“Unfit for purpose,” declared the architect of London’s Kings Cross station project. He was looking at the gloomy, cramped premises in which the project I chair nearby is housed.

John McAslan is an inspiring force who couples Kings Cross with a project to rebuild the Iron Market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (devastated by the earthquake six months ago). He was looking at the New Horizon Youth centre, a day centre where I used to work before I became a hack. I have been either on, or chairing its management committee ever since.

Mr McAslan was concerned about the increasing numbers of homeless and vulnerable teenagers who were being attracted to the emerging Kings Cross project. We were talking about the possibility of moving our project even nearer to the station.

We provide security, accommodation, mental health support, football, art, performance, music, showers, laundry, and much else for vulnerable and uprooted young people. Wrestling with the human consequences of sex working, drugs, alcohol, petty criminality, is our stock in trade.

In the end we didn’t move our project. Instead McAslan funded a competition organised by the Royal Institute of Architects. 70 architects entered amazingly creative plans. We chose one, and designs were drawn for the complete refurbishment and expansion of our work space.

We were more than fortunate to secure funding from the then government’s My Place funding stream – the best part of £2m.

Three months ago, Sarah Brown reopened our state-of-the-art building. Last month it won a prestigious RIBA award. Our work with young people has been transformed. So have the lives of those who both work in and make use of New Horizon.

So why do I blog about this today?  Because this week sees the climax of London Architecture Week, and this morning I’m speaking at one of the events about how architecture has transformed the work of one small charity.

I’ll throw in something about our need for urban trees, plugging the fantastic Southwark “urban forest project” – oh, and I’ll be talking bikes and cities too.

Tonight I’ll be chairing a debate at Grimshaw Architects in Clerkenwell, taking urban themes still further. Got to get on my bike right now if I’m to make that Smithfield breakfast in time to give my talk.

A rare thing happened yesterday. My “day job” collided with my volunteer project. Actually, in 20 years on Channel 4 News I don’t think it’s ever happened before.

But after the outing of Belle de Jour – the PhD-wielding academic with an intriguing money-generating enterprise on the side – I felt we should put the other side of the coin. We should talk to some of those who have no choice in the matter and who work at the exploited, grubby end of prostitution.

The New Horizon youth centre, where I worked before becoming a hack, is a day centre for young homeless people in London.

For some years now we have run a twice weekly group for young woman sex workers. They are young women who live harrowing lives. One of them contributed to Alex Thomson’s report last night.

I popped into the centre today. I’m still the chair of the project. We got a significant lottery grant earlier this year and the entire place is being refurbed and expanded. It look sensational and will reopen at the beginning of next year.

We are presently decamped to another building in the same street, a road that runs between the British Library and Euston Station.

The reason I mention all this is that one of our sex workers contributed to our report last night. New Horizon’s blog has been active since, so here’s a link: www.nhyouthcentre.org.uk

The item on the rarest Dinky toy in the world on last night’s Channel 4 News gave me a pang of nostalgia as I glimpsed my beloved Dinky car transporter (not the actual one, but the model) on the right of screen in Nick Glass’s report.

When I was seven years old my mum and dad put me in for a choral scholarship to become a chorister at Winchester Cathedral.

To my total surprise, I got it. I heard the news in the late afternoon of the day I had sung in competition with six other boys. My father, who was a cleric and who believed himself to be a little poorer that he really was, made an unprecedented offer.

“You can have anything you want,” he cried. With ten minutes to closing time, we dashed to the toy shop. And there it was sitting in the window – a pale blue Dinky car transporter.

“That’s what I want,” I whooped. It was a whacking great sixteen shillings. My pocket money was seven old pennies at the time (it went up year on year). My father took a sharp intake of breath and we marched into the closing shop. My apparently overwhelming desire for instant gratification was sated.

But I was taken back to my chorister roots last night after doing the News. For only the second time since my choir-singing days, I found myself singing in public.

I was on the bill at the Green Note in Camden Town. A young friend, Mara Carlisle, who works at the New Horizon Youth Centre (for homeless teenagers) where I am chair, is the most gifted of blues singers.

She has recently had a contract with EMI and is now going solo on her own label. But one of her CDs is to include duets. I and the singer Will Young are to be two of her duettists.

And so it was that I found myself singing with her and her brother, guitarist Bennett, and her spiritual brother Dan on accordion, at 10.45 pm last at the Green Note.

Despite pre-performance nerves, the old voice came back and Somebody Dear went, well, er like a song, to a cheer you could have heard across the street.

I take a lunch break at the New Horizon Youth Centre – it’s a day centre for homeless teenagers in King’s Cross where I work as chair of the management council. Conveniently, it is only 10 minutes from where I work.

We have two new workers who I have come to meet on the first day of their induction. I’ve been involved here one way or another ever since I worked here as director 35 years ago.

Image taken from Google Street View

Today’s a significant day because we have secured an amazing £1.5m lottery grant to refurbish and expand our premises. And we are moving up the road to temporary premises whilst it is done.

The problems we deal with get no smaller. The intelligence and diversity of those we work with is, if anything, even more marked than back in the 70s. I guess this is a consequence of the economic downturn.

The care system still delivers a disproportionate number, as does domestic child abuse. A phenomenal number of stepfathers abuse the kids they move in with.

The breakthrough since I worked here is the huge number of volunteers. We run a programme for them. This month’s intake numbers 17. Two have dropped out, one had a criminal record so considerable that we didn’t think we could risk him. We train them for other projects beside our own.

This is the upside of the crunch – bankers, accountants, lawyers coming forward to do a day or two a week or to work the weekends.

Our rebuild really comes courtesy of the amazing John McAslan, the architect of the King’s Cross development (the biggest inner city redevelopment in western Europe). He funded an architectural competition, found us all sorts of pro bono partners, and the rest is down to the fantastic team of workers there, led by today’s director Shelagh O’Connor.

It is all a chastening contrast from my “day job”.