Architect and designer Nigel Coates, 59, has been professor of architecture at London's Royal College of Art since 1995 and is also a prolific furniture and lighting designer. His more experimental art/design work has been shown at the Architectural Association and Tate Modern and he is one of three UK-based architects invited to design an installation in the Corderie dell'Arsenale at the Venice Biennale 2008.

What attracted you to your current home? My London home is a pocket-sized palace that I found as a student in 1971. It's a one-bedroom flat in a Victorian building in south-west London that I rented until I bought it in 1987. It has very tall windows and high ceilings and, when I arrived, it had curtains with orange claw-mark patterns and G-Plan furniture. But I thought it was fantastic because it's on a very noisy corner site and I like being right in the heart of the city. It has always been an experimental place - I'd design things and think whether they would fit here.