OK, so you're in the market for a new home. You've always considered yourself to be environmentally-aware. You want to make a contribution towards reducing greenhouse gasses.

So, do you pick the nice new three-bed detached house with two en-suites and a landscaped garden - or the one with the curved walls covered in three feet of mud?

Believe it or not, this a choice which faces homebuyers today.

Many people, we suspect, will have been heartened by Prime Minister Tony Blair's passionate speech this week on the "catastrophic consequences" of climate change.

It is time, says the PM, that more is done.

Here, in Worcestershire, more is being done - in ways that could mean a dramatic shift in the way we live.

Graphic artist Roger Dean's Home for Life, on display at Stourport's Bishops Wood Centre, could well offer the shape of homes to come.

The curved walls, geo-thermal heating system and environmentally-friendly earth covering mean its production and use contribute significantly less to greenhouse gases than traditionally-built homes.

Earth-sheltered houses are less susceptible to temperatures - so you use less fuel - they require less maintenance and blend better into their natural surroundings.

Dean's design is not the product of some advertising executive's "blue-sky thinking" session to discover ways of selling environmentally-friendly homes.

This is practical, underground, no-sky thinking - and it's here today.