Building BeautifulClive Aslet London-based designer John Simpson is the famed designer of the Queens Gallery at Buckingham Palace and is one of the worlds leading practitioners of New Classicism. There is therefore not much to ruffle the feathers in his work, nothing that is going to startle the crowds but plenty that is supremely comfortable and elegant. There are also elements of his work that can be borrowed and applied to domestic spaces; the display of wooden childrens building blocks as classically proportioned building fragments is as if the Grand Tour had gone via the Early Learning Centre, and all the better for it! Sometimes there are colour combinations that are surprising; a blue carpet in a stair well and a peach coloured wall and the use of garden canes and knotting around the uprights of a garden gazebo to resemble fluted columns. Through all of the projects you can get a sense of the mastery of scale and balance and the pervading sense of elegance. Hardback. 22