Mulgan brought us a dose of applied research, patiently explaining how happiness can be measured, applied and put money back in its place. Sara Brown, who runs Piggy BankKids, a program to reduce maternal and infant mortality in developing countries, reminded how far a small amount of money can go. Similarly, former supermodel and founder of the Happy Hearts Foundation Petra Nemcova builds schools after tsunamis and disasters. Such messages were a call to action. A film clip from Home by director Yann Arthus-Bertrand reminded us of the beauty of the planet and the pressure we are putting it under to feed and clothe us. The title is particularly evocative to a designer like myself who has spent a large part of his life re-enforcing the value, meaning and safety of ‘home’.

This TEDx event was locally organised by the Observer’s feature writer, Carole Cadwalladr and editor John Mullholland. Although the sessions occasionally felt disjointed, one of the highlights was allowing real people, rather than celebrities, to tell their stories, which made for a visceral rather than intellectual experience. Visceral learning is a more powerful way of remembering things, especially on such a variety of topics. TED and the Observer have developed a winning format that could be applied at future conferences. I can see many more coming up and hope to be involved in some way.

“Cooking is an art. By art I mean a lot of creativity and some necessary chaos. Food is a natural product and whatever is natural comes with surprising and unruly elements.”

So wrote Jeanette Winterton in Saturday’s Guardian in an article entitled “For the Love of Food.” She continues: “Our culture has endeavoured to make food as artificial and synthetic as possible – then it is predictable and can be controlled.”

This statement is applicable to our entire food culture, including the environment in which it is created. Winterton’s piece was a memorial to Rose Gray, the co-founder of the River Café, London’s most revered Italian restaurant.

Gray passed away last week. Winterson refers to my late aunt, food writer Elizabeth David, as Rose’s chief mentor and explains also how ED’s (as family and friends called her) writing changed British food for the better. This struck a personal chord for me, as Elizabeth David was also my mentor both personally and in my early days as a kitchen designer.

British food was dreadful during late 19^th and most of the 20^th century, just as British kitchens were anti-social, back rooms that made cooking a drudgery. Could there be a link? Was British food better before the industrial revolution? Elizabeth David felt that it was, and that our best or most ‘real’ cooking was historically done in the nation’s farmhouses, not in restaurants, in a similar manner to how things are done in France.

From local cheeses to cured meats, these farmhouses were the source of regional cooking.  It is no coincidence that the most endearing model for the kitchen is the ‘farmhouse kitchen’. It conjures up happy thoughts, ideas of abundance, rough and ready but homely meals being served up on a refectory table, with the the entire family gathered around.

So perhaps Winterson could be describing not just food but British (and American) kitchens too, with the industry making them artificial and predictable so they can be controlled, i.e. turned out efficiently from factories, easy to sell and install.

For years, I have had an aching desire to capture some of the transferable pleasures of eating – the sociability, the feeling of living well – to the place where we eat and cook. I don’t want these spaces to be organised as an expression of commercial ease, but rather to be private expressions of ourselves. So when Winterson goes on to say ‘real cooks only follow a recipe once’, and then they build on it with inventiveness and reinterpret it according to available seasonal ingredients, I would agree.

The same applies to kitchen design. It’s a messy and creative process and no formula exists that works twice. Every house, family, space has its own unique footprint and way of living. I want to offer a big thank you to Jeanette Winterson for her thoughts that allowed me to make the connection. How about a new saying for modernists, that function follows food? Let’s hope real food brings more love to real kitchens in the future.