Homing

Why are some people drawn to minimalist architecture while others prefer nostalgic rooms filled with antiques and personal artefacts?

Writer and philosopher Alain de Botton believes the answer might lie deeper than taste. 
For many years, Alain has explored the emotional forces that shape our inner lives – from love and loss to status anxiety. Through his educational organisation, The School of Life, he has focused on wellbeing and self-understanding.  
Much of this thinking connects directly to the built environment.

In his book The Architecture of Happiness, Alain argues that buildings are never neutral: they can steady us, unsettle us, and quietly influence who we become.
In this conversation, Alain reflects on his own relationship with domestic space – and how, in many ways, he has spent a lifetime trying to recreate the modernist calm of his childhood home in Switzerland.  
 
Together, Matt and Alain explore beauty, belonging and control – and examine why so many of us turn to architecture in search of a kind of psychological skin. 
 
This is a conversation that goes to the heart of what Homing is about: how we build safety, both in the spaces around us and within ourselves. 
This episode was filmed at Alain’s house in North London.
To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version
Instagram: @homingwithmatt
TikTok: @homing.with.matt
Contact: Email us at [email protected]

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 
Produced by @podshoponline
For exclusive walking tours – from Dan Pearson’s year-round outdoor kitchen to Polly Morgan’s taxidermy zebra – join us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith has spent most of his life on the same plot of land, tending its gardens and letting the land shape him in return.
 
Tom has designed gardens at places like Chatsworth, Tate Britain and The Hepworth Wakefield. He’s won nine gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show, and was awarded an OBE in 2023.
 
But long before any of that, he was a child roaming Serge Hill in Hertfordshire, the estate his grandfather bought decades ago. Tom spent his childhood climbing its trees and staging Shakespeare plays. And apart from a brief spell away, he’s lived just 200 yards from his childhood home for almost his entire life.
 
Tom’s wife, Sue Stuart-Smith, is a psychotherapist and author of the book The Well Gardened Mind. Together, they created the Serge Hill Project – a part of the estate where community groups, schoolchildren, young offenders and people recovering from illness can get hands-on with the soil and experience the uplifting power of nature.
This is a conversation about landscapes, legacy and what it really means to stay rooted in one place.
The episode was recorded at The Apple House, a modern pavilion on the estate designed by their son Ben.
A full tour of the building and its surroundings is available to our Patreon community.
Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt
To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version
Instagram: @homingwithmatt
TikTok: @homing.with.matt
Contact: Email us at [email protected]
Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496
Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office
Produced by @podshoponline
The full visualised tour of Tom’s estate is available to our Patreon community.
Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Anxiety is something many of us carry quietly. It can shape everything, from how we move through the world to how we feel at home.
In this episode of Homing, Dr Alexandra Shaker explores how the home can become a sanctuary and how physical environments can either soothe or unsettle us.
Alexandra is a specialist in anxiety disorders with a PhD in Clinical Psychology. Her book The Narrowing combines her personal experiences of panic attacks with what she’s learned over years as a practitioner and researcher.   
The conversation traces some of the root causes of anxiety and practical ways to live alongside it, from mindfulness and sleep hygiene to the importance of community and belonging. Matt and Alexandra discuss how spaces, lighting, sounds, and materials can trigger panic, and how the home can be adapted into a calming, grounding refuge.
This episode is about understanding anxiety in the body, the power of practical support, and how a home can centre us and keep us grounded through difficult times.
To hear more from Alexandra:
Her Substack Janus Gate features pressing questions, hesitations and preoccupations through the lenses of psychological research and contemporary culture. You’ll also receive her book reviews.
To hear more from us:
YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version
Instagram: @homingwithmatt
TikTok: @homing.with.matt
Contact: Email us at [email protected]
Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496
Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 
Produced by @podshoponline
For exclusive walking tours – from Dan Pearson’s year-round outdoor kitchen to Polly Morgan’s taxidermy zebra – join us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Author and podcaster Elizabeth Day spent years chasing a vision of the ‘perfect’ home life, only to discover that reality can look very different.

She grew up in the Northern Irish countryside, in a home that was physically safe but shadowed by unrest in the wider community. Childhood fears of monsters under the bed were replaced by the reality of masked terrorists, which has made the concept of home as a place of safety so central to her life today.

In the high-pressure early years of her journalism career at The Evening Standard, Elizabeth sought to create peaceful, restorative spaces – first in her own apartments, and later in the relationships she invested in.

Her path has also been marked by profound challenges: the unexpected breakdown of her first marriage and a 12-year fertility journey that ultimately ended in disappointment. As a high achiever with a clear picture of her life goals, learning to navigate what she describes as “failure” has been far from straightforward.

She describes her life in more recent years as “a dismantling of that and a recovery of who I was at four.” 

Her current home and her loving marriage to Justin are built upon the lessons she learned from these experiences. Elizabeth describes finding her home as a moment of fate, as if the universe delivered exactly what she needed. 

This episode looks at how perfectionism can take us away from ourselves, and how love and self-compassion can help us feel at home again.
The episode was recorded in Elizabeth’s house in South London.

A full house tour is available to our Patreon community.
Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

Elizabeth’s new novel, One of Us, is published by 4th Estate and available to purchase in hardback here. You can also preorder a copy of the paperback out (21 May) here.
To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version
Instagram: @homingwithmatt
TikTok: @homing.with.matt
Contact: Email us at [email protected]

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 
Produced by @podshoponline

The full visualised studio tour is available to our Patreon community.
Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In the first episode of a new strand of Homing, Katherine May frames the home as a place to slow down and take refuge from the overstimulating world beyond.

Katherine is known for her bestselling book Wintering, which explores the importance of rest and retreat during the fallow periods of life that we all experience. 

The conversation delves into what happens when we allow ourselves to notice natural rhythms and cycles: the solstices, the shifting light, and the subtle signals that tell us when it’s time to slow down. 

Katherine describes home as a sensory environment – almost as an extension of the body itself – and how the spaces we live in can either soothe the nervous system, or quietly overwhelm it. 

The conversation turns to boredom and creativity – and why giving children unstructured time and space can be one of the most generous things we do for them. 

Katherine helps us understand the home as a place where we can learn to restore ourselves, enabling us to go back out into the world with renewed strength.
To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version
Instagram: @homingwithmatt
TikTok: @homing.with.matt
Contact: Email us at [email protected]

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 
Produced by @podshoponline

For exclusive walking tours – from Dan Pearson’s year-round outdoor kitchen to Polly Morgan’s taxidermy zebra – join us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★