It also provided an unusual home, but in a familiar setting, for his parents, which they have enjoyed for 29 years.Built in 1973, the house was a fantastic first effort. It is registered in RIBA's Guide to Modern Architecture and was awarded a commendation by the same body in 1978 Peter says it is "a simple design that is fairly open-plan We have no passages. Richard used one-and-a-quarter acres of the original three-acre garden to create somewhere new for his parents to settle. A far cry from the chintzy, traditional look old folk are meant to aspire to, Wildwood launched Richard's successful career as a Modernist architect, heralding the new and eschewing pastiches of the past.

"He was a student at the Architecture Association," says Mr Horden, "and it gave him a chance to design something."The Hordens had sold their original Edwardian family home because it became too big for them when their children had departed. So what happens if you subvert the expected narrative and place the pensioned-off very English duo in a low-slung, light and spacious single-storey contemporary home that would not look out of place on the west coast of America? You end up with Wildwood - an unusual approach to superannuated living in Branksome Park, in Poole, Dorset. The house is a monument to parental pride. Owners Peter and Irene Horden (below) bravely risked letting their then 26-year-old trainee architect son Richard design and build a retirement home for them. Presumably, the serene pair have just walked their beloved golden Labrador, played a round of golf at their local club and have now returned to their "dingly dell" abode to live happily ever after.

We envisage life for retirees in a roses-round-the-door world, with a smiling white-haired couple sitting on the verandah of their period cottage, glass of Fino sherry in hand. I can't think of any better place to bring up kids than on the beach, with dolphins in the bay."Trevyn McDowell's house in Clerkenwell, London EC1, is for sale at £2.25m through Hurford Salvi Carr on 020-7250 1012. I'd like the children to have an outside life, but we'll keep a home here in London I will have to give up the luxury of working where I live. We are enlarging the Wilderness house, but want it to remain organic, built into the sand dunes and cutting into rock. Ruby is old enough to know not to go near the water, but Zachary did fall in once - head first, with feet in the air."We've now bought a little house on the beach in Wilderness, four hours' drive along the Garden Route from Cape Town in South Africa. It was a lovely start to a relationship."The house is so big, we can be working downstairs while there are 80 people up here shooting and you can't even hear them Julian and I were married in the house in 1996. We had 200 guests in here and you could see from the pictures that it doesn't look crowded We've also had friends' gallery launches here.

The space here is fantastic and with all the outside space, it gives a feeling of inside/outside. The main deck feels very South African, or Australian, with the olive trees, the agapanthus and water feature that I designed. We stopped doing the location shoots when we had the children. But the first time we did it, we went off and stayed at the St Martin's Hotel for a week. The kids' toys - we have Ruby who is two and a half, Zachary is a year old and Julian's son Jacob who is nine - are all kept in the cupboards We keep most of the toys in the garage, so we rotate them I find great serenity in being tidy. I'm good at throwing things out, I'm very disciplined."We have rented the house out for photo shoots and commercials and it's been a useful source of income.