Home for Life continued...

The starting point of this new architecture was that child's bed. Dean's research for the project highlighted one central theme that became the basis for all his future designs. He questioned dozens of children about what they liked or disliked about their beds and bedrooms. Again and again, when they spoke of discomfort they were referring not to the softness of the mattress but the "feel" of the room. They said they were afraid of spaces under the bed, where monsters might lurk, or shapes made by clothes hanging on the back doors or highly patterned wallpapers. When asked what they would like, the children described caves or tent-like structures. They wanted to be enclosed; hidden from view but able to see out. In other words, in order to feel comfortable they had to feel safe.

In adults this primeval instinct to seek security is blurred by the sophistication of taste. But it is still apparent in the way we behave in our daily lives. When you go to a restaurant you tend to choose a table in a corner with your back to the wall, so you know what is happening around you and no one can approach unseen from behind.

When Dean came to design a bed for adults he added steps up to it. By chance, he built them with a clockwise rise. "I didn't realise for a while that if I'd made them go the other way it would have felt dreadful," he says. "I subsequently found that in Chuku Jujitsu fortress design in the middle ages that the accommodation is reached by staircases that rise clockwise. So that anyone attacking with pole arms or swords would all be off balance." The threat of military attack may have declined but the need for security and privacy is, if anything, more important in the late 20th century.

The key to Roger Dean's architecture is this strategic control of space. To be comfortable in a house, it must make you feel at home. This led Dean to design his womb-like rooms which can be arranged in clusters to form house, flats, hotels, office towers, or multimillion pound entertainment centres.