'The series explores the landscape of homes and looks at how the things we take for granted were invented - or developed from simple solutions to relieve us of tiresome labour - or generally make life more comfortable. It's a new and fresh look at the mechanics of domestic life over the centuries, with a unique and entertaining combination of 'hands-on' demonstrations and on-site illustrations.

It looks at the perennial problem of heat and light, how we have fed ourselves over the centuries and how we have created all manner of surprising contraptions in an attempt to make life easier.

' Imagine a completely blank sheet --- or an open plain which gradually fills up with objects and gizmos - layer upon layer that each melt into a timeless familiar landscape which we are born into and survive and interact. Those objects are the unchanging bedrock from which spring current so-called cutting-edge appliances and homewares. Its the base point from which we congratulate ourselves when we discover new design, labour saving devices or new lifestyle trends. But each of the most prosaic of household objects was a technological advance that played a part in domestic and social change and each one has a story to tell of gradual evolution, radical innovation and history. In the end though, understanding the mundane components of our domestic support structure is simply like looking at the town gasholder. It's gigantic and incongruous yet its familiarity means that it is invisible to us - until we see it moving with the aid of modern video techniques. Then it becomes a powerful kinetic sculpture, the motive power of that is simply the commodity that is being stored. Increasing or decreasing gas pressure raises or lowers the massive steel sections. An elegant design solution.

It is being able to see and understand rather than merely looking. Visual inquiry is at the heart of the design process. Physically understanding objects and materials as we interact with them informs our perceptions on lots of levels and allows us to visualise new concepts of practical things and/or visual appeal. The creative process operates in visual, experiential and cognitive strands in parallel.

That said, uncovering the strange genesis of the very ordinary is like discovering the colourful life story of a maiden aunt. The history of each innocuous little domestic item can open a window on all sorts of social drama. Once the needs of food and shelter are taken care of ---- there seem to be other elemental threads in our existence.

Gathering around a fire seems to be an essential in itself, hypnotic and more than getting warm and using the light. We tend to think of new technology as moving very fast in comparison to the mundane equipment and labour saving devices of an ordinary domestic background.

But this tame domestic landscape simply consists of many layers of technological innovation - each radical in its time. Each is now so familiar and a complete part of the mechanics of daily life that they warrant no awe - surely we could all have invented such stuff if we had needed to? New discoveries or radical innovations from other ages have slipped into the collective consciousness. Some clever 'inventions' are simply gradual modifications through usage over several generations - with no individual ownership - but others are genuine forward leaps - or rather big steps sideways!

In other instances, what seems like the most natural use of a technology today was perhaps originally a by-product or just a desperate attempt to generate an advantage over a commercial competitor. Some new technologies answer specific needs but in turn they rapidly alter our lifestyles and work in tandem with existing dormant technologies. Tin cans are pieces of history - initially in the circumstance of their original conception - and then in the development of manufacture - and even in the age of contents. Once you've invented a great life-enhancing object - you then have to invent something else to get the most out of it - hence the tin opener! The most simple and almost forgettable products give birth to huge industries and infrastructures in order to produce them - the tiny gas flame imitates the simplest of technologies - the candle - originally derived from a wick dipped in animal fat - but it needs an infrastructure of pipes that increase in size until they reach the source of the gas. It wasn't so long ago that gas was manufactured from coal in an involved industrial process but that was nothing compared to the heavy industry needed to produce cast-iron and later rolled steel pipes.

When seen at speed with today's video technology - the giant steel gas holders that still exist today move like giant kinetic sculptures and appear to dwarf the currently revered self-conscious architecture of Bilbao and the Imperial War Museum North - both in their scale and in the can-do confidence. The average person's idea of history is formed by school and consists of dates, rulers, invasions and the like.

This is reinforced by today's major news stories of wars, treaties and power struggles. But the development of our domestic landscape is History. We measure the passage of time in memories of furniture styles and the changes in what stores refer to as 'homewares'. Long-gone social conventions and structures are preserved along with corresponding artefacts in museums all over the country. As household artefacts ceased to be made by local craftsmen and became the stuff of industry, these industries provide the basis for the engines of war and the prizes and targets of the conflict itself.

The national virility symbol of heavy engineering would not exist without the need for the production of the most innocent household items (actually, the need for agricultural machinery created the first industrial revolution - but prior to farm machinery giving birth to engines and factories - agricultural implements had been made by the same blokes who fashioned domestic wares - blacksmiths). I grew up in a northern mill town and to make textiles you need looms and to make looms you need engineering expertise - and then you make other stuff.

My mother went from making textiles to making pans and then to the very heart of the Second World War as pan production gave way to munitions. Today we are aware of being manipulated by big commercial operations and in 'grooming' products; these usually revolve around creating guilt with our conventions of cleanliness and social behaviour. Cleanliness as a concept would have been alien to most people from Roman times until the industrial age.

Most schoolchildren are familiar with tales of how people were stitched into their clothes during the winter months - and there are enough great houses and interactive museums around to show how washing was a half-baked exercise in smell minimisation.

Sunday Times Article Draft 3

When I was a lad, I quite liked history as a school subject, although it seemed like a mind numbing collection of dates and monarchs.

What's more, it didn't seem to bear any relation to the passage of time as recounted by the older members of my family. The World Wars, monuments and churches however, did provide an overlap between facts in books and actual family experience.

As far as family and friends were concerned in our isolated, industrial Pennine environment, history was that darkage that stretched all the way back to the Dark Ages. This age finished somewhere in the 1950s. It was as if the Second World War was the last bit of oppression and hardship working people could put up with. Those generations were on the march out of a dark and arduous world, to a brave new world fought for by their own brave young men.

Even though our local engineering and mill workers were at the output end of the industrial machine, I suspect that they were unaware of the design revolutions going on in Europe between the wars that would ultimately affect the way they lived. Art Deco and Modernism had gone to America and morphed into the Jazz Age. Ordinary British people were influenced when the new style was glimpsed in films at the cinema and in the actual architecture of the cinemas themselves. Variety theatres underwent a similar transformation. Dance bands were the embodiment of all this in sound and in style. Recorded music had been widely experienced by Phonographs but during this time, wirelesses became affordable to the working classes.

Was it a coincidence - did the new consumer consciousness drive the technological push - or did innovation create a new consumerist demand? To have a state-of-the-art device like the wireless sitting in the middle of a sombre Victorian-style working class home didn't say you had arrived - posh folk had already had their homes completely kitted out in the new style. What it did say was "The shackles are breaking, we're on our way". It was part of the drive to make life easier, more enjoyable and it continued to gather pace.

I was born in the 1950s as the wireless was augmented by the television, itself a miniature Chrysler building in appearance. My first memory is of damp and monstrous noise as I played at the foot of my Mother's brand new washing machine. It was one of the first examples of white goods (Art Deco cream really) with an aesthetic that owed nothing to the ancient devices and furniture in our home. Early models came from the US and it was as if an exotic American car had been re-shaped, with a new power mangle stuck on top (some machines were bolted to the floor to stop them rattling off). As I grew up, it grew more tired and rusty and became a benchmark by which we judged the next generation of appliances and the march of time.

Television became the 'must-have' product of the 1950s and that meant that we saw more American films and more of American lifestyle. Not only was it a sunny contrast to the damp and dismal North, life seemed easier there - they seemed to be inventing things to make life more luxurious by the minute. For a start, everyone seemed to have a car which they drove to drive-in restaurants and then returned home to the car-sized fridge for buckets of ice cream. Going to our larder to get jam or Marmite to make a butty, didn't seem to have the same appeal.

Essentially, working class people didn't have money for big ticket items like the fridge but the concept had migrated to America and then returned to be manufactured under license. Essentially the same format as today but with a compressor the size of a hat-box on top plus Victorian cabriole legs - one of those style vestiges that designers cannot resist including if they are worried about sales or have limited vision.

Of course, the new goodies did exist in Britain, the Toffs had them. The thrust for the wealthy was not to make life easier, it was easy enough thanks to servants, it was the desire to embrace technology - just because they could. The ornamental lakes in the great houses of ancestral toffs had a practical function. The production of ice for keeping food fresh and gin and tonics cold. A house the size of Stourhead in Wiltshire would have a staff of 75 to remove the ice from the lake in winter, and take it by wheelbarrow to the huge underground icehouse. To prevent the whole lot fusing together into one giant 100 ton lump of ice, it was separated by layers of straw. To withstand soil pressure above and to aid drainage the whole brick structure is in the form of a giant inverted egg. The daily tally marks scratched by the workers on the entrance/exit at the top of the chamber add to the dungeon atmosphere. There are still around two thousand icehouses in working order across Britain and that's the remainder of an estimated total of NUMBER in DATE.

Displaying one's wealth in Victorian times manifested itself in more unusual ways. In today's age of hot tubs and power showers few realise how hot the middle classes were for showers and plumbing. Copper and brass pipe work formed elaborate architectural structures above the bath and covered the body in needle jets of water. Various sets of perforated pipes were supplied with hot and cold water from a sophisticated mixer tap and manifold. All this at a time when cleanliness wasn't the norm and working class people were still sewn into their clothes in the autumn and unstitched in the spring.

Mediterranean bread ovens that give us pizza today are almost biblical in appearance and timeless in usage. British versions were in common use until the 17th Century. Lumps of dough were simply placed amongst the fire and ashes on the floor of the oven. These loaves have class baked right into them. The bread was initially sliced horizontally and then the top part was cut into pieces for the family of the house - the 'upper crust' and the ash covered bottom bit went to the household's lower orders. How would a modern equivalent similarly affect the language? Would society be divided between the Chiabattas and the Pot Noodles? A wide range of technological changes has ensured radical changes for every generation.

The arrival of cheap gas and electricity would seem to be an opportunity for technological consumerism to kick in. The forerunners of the electrical gizmos, gas cookers and heaters that are essential today were little more than sales gimmicks in a market battle over who would provide light for the home. Developments that seem logical and simple in retrospect were major technological leaps in their own time.

The neolithic houses at Scara Brae in Orkney are built around a central fire - no chimney -- not even a hole for the smoke to get out. This arrangement, but with added hole, was in widespread use up until the 17th Century and survives up to the 1950s in Scottish crofts. The next major piece of lateral problem solving was moving the hole off centre towards one end of the room with the fire at the other end. This radical change also included a cutting-edge status symbol - a freestanding fire back. The expense of neatly building a small piece of stone work might seem negligible today but for 16th Century crofters it was a skilled and extremely costly business. Anyway, a fancy chimney would only stop the rain washing away the droppings from the livestock who lived at the hole end of the room. (Two sheep can give off heat energy equivalent of a two baaaah fire - sorry!)

Your bed would never be too far from the fire, but by the 16th Century the gentry had contrived two bed warming devices. The warming pan and the 'Mistress of the Bedchamber'. Husband and wife would go to bed but not before the Mistress of the Bedchamber had pre-warmed it, prior to popping alongside on her own truckle bed. Now where would my ancestors fit into that picture?

The experiences of my family begin to have some connection with official history with the invention of the tin can. Diet for most people improved when out of season foods could be stored to be eaten later. Its existence owes nothing to the quest for domestic convenience. It was a winner in Napoleon's competition to find a way of feeding his army and was invented, perversely, by an Englishman, NAME. Soldiers had a simple steel pig-stick for opening cans but usually, the bayonet did the trick just as it did for my Granddad in First World War trenches.

Lawns didn't really figure in our family but the cutting action of the lawnmower was in use on machines in local mills to cut the nap off cotton. Removing the labour from mowing wasn't one of my projects as a child problem solver (I still have the elegant, tiny portable food mixer I made for my Mother with a model boat motor and propeller). However, Sir Christopher Cockerell's invention of the Hovercraft in 1965 was inspirational and I was extra amazed by Karl Dahlmann's lateral leap in pinching this principle and creating the hover mower and by the radical approach in researching his market as he sold them door to door.The rotary action is now a widespread format for mowers as the enthusiasm for Hovercraft transport fades.

Most household devices have been the result of evolution over generations rather than real technological crossover. My forebears would recognise my kitchen/dining table but perhaps not my methods of food preparation and storage. The microwave oven has no domestic lineage. The properties of microwaves were known from DATE but it took a humble bar of chocolate to help distinguished scientist Doctor Percy Spencer to apply the principle in another context. He was working on Cold War early warning systems in 1947 when he noticed his bar of chocolate had melted because of microwave energy but microwave ovens didn't become widespread until the 1970s. So now I have become one of those characters portrayed on those sunny 1950s American TV programmes. I use the microwave in conjunction with all the other stuff in my multi-function, easy clean, kitchen workshop.

Uncovering the strange genesis of the very ordinary is like discovering the colourful life-story of a maiden aunt. The history of each innocuous little domestic item can open a window on all sorts of social drama. The development of our domestic landscape is History. We measure the passage of time in memories of furniture styles and how little we were paid (In 1920s, installing a phone was the equivalent of three weeks work).

Most people are familiar with Viking pillaging but not their fondness for ironing with smoothing stones. We were simultaneously fearful and casual with electricity. The prospect of holding water and electricity together in your hand as in today's steam irons was a taboo for my mother. She never trusted electric blankets (many people had been frazzled) so what a leap of faith it must have been for TB sufferers who were shoved outside hopitals for fresh air and kept warm with the first generation of the blankets. As household artefacts became the stuff of industry, these industries provided the basis for the engines of war and the prizes and targets of the conflicts themselves.

My mother began 1939 making pans and finished the year making shells in the same factory.

Garry Lavin Draft 3

Making a Meal of It 6A/ Our Daily Bread 30th December 2002 - AMENDMENTS TO SCRIPT BY GARRY LAVIN

A Cooker in a fitted kitchen. Track over work surfaces to oven.

Garry vo: The sleek, appliance filled fitted kitchens of today are well thought-out, fully integrated temples of efficiency… Track down and into oven.

Darkness. The darkness becomes…. A CAVE Garry at the entrance to a cave by a fire, eating a chicken leg. Garry: … a far cry from our stone age ancestors, their cooking arrangements were

(PAUSE) little more than this.

(PAUSE) Still at least there was no washing up when they'd finished eating As he walks away from the cave he throws his bone in the air….

Cut to: BREAD OVEN (Weald and Downland museum) And catches a bag of flour as he's walking towards a tudor house (or a spoon).

Garry enters kitchen and finds a clay bread oven.

Garry tells us - Since the dawn of agriculture, grinding staple cereals (WAVES A WHEAT STALK ABOUT) in flour mills has given most cultures that most basic but tasty food - Bread.

Five hundred years ago every home had a bread oven. Garry demonstrates the use of the bread oven with Ian. A fire is lit inside the oven to get the clay hot. Once this has burnt down the ashes are raked out and the dough put in.

While it's baking, Garry remarks that it's not a lot different from a modern pizza oven. (possible drawing of pizza oven that is revealed on table when Garry blows flour away) Ian tells Garry that bread is such a staple that we get many terms from it: -

Breaking bread is a term of sociability - Bread is where our word for pantry comes from, pain, the French for bread which came from the Normans. When the bread is baked they get it out of the oven. Garry shows how they used to slice it horizontally. He does a sketch to illustrate how the top slice would go to the wealthiest or most senior member of the household, hence the term upper crust

(MAYBE GARRY DRAWS HAT AND CLOTHES OF POSH HISTORICAL PERSON ON CLEAR PLASTIC SHEET BETWEEN CAMERA AND HIMSELF - BUT LEAVING HIS FACE SHOWING! (a good one I think!). )

The bottom was often covered in ash and would go to the youngest/poorest member of the house.

(MAYBE GARRY PUSHES BOTTOM END OF LOAF TO ONE SIDE - GETS PUSHED BACK - AND GARRY LOOKS ROUND CAMERA AND SAYS - 'WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY?!')

The shape of early loaves and the way they were cut made them ideal for use as substitutes 'dishes'.

KITCHEN WITH OPEN FIRE IN FIREPLACE (PRIESTHOUSE)

Bread provides us with much essential nutrition but today we think of bread as a supplement to a balanced diet. So what would they eat with the bread. Interview with Anthony who shows how everything would go in one pot over an open fire. Food at this time was often a stew or pottage. For poorer people meat was a rare treat. Anthony shows us how cookware had long handles so you could keep your distance from the flame and also to stop your clothes getting dirty, no-one liked washing wool too often, it was hard work. (Possible commentary sequence over various bits of kitchen architecture around the fire - cranes, clockwork roasting spit, salt kept in leather hinged box above fire as metal hinges would corrode) Meals would be eaten with a knife and spoon, fingers were a perfect fork.

Forks were a new fangled European idea that were mistrusted and did not arrive in Britain till the 1500s.

ILLUSTRATION OF SPANISH ARMADA - ADVANCING WITH FORKS IN HAND? also - good cutlery was expensive - silver plating and all!! CROCKERY So what would they have eaten off? Garry attempting to keep several plates spinning as he takes us through a quick history of crockery.

THIS SEQUENCE - ALTHOUGH DAFT - CAN ILLUSTRATE THE THROWAWAY NATURE OF MASS PRODUCED CERAMICS. For many years wood was used - called treen (from trees). Sycamore was used because it left no taste on the food and has very little toxic Tannin.

THIS DISH IS RECTANGULAR AND PLANK-LIKE - AND SO FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Pewter - a lethal mixture of lead and TIN was an early example of wealth.

SPINS - DROP - AND IS BENT. Ceramics dining and storage ware are found throughout history, initially rough - but hand-thrown or pressed dishes.

GARRY APPEARS TO PANIC AT THE THOUGHT OF DISH FALLING - CATCHES IT. Another example of wealth was decorated mass produced, slip-cast ceramics. At first these were hand painted. Plate falls off and smashes.

THEN GARRY GETS HOLD OF OTHER EXAMPLES OF FRESHLY 'BISCUIT FIRED' WARE AND CASUALLY THROWS IT TO THE FLOOR. GARRY DRAWS DIAGRAM OF HOW SLIP MOULDING WORKS (SOLID PATTERN OF DESIRED DISH MADE - PLASTER MOULD MADE FROM THIS - LIQUID CLAY- SLIP - SWISHED AROUND INSIDE- COATS SURFACE OF MOULD - MOULD OPENED AND DAMP CLAY DISH PULLED OUT -

THIS IS THEN 'FIRED') --DIAGRAM DRAWN IN 'SLIP' WITH BRUSH ON WALL - words describe how this process was like manufacturing plastics today. Garry at Iron Bridge Museum Garry makes a plate - his design is a cartoon of an early family with their crockery . Mass production opened up 'best' crockery to more and more people. A crockery expert shows Garry how etching and transfers all speeded up the production of decorated crockery bringing it within the reach of more and more people, although each colour required a separate firing.

One of the best known patterns to 'cross over' was the Willow pattern which is still with us today. It's typical of its era as blue was the easiest colour to apply and the design is complicated and therefore seems expensive, but actually it's easy and cheap to make requiring only one firing as it's a single colour. Some ornate dishes had to be fired twenty times. The Willow pattern has a story associated with it creating a legend around the image, in fact the story was entirely made up as a marketing tool. Although though the pseudo oriental style mimmicks the treasures brought back by wealthy travellers to the far east.

GARRY in street at Iron Bridge walking to house. He tells us it was very effective and soon people began to have their 'best' crockery on display in their home. RANGES (BLACK COUNTRY) Garry in a kitchen with best crockery on shelves and a typical range. He tells us how the arrival of ranges gave us more control over how we cooked. Meat and two veg was now more often the order of the day. But ranges took a lot of maintenance, you had to keep the fire going day and night and cleaning them took all day. On the other side of the kitchen is a gas cooker. The arrival of first gas and then electricity would reduce the range to an aga owning minority.

COOKERS We tell the story of cookers in a theatre where Garry paints appropriate kitchen icons on theatre flats and graphics are used to make cookers through history appear on stage. In voiceover Garry tells us that early cookers were met with mistrust - were they dangerous? Therefore they were made to look like mini ranges with cast iron doors. Electricity began to arrive in houses but to have an electric cooker you needed a separate power circuit and fuse and this was prohibitively expensive at first. Early cookers were small with a limited number of rings. Garry draws a split pan which would fit two or three to a ring. Not only was it space saving, it saved on money too. Pressure Cooker?

WORK SURFACES Garry walking towards a 30s house. He enters the kitchen where he finds a wooden table. He tells us that at the same time as cooker technology was evolving so kitchen design and materials were . changing. Wooden tables needed scrubbing to keep clean. A table cloth protected the surface. Garry sets the table and tells of how the formality of place settings is derived from dining in grand houses. Garry standing by a set table and table cloth. Garry says 'I've always wanted to try this' and pulls the table cloth away. Under the cloth is a formica topped table. Garry explains how the wipe clean surface transformed life -first enamelled steel and then Formica.

TELL THE STORY OF FORMICA HERE - WHAT IS IT EXACTLY?!

VIEW OF GARRY FROM SIDE - APPEARING TO DO DRAWING WITH BRIGHTLY COLOURED KETCHUPS ETC CUT TO VIEW FROM ABOVE - TO SHOW GREAT SWATHES OF COLOUR - TO SHOW THAT THESE SURFACES WERE NOT JUST CONVENIENT - BUT PROVIDED THE OPPORTUNITY FOR COLOUR AS OPPOSED TO WOOD COLOURS - AND CHANGED THE LOOK OF KITCHENS WITH BREAKFAST BARS - KITCHEN UNITS ETC.

Mess was becoming more manageable. Garry just wipes the colours away. WORKSHOP maybe this section could be reduced a little to allow for some other stuff? Wipe to Garry in a workshop where he tells us how all sorts of technology have been applied to the kitchen. He makes an early grater by hammering nails through a flat piece of metal. The cheese grater was inspired by planing wood. Rotary peelers may have seemed logical but they never took off. Whisks were little more than a couple of forks tied together. Food mixers may have been the ultimate in kitchen appliances, but Garry's favourite is the toaster.

MAYBE BEGINS WITH TOASTING OVER FIRE? Animated sequence of all sorts of early toasters 'dancing'. JODRELL BANK Garry at Jodrell bank tells us that the next major advance in cooking was really the microwave. It was invented in 1946 by accident when a scientist noticed the chocolate bar in his pocket melting whilst standing near a magnetron tube. He repeated the experiment with popcorn and watched as the corn popped all over the lab. Garry in a lab recreates the discovery using popcorn. The first one was six feet tall but it didn't catch on straight away. Possible drawing and explanation of how microwave works. Microwaves have shot up in popularity thanks to the availability of processed and packaged food, but that's another story.

Mention how packaged TV dinners changed our eating habits- AND HOW THERE IS A REACTION TO THIS IN THE TREND FOR GOOD COOKING --- AND THE POPULARITY OF BREAD MACHINES!!!

CAVE Garry is back at the mouth of the cave. He tells us that not every development in food and cooking is a giant leap forwards. Pull back to reveal Garry is cooking over a barbeque as he tells us that - Stone-age man would be right at home here. Maybe its all so elemental!

CAN I GET A LASCAUX TYPE CAVE PAINTING IN HERE TO ILLUSTRATE MY ORIGINAL OBSERVATION OF HOW WE USED TO COOK INDOORS AND CRAP OUTSIDE - NOW WE COOK OUTSIDE AND CRAP IN THE HOUSE!!!!

(Garry throws the empty can of beer he's been drinking into the sky.)

Programme Proposal January 30th. 2003 This treatment builds on the subject matter, format and lateral approach developed for the series 'Every Home Should Have One' - BBC Bristol - Presenter Garry Lavin.

'No Place Like Home' - working title

Having already examined aspects of how we live within our homes, this series moves on to examine the nature of houses / dwellings themselves.

It will look at how the physical environment has determined the shape and building materials of homes, from familiar stone terraces in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire that seem to grow from the very rock they perch on, through completely different thatched half-timbered solutions only 100 miles away. Elements of social history will show and why such settlements came into existence. Similar examinations will be made of dwellings such as cave 'cities' in southern Spain, Africa and Arizona.

More temporary structures such as tee-pees, igloos, homes on stilts and mud structures will show the different needs of various cultures have resulted in radically different solutions. The threads of design history will show the difference between the dwellings of artisans and agricultural labourers and the Great Houses of the Landed Gentry and Aristocracy.

We will see how major design styles have filtered through society and how from the turn of the 19th. Century, homes for the masses have been lifestyle accessories with semi-detached suburbia creating multiple illusions of a mini-landed gentry. In Europe, the ideas of Le Corbusier and his 'machines-for-living-in' led to a flat dwelling urban population - but in Britain we see factory produced tower blocks in a different light.

The funky, organic bungalow designs of Frank Lloyd Wright led to a particularly Californian, open-plan bungalow style which in turn influenced a sixties British building. Today new homes can be picked from a palette of styles and historical periods. Wild, crazy and eco-sensitive alternative designs will be examined including the boat cities off the Californian coast and hand-made houses in Arizona - which being outside planning restrictions, are a riot of creative exuberance and ecological considerations (Garry Lavin's design for an energy efficient home could be tested here - practical demo).

We indicate possible future trends and technology. Luxurious fully electronic city apartments; the use of re-newable materials in energy efficient homes - with geo-thermic heating etc.; changing trends in the nature of work, living and travel. Houses as sculpture and statements in an age of 'conceptual' art. Garry Lavin will develop ideas through surprising practical demonstrations and on-site illustrations in a variety of locations.

Garry Lavin January 30th. 2003

EVERY TOWN SHOULD HAVE ONE

Why are there no roundabouts in Japan? Who invented pavements? And what's the story behind the latest satellite guided shopping trolley? Hot on the heels of "Every Home Should Have One" designer Garry Lavin takes to the streets with his own unique brand of storytelling to uncover extraordinary tales of invention and innovation in our towns and cities. From the belisha beacon to the bar code, the cashpoint to the cinema, this is your high street as you've never seen it before.

The Presenter Garry Lavin is a designer, engineer and innovator, with a dry sense of humour, a quick wit, and an artist's eye. He's got an extraordinary talent for making complicated concepts simple, and fantastic cartooning skills which really bring his quirky explanations to life.

There's little this Yorkshireman won't tackle too, from chainsawing a washing machine in half to see how it works, to renovating a WW2 tank in his back garden. With his enthusiasm and energy, his know-how and his knowledge, he is ideally suited to presenting this hands-on history series. The Series Why are our towns the way they are? Garry's investigation into the evolution of the metropolis takes him from the high street to the high rise, the supermarket to the superstore, ancient Rome to modern day Manchester.

His discoveries are many and varied. He'll learn about the first pavements, designed by the Romans in an effort to stop their speeding chariots from mowing down unwary pedestrians. He'll offer theories on why it's impossible to find your way around in badly designed new towns like Milton Keynes. And he'll get to grips with the latest in gadgets and gizmos, like the shopping trolley that wheels itself around the supermarket advising you on special offers. These tales of speed traps and sewers, subways and cyber cafes will give us a unique insight into the changing face of our urban jungles.

The Format Garry will trace the history of devices like the dreaded parking meter, from the early "park-o- matic" to the latest all-singing, all-dancing solar-powered version. He'll be doing this through hands-on experimentation, by using his design and engineering expertise to make some of these gadgets himself, and by demonstrating the design process through his own quirky, animated illustrations.

The evolution of inventions will be accompanied by strange but true anecdotes from history, like the sorry tale of the Tay Bridge, beautifully engineered to cope with everything apart from the strong wind which eventually brought it down. Along the way Garry will introduce us to classic ads and archive, public information films and catalogues - and he'll be trying to work out why patents for some of the more bizarre inventions never even made it off the drawing board.

Sample Programme: Programme One - Keeping it moving

Stuck in a jam? Imagine how much more chaotic driving to work would be without the multitude of inventions that keep things moving in the city - from the roundabout to the flyover, the train to the escalator. This is the story of design classics, like the London Underground map; sorry setbacks - like the world's first gas-powered traffic lights which injured a policeman when they accidentally exploded; and design successes like the cat's eye - the latest versions of which can clock both your speed and your numberplate.

It's a tale of the first lift, built for a king and known as the "Flying Chair", and the first lift brake, the effectiveness of which was demonstrated to an awed crowd in 1854 by the inventor cutting the lift's cable with an axe. The lift stayed where it was in the shaft.

From Ancient Rome's one-way streets to Birmingham's Spaghetti Junction, this is invention and innovation in the fast lane.

Programme Two - Buying and selling

In the world of buying and selling there are thousands of everyday inventions that go almost unnoticed by us as we make our purchases - from the computerised till in the grocery store to underfloor heating in the mall.

Garry's shopping experience takes in automatic doors and the latest in changing room security, barcodes, scanners, tills and packaging. From smart and simple devices like the "pinch-pull" plastic bag to infuriating ones that often go wrong - like the "£1 in the slot" shopping trolley, this is retail therapy at its most inventive.

Programme Three - Going out on the town

Leisure in towns has moved on from the days of the town hall knees-up. These days there's everything from the multiplex to the skating rink, the cyber café to the theatre to delight and excite you. Join Garry on a tour of the town's entertainment hot spots as he gets to grips with innovations as diverse as the mobile fast food stall and cinema surround-sound.

Programme Four - Keeping it organised

The urban metropolis is a complex phenomenon. With interconnected transport and communication systems, and the movement of thousands of people a day along its streets and in and out of its buildings, systems and rules are vital to prevent everything from descending into complete chaos.

Garry takes a closer look at those inventions that keep us on the straight and narrow - from the double yellow line to the parking meter, the multi-storey car park to the humble road-sign. Enter a world of traffic wardens and bobbies, flow systems and one-way streets.

Programme Five - Working 9 to 5

Take a look around the office. There are a whole host of innovations in our workplace, all designed to make the daily grind that bit less stressful. Gone are the days of scribbled accounts in ledgers and cumbersome adding-up machines. In this programme the computer, the intercom, even the humble paperclip and the office chair all get a look in. Along with the coffee machine and the photocopier, the fire escape and the fax. It's all in a day's work for Garry Lavin.

Programme Six - Keeping it safe

Danger in the city is nothing new. In 1835 the Highways Act allowed for a fine of up to £5 for anyone "riding any horse or beast, or driving any sort of carriage, furiously so as to endanger the life or limb of any passenger". But the methods and gadgets employed to make it a safer place are truly inventive.

We now live in a world of CCTV cameras and security tags; sprinkler systems and speed cameras, store detectives and zebra crossings. In this programme Garry looks at all the gadgets in the town that help to keep us safe. Four further programmes could include: Keeping it clean: street & window cleaners, bin men, tips, skips, drains, catalytic converters Going underground: the tube, sewers, gas pipes, subways, tunnels, car parks, bunkers In the air: satellite dishes, street lights, telephone poles, high rises, wind turbines, planes, Keeping active: football stadium, cycle paths, gyms, parks, swimming pools, sports centres

Extra facts for publicity:

INNER SPACE US president Thomas Jefferson is supposedly responsible for the early design of the coathangar. The Chinese cut and stored ice in 1000 B.C. The first business to benefit significantly from mechanised refrigeration was the brewing industry in the US in 1840s. In 1921 the US manufactured 5000 refrigerators, 6 years later it was nearly 6 million. In 1810 Englishman Peter Durand patented the idea of airtight tin-plated iron cans for food preservation. The first tin cans weren't patented in the US until 1825. The Royal Navy used 24,000 large tin cans on its ships each year by 1818. 7.5 billion cans a year are made in the UK just for beer and soft drinks. Europe's largest fridge recycler in Newport, South Wales processes about 400,000 fridges a year. Freeze dried coffee was first produced in 1938. Refuse collection was by horse and cart until the first petrol-engined dust cart in 1922. But Southampton did not use motorised vehicles until 1964.

HOUSE OF FUN

Early television was mechanical, not electrical. In the mid 1920s Baird gave public demonstrations in London department store Selfridges. In 1936 the BBC opened the world's first public electronic television service. A standard 74 minute CD contains more than 6 billion microscopic pits of digital code in its metallic surface. The spiral track of a CD would open out to be over 3 miles long. Over 100 million Rubik's cubes were sold between 1980 and 1982. Monopoly is now made 31 languages around 31 major cities including Paris and Moscow. The wire used to make Slinkys in their first 50 years of production would encircle the Earth 126 times. Edison demonstrated his phonograph to US president Rutherford Hayes in the White House in 1878. Book author George Elliot was a woman using a man's name to be more acceptable. British printer William Caxton's early success in 1476 was the bawdy Canterbury Tales. The first free public library was opened in 1850. There were 10,344 titles available on DVD in the UK at the beginning of 2003 with about 4000 being added a year.