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PODCAST

Homing

The Homing podcast explores the importance of home in shaping who we are. Join Matt Gibberd, author and co-founder of The Modern House, as he takes listeners inside the homes of inspiring guests to examine what really happens inside our walls – how they influence our emotions, creativity and sense of self. Featuring leading voices from art, film, wellbeing and beyond, Homing is a thoughtful journey into remarkable homes and the minds that shape them. Be prepared for tears, laughter, and

arts design

All Episodes

76:02

Dan Martensen: The Fashion Photographer Who Learned...

Homing ·

2026/10/01

Dan Martensen is a portrait and fashion photographer whose work appears in Vogue, i-D and WSJ Magazine. He’s also the founder of It’s Bagels, bringing the New York-style bagel he grew up with to London.In this conversation, Dan talks about being uprooted from his childhood home at eleven, struggling to fit in at school, and learning to hide his sensitivity to get by.We discuss how those early experiences influenced his work as a photographer, his instinctive ability to connect with people,

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60:47

Why Creativity Is a Human Need | With Amie McNee

Homing ·

2026/09/24

Writer and creative coach Amie McNee believes that creativity isn’t a luxury; it’s a fundamental human need, and one that many of us are suppressing.Amie has a wonderfully broad definition of creativity. It might mean writing a novel or painting a picture, but it could just as easily be gardening, baking a cake, or singing in the shower. It’s not about creating something good, useful, or profitable; it’s about making things because that’s what humans do.In this conversation, we talk about

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74:29

Rose Wylie: Nonconformity, Ageing & the Beauty of an...

Homing ·

2026/09/17

At 91, Rose Wylie has one of the most remarkable stories in contemporary British art. She stopped painting in order to raise her three children and returned to it in middle age, finding widespread recognition in her seventies. Today her work is exhibited around the world, and earlier this year she had a major show at the Royal Academy.For the past 58 years, Rose has lived in the same house in Kent. It’s an extraordinary space where piles of discarded paper are strewn across the floor, and

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58:35

Is Your Home Keeping You Awake? Professor Russell...

Homing ·

2026/09/10

We spend around a third of our lives asleep, yet for so many of us, getting a good night’s sleep can feel like a real struggle. Could our homes hold some of the answers to sleeping better?In this conversation, leading sleep expert and Oxford Professor of Circadian Neuroscience Russell Foster rethinks the rules of sleep and explores how we can create a home environment that supports our natural rhythms. We discuss why getting outside in the morning is one of the best things we can do for

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85:06

Charlene Prempeh: Why More Space Isn’t the Key to a...

Homing ·

2026/09/03

Matt Gibberd visits writer and creative consultant Charlene Prempeh at her home in North London. Charlene is the founder of A Vibe Called Tech, a creative studio that champions Black culture. She’s a columnist for the Financial Times, and curator of an upcoming exhibition at the Design Museum called The Nue Black Aesthetic.Charlene grew up in a small council house in Canning Town that was, in her words, "teeming with people". She was the youngest of four children, raised by a single mother,

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48:55

Lemn Sissay: What Happens When Home Rejects You?

Homing ·

2026/08/20

Lemn Sissay is a poet, playwright and broadcaster. Few people have thought more deeply about the meaning of home than Lemn. As a baby, Lemn was separated from his Ethiopian mother and placed into foster care with a white family. He grew up believing he had been abandoned, not even knowing his real name. From the age of twelve, he was placed in a series of children's homes, where he remained until adulthood. In this conversation, we explore how those early experiences shaped Lemn’s

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75:08

Anna Jones: Why Home Is an Act of Care

Homing ·

2026/08/13

Anna Jones is a cook, food writer, and one of the leading voices in modern vegetarian cooking. For Anna, making food for someone is the ultimate act of care.She began her career working alongside Jamie Oliver, before becoming one of Britain's best-loved food writers in her own right with bestsellers like A Modern Way to Eat and One: Pot, Pan, Planet. Anna grew up in a close-knit family where food was central to everything and, for a shy child, cooking became a way to express herself. She

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61:33

Martha Beck: What Happens When Home Isn’t Safe?

Homing ·

2026/08/06

Martha Beck is a sociologist, bestselling author and one of the world’s leading life coaches. Oprah Winfrey has called her ‘one of the smartest women I know.’Martha grew up in the Mormon community in Utah, in a home that was a source of shame for her and her siblings.Her childhood was one of profound anxiety and depression, and she’s written openly about the abuse she experienced from her father. Those traumatic experiences led to a lifelong search for safety – and what it really means to

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74:17

Jinny Blom: Why We All Need Somewhere to Hide

Homing ·

2026/07/30

Jinny Blom is one of Britain's leading landscape designers. She has created over 700 gardens – and each one begins, in some way, with a search for security.Jinny trained as a psychologist and psychotherapist, working for many years in mental health, before a prophetic dream prompted her to devote herself to her lifelong interest in natural landscapes and gardens.Since then, Jinny has created spaces that promote the relationship between nature and health – from her sky garden at Chelsea and

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54:51

Poet Jackie Kay on Adoption, Identity and the Long...

Homing ·

2026/07/23

Jackie Kay is an acclaimed poet and novelist, who was previously the national poet of Scotland – a role known as the Makar. She’s the author of Red Dust Road, a memoir that chronicles a twenty-year search for her birth parents.Jackie was adopted as a baby by a white Scottish couple and grew up in suburban Glasgow. Throughout her life, she's had to explore questions of identity, belonging and family – themes that run through some of the most celebrated writing of the past forty years. In

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74:34

Phin Harper: How a Breakup Helped Me Find Home

Homing ·

2026/07/16

Architecture critic and writer Phineas Harper believes that good design and heritage belong to all of us. Phin lives on Vanbrugh Park, a post-war council estate in Greenwich designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, the architects behind the Barbican. It's a home that completely reflects Phin’s ethos: architecture doesn’t have to be fancy to enrich our lives.Phin is deeply woven into the fabric of the neighbourhood. Together with their neighbours, they've transformed neglected corners of the

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60:21

Why Comfort Isn't Always Good for Us | With Architect...

Homing ·

2026/07/09

Does modern design shelter us, or is it cutting us off from the world? Architect Stefan Behling believes that many of today's buildings have turned us into what he calls "humans in captivity”. They keep the temperature constant, shut out the sounds and smells of the outside world, and misunderstand what it really means to be comfortable. As a senior partner at Foster + Partners, Stefan has spent more than thirty years exploring sustainable architecture and human-centric design, working on

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68:55

Architect Sophie Hicks on being an 80s cover girl,...

Homing ·

2026/07/02

Sophie Hicks has helped fashion brands like Paul Smith, Yohji Yamamoto and Acne Studios translate their vision into built form. But before becoming one of Britain's most respected architects, she was immersed in the world of fashion.She worked alongside Grace Coddington and Azzedine Alaïa, styled shoots for Vogue and Tatler, and became an iconic face of the early Eighties after appearing on the cover of i-D magazine in a portrait by David Bailey. In this conversation, we explore her

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72:39

Johann Hari: How to Find Connection in a Lonely World

Homing ·

2026/06/25

Loneliness, anxiety and a loss of belonging are among the defining crises of our time. Johann Hari believes they share a common cause.Johann is the author of Lost Connections and Stolen Focus – two of the most widely read books on mental health published in the last decade. He argues that depression and anxiety are often misunderstood: not simply as biological problems, but as signals that our modern environment is failing to meet some of our deepest psychological needs.In this episode of

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65:00

Chef Margot Henderson on Home, Food & Caring for Fergus

Homing ·

2026/06/18

Margot Henderson is one of Britain's most influential chefs, and a pioneer of “nose-to-tail” cooking. She's spent her career finding value in what others might disregard – a philosophy that extends far beyond the kitchen.Alongside her husband, Fergus Henderson, she's helped redefine the way we eat, with an approach that's simple, honest and rooted in ingredients rather than technique.While Fergus founded St. JOHN, Margot helped shape a generation of cooks through Rochelle Canteen, Arnold

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55:33

Can a Home Help You Heal? – With Psychotherapist...

Homing ·

2026/06/11

Today's guest is psychotherapist Julia Samuel MBE, one of Britain's leading experts on grief and trauma.Julia has worked with hundreds of families navigating bereavement, including members of the Royal Family. She was a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales, and supported Prince William and Prince Harry following Diana's death.In this conversation, we explore belonging and why some people never feel settled where they are, tracing it back to the role home plays in early life.Julia shares

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87:02

Patrick Williams on Grief, Restoration and the House...

Homing ·

2026/06/04

Patrick Williams is an interior decorator who specialises in period buildings and restoration projects. He views design not just as decoration, but as a form of storytelling and historical preservation.Patrick is the founder of Berdoulat, a design practice named after the remarkable house in France that his parents restored over a twenty-year period during his childhood – a project that became central to their family story and continues to shape his work today.In this conversation, we talk

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53:32

Can Your Home Make You Healthier? – With Dr. Esther...

Homing ·

2026/05/28

Should the home be considered one of the pillars of health? Dr. Esther Sternberg believes good design can heal us — and that architects should think of themselves not just as designers, but almost as health professionals. Esther is a physician and researcher whose work focuses on the relationship between mind, body and environment. She is the author of Healing Spaces and Well at Work, which explores the growing science of how the spaces we inhabit affect our health and wellbeing.In this

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56:12

David Shrigley on Anxiety, Absurdity & Ageing...

Homing ·

2026/05/21

David Shrigley has spent his life creating art that makes people laugh. He is one of Britain’s most recognisable contemporary artists, celebrated for his deadpan drawings that mix humour, bleakness and childlike simplicity.Growing up as a shy, introspective child, on a red-brick estate in the suburbs of Leicester, David was happiest alone with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil – fifty years later, not much has changed.His artworks have an improvised quality, but beneath them lies a

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66:31

Can a Prison Ever Feel Like Home? – with Professor...

Homing ·

2026/05/14

The spaces we inhabit shape who we become. But what does that mean for the people who have no choice where they live? Yvonne Jewkes is a professor of criminology, author, and leading expert on prison architecture. She has spent her career studying what echoing corridors, metal doors and harsh fluorescent lighting do to the people living inside prisons — and designing spaces that restore rather than punish.This conversation is also very personal. Yvonne spent more than a decade restoring a

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97 results

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