Homes for modern living at the Ideal Home Show 2012 In the eyes of The Ideal Home Show, this is a time for us to pool our resources and cherish what we are good at. The houses unveiled next week reflect a growing trend for generations to live together, a need for eco awareness and flexible space, and the Prince of Wales takes us down memory lane with stained glass, decorative stencilling and gorgeous kitchen tops from the last slate quarry in England. The "Arts and Crafts Eco Home" designed by the Prince's Foundation was inspired by the 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement. Hank Dittmar, the foundation's chief executive, says: "We believe that sustainability comes from rediscovering local materials and craftsmanship and creating beautiful, well-built homes with real character that will hold their value." Inside there are delightful stained-glass windows, decorative ironwork, linocut wallpaper, traditional joinery, handmade English tiles - all old-fashioned home-made English crafts. Yet there are fine eco credentials too, as the house uses natural materials as much as possible and is 70 per cent more energy efficient than current building regulations require. The "Multi-Generational House," the Villa Remersholm, made by the Swedish firm Götenehus and furnished by Ikea, sucks light inwards with its floor-to-ceiling windows and poses questions about how we use our homes for socialising and privacy. This is a mean energy performer, a kit house for the growing army of self-builders, and it takes 14 weeks to erect. Ingenuity has been applied to the more global problem of overcrowded city living. Architect Alex King of Designalexable and his retired father Edward have come up with the Santiago House. It is a skinny thing on four floors, made of six prefabricated modules, clad in ceramic. Flexi-space can be used for housing an elderly relative or boomerang offspring, or as a room to rent. It won the Telegraph British Home Award last year. The Ideal Home Show, March 16-April 1, ticket hotline: 0844 858 6763