Thorsten Van Elten is a talent scout: not in the Simon Cowell "spot-a-pop-star" vein, but one on the lookout for promising furniture and product designers. Van Elten seeks out and promotes young creative types, sometimes matchmaking them with a manufacturer or showcasing their work through his wholesale company and idiosyncratic shop. The shop, on Warren Street in Central London, is just an hors d'oeuvre for his home, a third-floor flat in a building across the road. "The bedrooms are in the NW1 postcode but the sitting room is in W1," he says as we climb the 67 steps of the five flights of stairs that lead from the nondescript, bell-less front door on the Euston Road to the entrance of his home.

Fortunately, there is a large brown L-shaped sofa with a scattering of bright felt cushions to collapse on to when the steep climb is over. For those in need, a cup of coffee can be passed through the hatch from the primary-coloured kitchen on the far side of the black dining-room wall.

"The designs I select for the business are the sort of thing I like to have at home," Thorsten says. "It's very much my choice and it is usually a gut reaction to something that makes me go for it."

Over the years he has selected some notable talent. Opposite the brown sofa, on the hearth in front of the terracotta-clad fireplace, is an oversized tea cup and saucer containing a castor-oil plant. This Brobdingnag-sized vessel is the work of Gitta Gschwendtner, one of his recent "finds". Above the fireplace, in pride of place, is an oil painting of Thorsten's grandfather, every inch the prosperous German businessman with a cigar between his well-manicured fingers — but underneath is a "Little Joseph" ceramic doll's head candlestick by 29-year-old Czech Maxim Velcovsky.

On the glass coffee table is a "War Bowl" by Dominic Wilcox. "We had trouble finding the right soldiers for this," says Thorsten. "We went through enormous warehouses filled with cheap toys trying to find plastic soldiers that would melt well. We ended up in South London where we came across a window cleaner who had original toy soldier moulds that could be reproduced with good-quality injection moulding." The white bowl has soldiers from the English Civil War; a blue version features those from the Battle of Waterloo.

A long corridor, the inner wall of which is stripped back to the brick, runs from the front to the back of the flat. The two bedrooms are at the front, on the NW1 side; a recently renovated white-tiled bathroom and the kitchen with its blue walls, yellow worktops and large red fridge are in the middle; and the all-in-one living and dining room is in the smarter, W1 direction, facing the iconic landmark of Telecom Tower.

When I remark that the concrete and metal dining table must weigh a ton and have been a nightmare to get up the stairs, Thorsten admits he was out the day it was delivered and left it to his flatmate to organise. The table, like the tall Espiga wire floor lamp, is by the well-established designers Bowles & Linares, and the chest of drawers in his bedroom is by long-standing Italian manufacturers Cappellini. The walnut dining chairs are an Eames design and were bought from Twentytwentyone.

The hallway, however, showcases brand-new designs. Fixed to the brick wall is a reversible oak box "Mr Moon" shelf and beneath it a three-legged, angular "Keith's console", both by another Thorsten protégé, Richard Shed, who also designed the white "Magazine reader" table at the end of the brown sofa.

The main bedroom is minimally decorated with restful pale grey walls, but on the side wall there is a splendid "Antlers" coat hanger by Alexander Taylor, and beside the bed a pair of black "Pigeon Lights" by Ed Carpenter. The bed itself has a cross-print blanket in blue and white by Swedish designer Pia Wallén.

Thorsten's design acumen and "gut reactions" are shortly to be harnessed by another source. He and four other curators have been appointed to select graduates for the New Designers show at the Business Design Centre in Islington, which opens this week. Their choices will seen under the umbrella One Year On, a showcase for designers who have been in business for a year. "It isn't just about any new work they might have created, it is also about their professionalism, how they have stepped up to the challenge of working in design," he explains.

With the work of more than 4,000 other graduates on show in the main halls, Thorsten will be busy, searching for the one or two things that make him take a second look ­ and, in time, may end up in his elevated eerie.

Thorsten Van Elten, 22 Warren Street, London W1 (020-7388 8008; www.thorstenvanelten.com); New Designers at the Business Design Centre, London N1, starts on Thursday (020-7288 6738; www.newdesigners.com)

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