Being a Scotland’s Home of the Year judge has changed Danny Campbell - but he’s still not keen on ornaments.
Ahead of the much-anticipated show final, the architect and design expert opens up on living, loving and big red hearts.
We’ve seen all of the homes in season eight of Scotland’s Home of the Year over the last six episodes, from fisherman’s cottages to bungalows to period properties and contemporary new builds, from the Highlands and Islands to the Borders, and now it’s time to see which which is the nation’s top home in the final episode this week.
Judges Anna Campbell-Jones, Banjo Beale and Danny Campbell have left no stone or cushion unturned as they assessed the multiple properties according to creative design, style and architectural merit, endeavouring to find that special quality that makes a house a home. They’ve answered the big questions: how do how people make a property their own, what are the stories behind each house, where is the big red heart that signifies a favourite spot and have the owners left out any biscuits?
Catching up with architect and judge Danny Campbell as the winner is about to be unveiled the first thing that hits you is his frontage has had an update since filming, and while his lips remain tight about the winner, the top one is sporting a moustache of Tom Selleck proportions.
“A young Tom Selleck. That's what I'm looking for,” laughs the 35-year-old. “I thought he’s got a cool, mature, vibe. I think I've done a lot growing up over the last year, and it's time to have a moustache.”
With filming already underway on season nine, Campbell reveals his own personal highlights from season eight.
“The quality of the homes this year was incredible. Because of my architecture practice, it takes a lot for me to see something that's really original and there were a few moments like that.
“There’s a bungalow with three extensions that on paper should be a complete failure but works so well. There is a continuity to the materiality because the owners had such an interest and the way it has aged is unusual, showing how slow living and slow design can enhance a building in a way that makes it unique, in a house type which is quite generic. And the longhouse in Skye, the use of Douglas fir, the way they kept true to the architectural detail, keeping a really crisp ridgeline all the way through. I loved those ones.
“I also felt personally what I was looking for changed from the previous years. This was my third year being a judge so I felt I was kind of in the swing of it.”
As an architect, raised near Helensburgh and trained at Glasgow School of Art before setting up his own business HOKO Design, Campbell can be relied upon to get excited about a hidden gutter here, a Jacobean archway there and will always hone in on architectural merit, but there’s more to it than that.
“I was looking real commitment to a brief, an aspiration they were trying to achieve. Some homes look incredible on camera because the architecture is good or they've stuck to a style and executed it well, but a lot of that can be surface level. So I was looking for how deep I was falling into the vision somebody had for their home. As you walk around, you see little things that give you cues about how much somebody has fallen in love with the idea of home in their space and executed it in a way that becomes physical, where we can experience it without them explaining it to us. I was experiencing something a bit deeper.”
“I think we all have a desperation to feel we belong somewhere, and to feel belonging within our personal space is a very intimate and individual experience. These spaces are the vertebrae of each individual life moment and stack up to be the backbone of our life story. Having a space that reflects who you are that is true to you is one of the most powerful acts of transformation people can go through. To be voyeuristic and see how other people have tackled it is super interesting. It's like going inside somebody's mind and really powerful.”
For Campbell, working as an architect and also being party of SHOTY has changed how he values his own living space.
“It's a clichéd stereotype that architects, because they experience so much variety, crave simplicity, which often becomes minimalistic and for me that does appeal, a lack of faff, clear expression of architectural aspects - where cabling and plumbing go, the anatomy of the building. But the thing that makes a home feel where you belong is the people who you reside there with. So children's objects, partners' objects, the things they bring into the space are the things that actually make it important.”
In an instant we leap from load-bearing to love as Campbell expands on his thoughts.
“It’s a funny thing. If you’ve ever fallen in love, that fear of falling in love is terrifying. It brings so much uncertainty, fear, excitement and confusion, a sense that this is it, this is human spirit and I need to lean in because this might be what it's all about. If you can translate those feelings into your physical space the process of design becomes something far beyond a good investment opportunity or to impress. So that's the journey I'm going on with the spaces that are important to me. It's about the human aspect, especially within such an intimate space.”
Campbell’s journey with spaces includes the house in Kirkintilloch where his three boys have dictated the evolution with a trampoline and mini football pitch in the garden and a recently acquired gap site in The Barras in Glasgow.
“Kirkintilloch is about the garden and active life and obviously the kids are young, so they ruin everything but you appreciate the scuffs and tears and wrinkles they bring in. The site in The Barras is a totally new space that I'm being able to design on a quite self-indulgent personal level. It's a derelict building that's collapsed on itself and people have said it's a money pit,” he laughs. But it’s the falling in love aspect of me which is throwing myself in with blind optimism and hope something can come from it, which is beautiful. And a transformation, and I feel that's where I'm at in my life at the moment and that challenge is what I need.”
“I think I've changed in a whole load of ways over the past couple of years,” he says. “I identify as somebody who is desperate to understand what ‘home’ means, not just from an architectural point of view, but in a whole load of different aspects, and way beyond my own personal style preferences.
As a result SHOTY has influenced his work as an architect with his business HOKO Design and the practice now offers a service where Campbell “unpicks people's aesthetic DNA”.
“There are so many stakeholders involved in a project, who are good at their own job, but nobody takes care of the whole process so I sit with clients to discover what it is about them that makes them tick in their home. It’s taking the emotional and intangible part of who you are and making it physical, which is what the best homes are doing on the show. We have a partnership with Sterling Home in Tillicoultry, where homeowners can see products and the materials in one space. It’s for people who need to reinvent their space without needing the architecture and it's come off the back of trying to understand what I'm looking for in a home.
“It would easy to say ‘I'm the architect, I don't talk about cushions’ but people deserve more than that. I've definitely evolved through listening to Anna and Banjo. They're also very different designers and come at it from totally different perspectives.”
According to Banjo Beale, tongue-in-cheek, Campbell has developed a new appreciation of ornaments. Is this true?
“Personally I don't really have any material objects at all. I went through a whole detox a couple of years ago where I got rid of everything, even sentimental stuff. I've got a good coffee machine that I love. It wasn't that expensive, but it’s just the thing for me. And I've got my gym stuff and rugby boots and that's pretty much it.
“But the kids have loads of things that are important to them and I take pride in engaging with all that. One of the objects I interact with most at the moment is a Spider Man suit. My older brother’s five-year-old son has a massive obsession and my brother asked me to be Spider-Man at his birthday party, in a costume he bought. So this has become a precious possession where I come home from work and get my Spider-Man costume thrown at me and I'm fighting Thor and Hulk with my boys. If that could ever be framed or put on a wall, it's maybe something I might keep if I were going to keep an ornament. But it's super revealing and maybe not even appropriate. I’m not sure where my brother got it from,” he laughs.”
So we won’t be seeing that on SHOTY, although he does switch up from his usual man in black right down to the Crocs outfit for the final.
“I went for something a bit different and changed my footwear as well, which was a big step. I've been wearing Crocs exclusively for about seven years. It started off as a mantra of you don't need a uniform to perform at your best. They make me not care so much about superficial things. I can always change them, and for the final, I did.”
“You need to be quite brave to come out of what people think you are. ‘You're an architect, you wear black,’ and it's hard to allow yourself to be nuanced. Part of the reason I wear Crocs is I'm not content with fitting in in the broad sense if I feel I'm doing something for the right reasons.”
So is he going to embrace colour?
“I do embrace colour. I do really embrace colour,” he smiles.
In his clothes?
“Well… I really struggle. I don't like having to choose what I'm wearing. I wore double denim in one episode and that was a super stretch. My wardrobe is hilarious. It's all black then a couple of white things and a couple of denim things.”
And one Spider-Man costume.
When Campbell says he’s changed a lot in the last two years, it’s about more than being a judge on SHOTY.
“It’s been very much personal journey, to be honest. My little brother passed away in 2024. He was sick for just over three years.”
Duncan, an actor and poet, died aged 31 after a battle with stage four brain cancer, surrounded by family at their parent’s home in Lower Largo, Fife.
“That was like a war that was brought to our family and at the same time, I had difficulties with work and I was the sole provider for my family and it was a super challenging time. I think I learned a huge amount from my brother and how courageous he was. The underlying thing I've learned is the significance of love. I thought I knew what it was but I didn't, and it's not until you are in a situation where you have the opportunity to self-sacrifice for somebody else to your own detriment without any hesitation, that you understand how you can express the power of that feeling. To me that is how you level up in this game of life, through being kind and understanding other people and expressing love. That's something I witnessed from my little brother first hand, facing up to a terrifying, incurable illness with a huge depth of courage. He hid a lot of his pain for the sake of my parents and the sorrow they were facing and it was a powerful thing to experience.”
“In a lot of ways my little brother was the love of my life. You don't realise at the time but I totally cherished him from day one. He was he was my little brother for 31 years. A million years wouldn't have been long enough.
“It's made me realise what I'm looking for in relationships, and understand that some of the best people are not perfect. They've had challenges and harrowing experiences but how they choose to behave and express what they're about, these people are perfect in my eyes and people I want to be around through the course of my life.
“So that's the journey I've been on and it's allowed me to shake off a lot of stuff. I feel I've been reborn in a lot of ways through living through that tragedy. So it's been quite a big thing. It's had real positive impact on me and on my work too. I’ve really never been happier, to be honest.
Does he have anything of his brother’s that brings back memories?
“For me there’s a risk in being attached to objects. It doesn’t add a benefit to my life. That being said, together we wrote a book called The Suicide Notes, because he had poems that were a documentation of him facing depression and suicidal thoughts, then finding his second life and being happy, then getting a terminal cancer diagnosis. We started each chapter with a poem and wrote a narrative of what was going on so it became a kind of novel. We would review each chapter in a different restaurant and chat so that was an amazing time for us. I got him to record them and I go back to the book and read it from time to time and listen to him telling the poems. I do it sparingly because I've got such a clear image of him in my head that I don't want to change. I've got a clear feeling of him being with me, especially when I live in a way that I learned from him. I feel like he's very much there still. So, no objects, just his poems.”
On a lighter note, Banjo calls Campbell ‘the extension detective’. What does he call his fellow judges?
“I don't know if there's anything I'd be allowed to say. Too offensive.”
He considers further.
“Banjo always says Anna has the energy of a 50-year-old straight man. I still can't figure out what that means. I think he means people stereotyped in that category are very pragmatic, straightforward, no nonsense, and that is what she's like. Banjo, on the other hand, he can just capture a room. He's charismatic, hilarious, but he's a recluse. He's doing this amazing hotel and doesn't want anyone to stay there. He's a victim of his own success. Also, his story with Ro is an amazing story of love and stuff so, I think maybe he's the hopeless romantic in the trio.”
So as Campbell gets deeper into the psychology of the homeowners on SHOTY, is he getting better at finding the big red heart?
“I think I may be getting better at figuring out why the heart is there.”
The final of Scotland’s Home of the Year is on Monday 18 May at 8.30pm on BBC One Scotland and BBC iPlayer
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