Britain is a nation that is increasingly interested in the architectural surroundings in which we live, according to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

Launching the latest annual report, ‘Whose place is it anyway,' CABE chair John Sorrell has called for a new kind of local icon – buildings or spaces that communities feel have been genuinely created for them.

John Sorrell said: 'We have seen a host of great public buildings and spaces completed in the last 12 months from Brighton to Boscastle, and many promising new proposals have come forward. The public appetite for exciting contemporary architecture is growing. However there is no cause for complacency. We can all think of, buildings, even prize-winning buildings that appear to take little account of the fact that architecture serves an end other than itself.

I have no doubt about the ability of architects in this country to create a new kind of icon, buildings or spaces that become local heroes, that the community feel have been designed and built for them. If these local icons are to be of lasting worth, however, rather than a flash in the pan, they must represent a belief or an idea.

A building like Lubetkin's Finsbury Health Centre clearly represented a belief in progress and a better life for people in what was then an overcrowded and unhealthy neighbourhood - it remains in use and popular today. Lubetkin used to say “nothing is too good for ordinary people”.

If we can create beautiful places which result in more satisfied users, then perhaps it could be Lubetkin's 'ordinary people' who will help us make the case to other constituencies we sometimes find it so hard to convince, from Whitehall to the boardroom.'

As well as championing the best public design projects of the last few years, the Annual Report reviews CABE's work across a number of key areas including housing, schools, healthcare buildings and parks.

CABE design reviewed nearly 500 schemes in 175 local authority areas, helped fund 19 separate Architecture and Built Environment Centres around England and gave advice to 60 local authorities involved with housing market renewal and housing growth areas.

- CABE Space gave direct enabling assistance to 50 local authorities, with a further 100 receiving some help
- The Housing audit revealed that more than four out of five new housing schemes completed in the south-east of England between 2001 and 2003 were rated as ‘mediocre'
- 52 schemes reviewed against the Building for Life standard, for recognition of exemplar design
- 46 schools and healthcare buildings entered the Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award
- CABE Space research looking at how 11 cities around the world manage their parks and streets, revealed that green space makes a city much more competitive
- On average 22,014 people every week visited CABE via its website.