As you travel throughout the UK don't you get utterly fed up with all the Mocky Horrors that are thrown up (in all senses) by developers? Tudorbethan, Vicwardian, Neo-Georgian, Chiltern Vernacular, Gloucester vernacular - oh please! Similar to wine that is void of grape - these are buildings that have not been acquainted with an architect. But you really can't blame developers. Why should they take the risk - especially if they can sell this junk? Why should they change? They will quite understandably follow fashion - not lead it. But I sense change is afoot with the buying public. Look in the metropolitan areas of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and other locations where 'loft' living and fairly contemporary apartments abound. Urban decay provided an opportunity for a freethinking new wave of inner city developers including Urban Splash. But where do these loft-livers go when they decide to have families - The Tudors, The Oaks, The Rectory, The Stenying, I personally just can't see. I hope consumers will become very demanding and say to developers, "no contemporary - no sale!" The message will get through eventually.

Presently we appear to be stuck in a housing time warp. Anybody looking back on the last 40 years of housing architecture will wonder what on earth has been going on. They will be convinced that builders and buyers were suffering visual illiteracy. It is my understanding that English Heritage are keen to see contemporary housing appear as there is such a dearth of anything that represents 'now.'

When we buy almost anything else we purchase the most modern and up-to-date we can buy - modern clothes, communications, consumer goods; we like to work in swish glass offices, and buy the most modern car we can - but like houses the latter says little. So why when we go home do we enter a time warp; all applied timbers and twiddly bits? 'Bring me the pills darling - I've got those nightmares again!'

Do we accept this build type because it's easy - rather like 'easy' listening - or because we have questionable visual literacy? Are our expectations being blunted by these uniform offerings? In Holland contemporary homes rub shoulders spectacularly with listed buildings and it's not seen as anything too exceptional. I look forward to the day the Dutch Architect Rem Koolhaas gets a UK commission for a country house. Stand by for local planning committee incontinence!


So that's 'why contemporary'. We are keen to live in a house of 'today', which is entirely genuine and using a simple palette of materials. If you are considering building a contemporary home and somebody says to you - 'the design is inappropriate' - just ask 'what is appropriate?' This question usually generates a long silence - ah bliss!