Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, when it comes to the aesthetic appreciation of home, it appears that many of us share the same vision. Two polls released this summer have demonstrated the value placed on traditional architecture and accessible green space. Ipsos Mori have found that building new homes in traditional styles tripled approval ratings and in a separate poll, discovered that over 60% of those polled, including city-dwellers, strongly supported the retention of the Green Belt that constitutes 13%of England’s land area.

These polls confirm a well observed fact; that when the public think favourably of homes, they tend to think in terms of a green and pleasant land. The comfortable dimensions, gentle brick and omnipresent greenery of Betjeman’s England and Tolkien’s Shire is the built environment we favour.

Modernists may be reaching for a well-proportioned sick bucket at this juncture, but when it comes to the aesthetics of home, the public have spoken. Again and again. It’s a fact that should be borne in mind, as David Cameron’s Government strives to entrench a home-owning revolution and oversee the delivery of 200,000 new homes a year.

Building a fair proportion of these new homes in a traditional style with good access to protected green space, will boost their popularity amongst the communities that will accommodate them, and with the people who will live in them. It is also achievable.

Pioneering developers are finding traditional English building materials, including cob and thatch, cheaper to build with than modern materials which are increasing in price in the face of rising global demand. Traditionally-built and environmentally sensitive communities, most famously Prince Charles’ Poundbury, are proving extremely popular with new home-owners. More and more respected voices are calling for a more human approach to new-builds, from Create Streets campaigning for traditional terraces over high-rises, to ResPublica advocating a ‘community right to beauty’.

Building the type of homes that people actually want to live in also has a cultural resonance.

The art historian Kenneth Clark (father of Conservative roué’ and environmentalist Alan Clark) defined civilization as the enshrining of common ideals in built form, a thought shared by his contemporary George Orwell. When attempting to define ‘English civilization’ in the face of feared Nazi invasion in 1941, Orwell wrote of ‘smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes’ – a man-made visual tapestry representing ancient values, sustaining society at its hour of greatest need.

Extending this tapestry by creating places that link past and present could then do more than simply boosting home ownership, it could perpetuate the very foundations of our civilisation. Historian Peter Ackroyd has written extensively on how places can shape people, with ideas encapsulated in bricks and mortar seeping through to those who shelter within, suggesting ‘that a street or dwelling can materially affect the character and behaviour of the people who dwell in them’.

If we want a society strengthened by enduring social units like the family, and willing to preserve a threatened natural world, perhaps a traditionally designed and thoroughly greened built environment wouldn’t be a bad place to come home to, and be inspired by.

Matt Browne is an Associate at Bright Blue and tweets @MattRCBrowne