But you don’t have to own a place to enjoy good architecture. There are some exemplary new social-housing schemes shortlisted, among them the £12m Iroko housing co-operative close to the National Theatre on the South Bank. Designed by young architects Haworth Tompkins for Coin Street Community Builders, this is a delightful and restrained courtyard housing scheme. Being wholly for affordable rent, it sidesteps the vexed issue of rising property prices in London. As they say: there is another way.

So which of these will go further - perhaps making it to the Stirling Prize shortlist? This is always a hard one to call, but Niall McLaughlin has been a rising star ever since he won the first “young architect of the year” award a few years back. The good modern one-off house in the countryside is a hot issue right now. If I were a betting type, I’d put a stake on the house called “Jacob’s ladder”. Of course, I’m usually wrong.