My Design London: Jock McFadyen RA, co-ordinator of Royal Academy's summer exhibition, shares his favourite design hotspots in the capital

Painter Jock McFadyen RA is the co-ordinator of the Royal Academy's 251st Summer Exhibition, which runs until August 12.

His own urban landscapes reference London from the East End to the Isle of Dogs.

Where I live: Bethnal Green

I live in Bethnal Green overlooking the park between the V&A Museum of Childhood and the Tube.

The John Soane St John church is there, and apparently Samuel Pepys buried his cheese in the park during the Great Fire. I cycle up to my studio at London Fields every day past the canal barges.

I've been in the East End since 1978. I previously lived in Bow, and moving to Bethnal Green seemed like the West End to me. The Central line is my London lifeline.

My decor: shabby-chic

We have a three-storey, late-Georgian house built in 1825 and bombed in the war. Under the stairs is still charred.

Patina is the theme, and genteel dereliction with negligible intervention. There are a few rotting chandeliers and other bits of shabby-chic tat.

I've got lots of art by Royal Academicians— Humphrey Ocean, Tracey Emin, Jeffery Camp, Richard Wilson — as well as junk yard pictures all thrown in with our Georgian chaise longue and some African sculptures.

Favourite homeware shop: Litvinoff & Fawcett

Litvinoff & Fawcett makes the best handmade mattresses with natural fillings. My son used to work for them. We all sleep like logs.

The shop on Hackney Road was set up by the son of the Jewish poet and novelist Emanuel Litvinoff.

Cultural hotspot: Beckton Sewage Treatment Works

I got a phone call from the writer and psycho geographer (which is the study of the effects of the geographical environment on the emotions) Iain Sinclair asking if I fancied a walk along the sewage outflow pipe to Beckton.

It was actually a beautiful walk along the pipeline over the top, via The Greenway, a footpath and bike freeway.

It takes you from the gentrified East End out to Newham

Secret shop: TTT Motorcycles

TTT Motorcycles in Bethnal Green. I am a biker — I think of my paintings like road movies — and it's a proper old-fashioned motorbike shop where they can repair things.

It's deliberately obscure, you go in through the back door. I've got 13 motorbikes but my 1966 Honda 250cc Sports bike is quite an important one.

It's real anorak stuff but it's the one Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was written about.

And it's also the bike Elvis rode in Roustabout. When I was 18 I had one before I moved on to a bigger bike. Then a few years ago I saw it on eBay, I recognised the number plate. It was a wreck, it had been in a shed for 45 years, so I've restored it.

It was the actual bike I rode from Stoke-on-Trent down to Hyde Park to see The Rolling Stones playing in 1969. It's a beautiful piece of design.

Favourite Green space: Victoria Park

Victoria Park is king and London Fields is the handmaiden, but it's got such a vibe now because all the hipsters have moved in.

My wife said we should get a stall on Broadway Market selling clip-on beards and inflatable whippets.

Favourite galleries

The National Gallery, of course, because I was artist-in-residence there in 1981.

Start with the Rembrandts and Holbein's The Ambassadors. I'm more interested in Northern painting than French lyrical painting.

I don't like the supergalleries; I just went to White Cube and it felt a bit dead. Someone once said when you go into those galleries it looks like money lying in state.

But the Hannah Barry Gallery in Peckham is a fantastic grass-roots space.

Early on, she discovered the artist Nathan Cash Davidson, who is now collected for real money, and we have a painting of his in the Summer Exhibition.

Amazing architecture: tube stations

Redbridge Tube station, an art deco marvel designed by Charles Holden.

And car mechanics Chu's Garage in Helmsley Place, Hackney, is a great example of organic folk architecture.

They service our car and architects Piers Gough and Chris Dyson's cars. They've started a movement called Guardians of the Arches to stop Britain's railway arches being sold off by Network Rail.

With hipster joints taking over the East End, their rent has quadrupled, so a group of traders in London Fields has come together to fight the demands.

Best markets

Brick Lane and Cheshire Street was my favourite Sunday constitutional for years, but now it's hipster-bland.

The Royal Academy's 251st Summer Exhibition runs until August 12.