London design hotlist: architect Jonathan Mizzi shares his favourite London galleries, homeware stores and secret spaces

Jonathan Mizzi founded award-winning architecture and design practice Mizzi Studio in 2011.

He is currently rolling out nine sculptural kiosks in London’s Royal Parks and a new Serpentine Café, with a fantastical sweeping brass canopy, on Serpentine Bridge.

It has a bohemian-meets-village ambience. Now I’m a father, I appreciate living in a leafy, healthy-air part of the city with classic Victorian architecture. And there is Portobello Market with all that cultural energy.

There are a lot of cool people in west London. Damon Albarn is near my studio with his Gorillaz crew, photographer Juergen Teller is in the building opposite.

The Playground Theatre and The Grove Music Studios are nearby.

We have a basement garden flat that we flipped round so we live in the garden. We took the bedrooms to the front with a combined kitchen/living room on to the garden. Light comes in through a classic conservatory. We’ve made our own bamboo living wall by importing beautiful, long bamboo from Sumatra. So it’s nature as soon as you come in.

We found a gorgeous original Sixties G Plan desk on the street and we have an early prototype of my Awkward table where the curved legs capture the balance and strength of the Bikram yoga Awkward pose.

I’ve just discovered furniture store foundry.london in Needham Road, W11. I walked in and wanted to buy the whole shop. They have 21st-century and midcentury furniture and trinkets from Japan and Scandinavia. Flow Gallery in the same street is great for ceramics.

I love Graham & Green and always come away with something kitsch and unique but done with class, like Jonathan Adler pottery. And I’m a fan of online market 1stdibs.

Where Francis Bacon had his art studio, is this beautifully cobbled street where I take my daughter out in the pram to get her to sleep.

There are two classic car showrooms and you feel like you are in your own private movie. I love vehicle design. At Mizzi Studio we are designing vehicles as well as buildings.

Thomas Heatherwick is my favourite designer of all time.

The fact that he was allowed to create a “kissing point” where the two buildings touch at Coal Drops Yard is what makes London so exciting.

Kew Gardens is amazing. Their Seed Bank represents the greatest concentration of living seed-plant diversity on Earth. That’s the beautiful ethos behind it all, the perfect preservation of life. Holland Park is great for walks with kids — and the Design Museum is at the end with its sci-fi roof.

The David Gill Gallery represents sheer, exquisite perfection of contemporary design and craft. They commission collections with the best architects in the world.

And everything is borderline functional, though if you dropped a coffee on Mattia Bonetti’s beautiful gold leaf table it would be terrifying.

There’s a piece by Ron Arad called Beware of the Dog, 1990. It’s like this kinetic bouncer, made of steel patinas. Or Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge chaise longue, please. It was a big source of inspiration for our copper-roofed Colicci Coffee kiosk at Westfield, Stratford.

With the neogothic Natural History Museum, the V&A with Amanda Levete’s neo-futuristic extension, and the Science Museum and Imperial College behind it. You’ll see an old Routemaster passing, then a new Thomas Heatherwick Routemaster, and that’s what makes you feel like you’re part of this amazing city which is always reinventing itself.

A full-on Victorian townhouse off Holland Park or around Westbourne Grove. Or Iron Man’s cliff house in Malibu — hi-tech set in nature.