‘People associate new housing with crap. I want to change that’

My earliest memory is of standing up, having a wee in the bathroom and looking down through the floor joists into our kitchen. I was three, we’d just moved into our family home and it was unfinished.

I spend a lot of time answering questions related to property. I like the challenge of not knowing what people are going to ask me. I like being put on the spot.

People associate new housing with crap. I want to change that. Our built environment is the mark of a civilised society. Architecture done well has a fantastic ability to make us feel like better human beings. Development at the lowest common denominator can turn us into savages.

I get a very cold neck. I’ll often wear a scarf.

Money has helped me not to be so anxious. It allows me to sleep, and to buy wine, but I’m not a collector of it.

I’m not sure I was ever going to be a singer [McCloud won a place at the Conservatorio in Florence]. I tend to hide the fact that I’m not so happy with my voice now by mimicking others. Nat King Cole and Elvis, in the bath, usually. I like singing “Hound Dog”.

I don’t necessarily want to be remembered for just being a television presenter. I can be a bit sensitive about it. I’d like to have found and pursued one big passion, like my son, who’s an architect.

My unsociability comes from my father. My mother is more curious and querulous.

I get my interiors fix from visiting other people’s houses. The homes of many architects and designers are, surprisingly, not what you might think.

Being driven can be more of a curse than a blessing. Being Methodist and going to chapel made me and my brothers driven, but I’ve always been envious of Catholics. There’s a great opportunity for absolution.

The point about the embarrassing dad is it’s not defined by particular features or acts. It’s about your very existence.

I’ve come to the view that regret, apology, anxiety and remorse are essential components of what makes us human.

The legacies of Grand Designs are underfloor heating, bi-fold doors and heat pumps. I think the next will be airtight homes with managed ventilation.

A project will hum to the energy you’ve invested in it. When it’s absorbed large quantities of human effort it will, over time, repay it with interest.

I’ve always lived in old houses. Despite the fact I keep thinking I might build the big glass box with the white walls, in the end I’m afraid I always revert to type.

I deal with the things I’m scared of. I’m scared of the cold, so I recently went to the sub-Arctic. I’m scared of snakes, so I slept in the Belize jungle – and hated it.

My face is a collection of lines, but they’re not all going the same way.

Kevin McCloud will appear at Grand Designs Live, at the NEC Birmingham from 8-11 October (granddesignslive.com)