Award winner for best large housing development
Home truths
This was the development that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said had the “wow” factor when he visited it last year to present the first Building for Life Gold Standard Award on behalf of CABE (the Commission on Architecture and the Built Environment), HBF (the Home Builders’ Federation) and the Civic Trust. The award went to Copthorn Homes, who also won the very first Building for Life award in 2002 – designed by the same architects, Proctor and Matthews – in Mile End Road, East London. Copthorn Homes has since been merged with its parent company, Countryside Properties.
The value of these awards, chosen as they are by a partnership of three such influential bodies, is that they give the developments an imprimatur of quality – just as we believe these National HomeBuilder Design Awards do, given that they have the backing of the RIBA, HBF and NHBC. After three years of Building for Life awards, there is now a large library of influential developments such as Greenwich Millennium Village, BedZED, Ingress Park, St Mary’s Island and Lacuna at King’s Hill, West Malling; and after 25 years of the National HomeBuilder Design Awards, there is incontrovertible evidence that the design of speculative housing has improved – though there is still plenty of room for improvement.
It is difficult to say what it is about Abode that makes it so significant, but as with great art, it can either be appreciated or not. Anyone who visits Abode (or any other of the Building for Life award winners) cannot fail to see there is something very different going on. It is not just the monopitch roofs – including some that are thatched – nor is it the vibrant colours of the cladding panels, which obviously dismay the traditionalists. It is more to do with the fact that all these award-winning developments, large and small, have a real identity. That is in itself an achievement in an
otherwise standardised world where blandness, standardisation and lack of imagination rule.
At Abode – just as at Poundbury, whose design is completely opposite to Abode, and equally misunderstood by many architects and laymen – the proof of the pudding is in the eating, in that people have gone out of their way to buy into Abode (and the other phases of the groundbreaking Newhall development) because they want to live there, not because they have to (as is unfortunately the case with most social housing) or need to (because there is plenty of other housing for sale in Harlow).
As large housing developments go, this is small: just 82 new homes on seven acres, ranging from one-bedroom apartments of 614 sq ft to five-bedroom houses of 1,087 sq ft, which have been sold at prices from £145,000 to £450,000. It was the second stage of what will be a completely new neighbourhood of Harlow, with 2,800 new homes on 250 acres of farmland owned (and still controlled) by two brothers, William and Jon Moen, of New Hall Projects.
They are only releasing the land in parcels to developers who can satisfy them - before they satisfy the local planners – that they are using a variety of good architects to produce new housing that makes a positive contribution, taking into account the need for sustainability and community. The next phase, CALA Domus, designed by PCKO Architects, is already on site.
As John Prescott has said: “This is a model of the communities we have to build.” And as CABE has said: “Abode combines the sense of occasion afforded by one-off houses with the economies of volume housebuilding.” But the final word belongs to Jon Moen, who says: “I am often asked why we do not just accept the highest bid for the land and leave all the rest to the developers. One of the reasons is that the land has been in our family for four generations. We feel a responsibility for the quality and design of what will eventually replace the farmland.”
HomeBuilder: COUNTRYSIDE PROPERTIES PLC
Countryside House, The Drive, Brentwood, Essex CM13 3AT
Tel 01277 260000 Fax 01277 690600
Contact: Guy Lambert, Corporate Communications Manager
Email: guy.lambert@cpplc.com
Website: www.cpplc.com
in partnership with
NEW HALL PROJECTS LIMITED
Lynsore Court, Upper Hardres, Canterbury, Kent CT4 6EE
Contact: Jon Moen (01277 709878)
Architects: PROCTOR AND MATTHEWS ARCHITECTS
7 Blue Lion Place, 237 Long Lane, London SE1 4PU
Tel: 020 7378 6695 Fax 020 7378 1372
Contact: Andrew Matthews, Director
Email: a.matthews@proctorandmatthews.com
Website: www.proctorandmatthews.com
in association with Master Planners and Urban Designers:
ROGER EVANS ASSOCIATES LIMITED
59-63 High Street, Kidlington, Oxfordshire OX5 2DN
Tel 01865 377030 Fax 01865 377050
Contact: Roger Evans, Managing Director
Email: design@rogerevans.com
Website: www.rogerevans.com
