Contemporary Vernacular Design

How British Housing Can Rediscover its Soul

Clare Nash

• Publisher: RIBA Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000701654
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arquitectura
• Subtopic: Arquitectura general

This book presents 25 international housing schemes that draw on traditional vernacular principles whilst taking into account modern day materials, methods and financial or energy requirements. The aim is to show how, despite mass housing needs, we can design quality modern schemes that 'fit' their surroundings and generate a sense of place, community and regional identity – rather than the poor quality, identikit housing currently seen wherever you are in the UK.

Part 1
View on the Vernacular

1.1
Housing – The British View

The UK is alone in Europe with its house-buying obsession. Many people in the UK purchase houses as a commodity/pension/financial asset/income, with ‘home’ being last on the priority list. By doing this, we have been deluding ourselves for many decades. Elation at house-price growth has given way to the surprisingly slow realisation that not only will our children and grandchildren be unable to buy a house (without a large inheritance), but that even an extra bedroom has become simply unaffordable.

The ‘house as commodity’ mindset is also affecting our communities. Generation Rent is increasing the rate at which people move house. Those who live in an area for only six months to a year are not concerned about getting on with their neighbours, or in developing a community. Globalisation is another factor: with so many of us able to communicate with family and friends wherever they are, immediate neighbours are less important. The community aspect that was so important to previous generations when choosing a place to live is less vital to the millennials.

The Georgian and Victorian terraces of London, Bath, York or Oxford are much loved, but there is a gross lack of new-build terraced housing in the UK. Concerns about sound transmittance, the estate agents’ value system and Grand Designs-style TV programmes have created a higher value for detached homes and contributed to the demise of the terrace. As case studies in this book show, terraces can still be done well and party-wall sound issues need no longer be a problem in new-build row housing.

We have lost something special in our blind pursuit of ‘the house’. Bath-based architect Piers Taylor, of Invisible Studio, observes that some of the nicest areas in Bath comprise simply housing situated around a place that everyone can enjoy. Now, due to the way we value homes, their delivery is about houses rather than housing (detached homes cost more), and these wonderful public spaces have been lost in the majority of housing provision today.

Apart from escalating house prices, we prospective British homebuyers have exacerbated the problem by not demanding quality and space from our homes. Such is our desperation to get on the housing ladder that we are willing to compromise on quality to ‘get into the game’ or improve our position.¹ We live in a capitalist society – but is it right that people make money at the expense of others not being able to afford a home: a basic human need? Shouldn’t everyone in our wealthy country have the right to a decent home, whether rented or bought?

Houses in the UK are bought and sold on the number of bedrooms, rather than floor area. This epitomises the disconnect between how we personally value the built environment and the way the system compels us to value it. In contrast, continental European homes are bought and sold on square metreage, a much more practical approach that doesn’t leave you wondering why you can’t fit a proper-sized double bed into your new bedroom. It also prevents people partitioning rooms ‘to add value’.

The English Housing Survey² is a very informative read, and it shows that underoccupancy is a huge factor in the UK’s housing shortage. Underoccupancy is defined as homes with two or more spare bedrooms. If all bedrooms were occupied, the housing shortage might not exist. But many people need an extra bedroom for storage, an issue that will only worsen if space standards fall.

A Very Brief History

The best way for the UK government to provide the extensive amount of housing required following the Second World War was through volume building. This blanket approach quickly provided much-needed housing, but it also had the unintended consequence of further arresting the evolution of vernacular architecture – a process which had begun during the Industrial Revolution.

1.1.1 Alison Brooks Architects: Newhall Be, Harlow, Essex.

Various sources suggest that we now need between 232,000 and 300,000 new homes each year to meet demand; this is close to postwar annual housing provision levels (when more than 300,000 new homes a year were built).³ It is in the housebuilders interest to undersupply to maintain high prices, additionally fewer people can afford to buy today further dis-incentivising a larger housing output. Nonetheless, housing demand and a cost crunch have resulted in a proliferation of units delivered by volume housebuilders. Few UK towns have escaped the blight of this kind of cheap, substandard provision. Volume house building has become inflexible and sluggish; it is not able or willing to keep up with the kind of changes seen in other sectors, such as the IT or automotive industries.⁴ In the UK, Alison Brooks Architects produced an award-winning, highly sought-after, suburban scheme at Newhall Be in 2012, challenging volume housebuilders’ preconceived ideas at every turn. However, Brooks has expressed exasperation that the housing industry has not learnt from their, or any other, good housing scheme; it just carries on producing what it wants.⁸

Since 2012, the UK government has been forced to find another way. Relaxed permitted development on agricultural buildings came in 2014, followed by the Self-Build and Custom Housebuilding Act in 2015. The Housing Standards Review in 2013 was a consultation to try to ‘rationalise and simplify’ a wide range of local and national standards and rules. Its ultimate aim was to speed up the housing-production process.⁵ Some standards were subsequently abolished – namely, the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) and the Zero Carbon Homes (ZCH) standard formerly required of all new dwellings from 2016 – despite ‘quality’ and ‘sustainability’ being named as key aims that the consultation wanted to preserve. For private housebuilders there are now no mandatory sustainability standards, only voluntary ones such as the AECB (Association for Environment Conscious Building) silver standard or the BRE (Building Research Establishment) Home Quality Mark. The ‘More Homes, Better Homes’ Architects’ Journal campaign aims to highlight these issues, informing both the architecture profession and the industry,⁶ just as the RIBA is highlighting space standards in its ‘Homewise’ campaign. Julia Park, of Levitt Bernstein Housing Research, has said that housebuilders are happy to comply with standards. But because they are in competition with each other they are unlikely to use voluntary ones.

What Do We Want?

Momentarily setting aside the issue of numbers of units required, what type of housing do people actually want in the second decade of the 21st century? A 2012 RIBA housing report shows that older homes were seen by survey participants as having more space, more character and more potential for adaptation.⁷ Surely, if occupants could be more actively engaged in building new homes, these could be better tailored to their needs from the outset. People also said that they bought a home that ‘felt right’ and worried about practical considerations later. The importance of the ‘feel’ of a place to live is something that my research has also shown is important to residents. Better-quality places will sell faster and retain value, so they make financial sense as well.

In 2014, a quote from the Home Builders Federation in the Architects’ Journal claimed that ‘those who buy and live in new build homes are overwhelmingly happy with the homes they buy’.⁸ This may well be the case in some of the better developments – in fact, one even features in this book. Nevertheless, it beggars belief that everyone who buys these homes is ‘overwhelmingly happy’. The fact is, if you want to buy a new-build home in this country, you have very little choice. To live in a home that only requires moving into, no remedial works necessary, means to live in a boxy home with no character, in a sea of replicas. People are too busy worrying about how to pay for their new home to complain, and most are unaware of any alternatives.

Typically, when moving into a new home, residents will install a conservatory so that they can enjoy extra light and access to their garden. They do not know that there are better ways of incorporating these attributes into a house design in the first place. Since we know that extra light is particularly beneficial in winter, reducing or eliminating SAD (seasonal affective disorder), why are most new homes still built with small windows?

The Impact of the Public Sector on Housing Quality in Europe

What is fascinating, and noticeable, when comparing various European countries is the extent of the impact that government regulation has on the quality of housing construction and design. According to a 2008 study from the National Custom and Self Build Association (NaCSBA), more than 80% of Austrian and 50–60% of Scandinavian homes are self-built, but the UK achieved just 11%.⁹ Self-build schemes such as Almere (initiated in the 1970s) in the Netherlands are world famous; everyone who visits them returns with the idea that housing provision in the UK should change. In Sweden, the vast majority of land is state owned. When it is sold off to developers, it is not to build 3,000 houses, but less than 100. In addition, a frequent condition from the municipality is that these homes should perform 50% better than the building regulations in terms of energy efficiency. The small scale of developments in Sweden helps to prevent monotony and ensures that housing will meet future energy-efficiency targets. In the state of Vorarlberg, Austria, anyone who owns land can build a house on it. There is no green belt as such. This would be a disaster were it not for the progressive stance on architecture and design that the local government has taken to ensure that what is built, whether traditional or contemporary, is of good quality design-wise. They achieve this with community Gestaltungsbeiräte (design advisory boards). Some Austrian provinces have not established many or any of these advisory boards, but in Vorarlberg they are a very useful interface between architects, craftspeople, policy makers and the general public. Half of all the Gestaltungsbeiräte in Austria are in Vorarlberg.¹⁰ The result is a region renowned for its contemporary architecture, but one that still attracts tourists who come to enjoy a traditional Austrian environment.

In Germany, most people rent for much of their lives, sometimes building their own home in their 40s or 50s. This means that quality is usually better as they are building for life rather than for profit, which is unfortunately the norm in the UK. This also has the benefit of leaving a legacy of good-quality, well-built, energy-efficient homes for future generations. ‘Baugruppe’ (groups of people who want to build together, whether apartments or self-build homes) make self-build accessible and ‘catalogue’ homes (where you buy a plot and then choose a design from a building-company catalogue) are another alternative.

The Developer Model

Jon Sawyer, of developer Carillion Igloo, has said, ‘We know that as many as 67% of people would rather not buy from a volume housebuilder.’¹¹

UK volume housebuilders understand the public’s interest in a sustainable home, but think that we aren’t willing to pay a premium for better environmental performance. The schemes in this book prove not only that people will pay for it, but also that it is achievable for less than housebuilders expect. Volume housebuilders’ interests are very short term, and are all about maximising profit. It is therefore unsurprising that while the developer model continues to dominate in the UK our housing quality remains poor. Larger housebuilder mergers, such as that of Taylor Wimpey, are making it even harder for the smaller developers to compete. According to The Economist,¹² 10–30 unit housebuilders have declined by 50% since 2008. We are moving into the realm of super-housebuilders, which could not be further from a vernacular way of building.

Surely the government can see that it is not a good idea that a handful of large housebuilders, whose sole motive is profit, have such control over the shape of our current and future housing provision? Not only this, but the shape of our villages, towns and cities? We need to learn from continental European strategies for housing provision, and from the schemes in this book. We need to make it easier for housing associations (with their longer-term, more sustainable outlooks) to build more, providing more affordable housing. We need to make it easier for the average person to buy a plot of land and build on it.

The Future: Self- and Custom-Build

NaCSBA has been lobbying for some time for the measures that are now included in The Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015. This act should change the way we procure housing in this country for the better. With new guidelines launched in February 2016, the act came into force in April 2016. It requires local planning authorities to keep registers of self- and custom-builders in their area and to ‘have regard for’ the register when disposing of land or anything related to housing, planning and regeneration.¹³ (Custom-build offers the affordability of buying a shell and adding your own ‘sweat equity’ to finish it.) The act also allows volume housebuilders to provide land for self-or custom-build under their affordable-housing quota. Cherwell District Council is a UK pioneer, providing land for around 1,000 self-builders on an old MoD (Ministry of Defence) site south of Bicester, Oxfordshire. I have also noticed that my own local authority has circulated questionnaires asking if respondents would like to self-build. As we can learn from continental Europe, self- and custom-building produce better-quality, fit-for-purpose housing. The self-builder is interested in a home they will live in for a long time, and is therefore prepared to put the effort in to get it right.

This book also contains housing schemes by notable smaller developers who are keen to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• CONTENTS
• Foreword
• Introduction
• PART 1: VIEW ON THE VERNACULAR
• 1.1 Housing – The British View
• 1.2 What is Contemporary Vernacular Design?
• 1.3 Contemporary Vernacular Design Qualities
• PART 2: UK HOUSING
• 2.1 Barking, London
• 2.2 Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk
• 2.3 Derwenthorpe, York
• 2.4 Elmswell, Suffolk
• 2.5 Fulmodeston and Barney, Norfolk
• 2.6 New Islington, Manchester
• 2.7 Osprey Quay, Portland
• 2.8 Plockton, Scottish Highlands
• 2.9 St Fagans, Cardiff
• 2.10 Swindon, Wiltshire
• Lessons from UK Housing
• PART 3: CO-HOUSING
• 3.1 Ashley Vale, Bristol
• 3.2 Copper Lane, London
• 3.3 Lancaster Co-Housing, Halton
• 3.4 LILAC, Leeds
• 3.5 Springhill Co-Housing, Stroud
• 3.6 Sieben Linden, Germany
• Lessons from Co-housing
• PART 4: EUROPE
• 4.1 Biesland, Netherlands
• 4.2 Eden Bio, France
• 4.3 Lake Constance, Germany
• 4.4 Vetlanda, Sweden
• 4.5 Vorarlberg, Austria
• Lessons from Europe
• PART 5: REST OF THE WORLD
• 5.1 Centro Lak’a Uta, Bolivia
• 5.2 Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea
• 5.3 New South Wales, Australia
• 5.4 Santiago, Chile
• 5.5 Yan’an, China
• Lessons from the Rest of the World
• Conclusion: How Can British Housing Rediscover its Soul?
• Notes
• Further Reading
• Index
• Image Credits