Learning by Example: Dissertation 2020

learning by example: how can we learn from the united kingdom’s domestic vernacular architecture to find solutions to the uk’s housing crisis?

An exploration into how and why domestic vernacular architecture responds well to its locality and needs, and how the new housing developments needed in the UK for its growing population can learn from the values of the vernacular to build more sustainable and more community-focused settlements for the future.

Charlotte Gregory 17064352 2020

A dissertation presented to the School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University, in part fulfilment of the regulations for BA (Hons) in Architecture.

Statement of Originality This dissertation is an original piece of work which is made available for copying with permission of the Head of the School of Architecture Signed: Charlotte Gregory

Acknowledgements My sincere thanks to my dissertation supervisor Philip Baker, for his time, commitment, and insightful comments throughout my research.

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contents Introduction

5

Literature

8

Outline

10

Chapter 1: Tradition, Ideas and Principles

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Chapter 2: How to Construct a Community:

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Chapter 3: Rethinking the Model:

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Conclusion

32

Bibliography

36

Image References

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Figure 1: Playground under construction in Elmsbrook, December 2019 Page 4

introduction The term ‘vernacular’ was first used to describe non-pedigreed architecture in Bernard Rudofsky’s Museum Of Modern Art (MOMA) exhibition and subsequent book, ‘Architecture Without Architects’ (1964), a loan word from linguistics which was subsequently fully commandeered by architectural historian Paul Oliver (Özkan, 2006) for use as a discussion point within architectural theory. It is interesting to note that ‘vernacular architecture’ as a designation is barely over 50 years old, and yet each person has their own definition of what it comprises.

Modernist architect Pietro Belluschi (1899 – 1994) put forward a definition for what he labelled “communal architecture” – a similar concept to the form of vernacular architecture described by Rudofsky in 1964, but which focused more on the role of the community in the architecture around them. To Belluschi, communal architecture was a non-specialist art form: “...the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting under a community of experience” (Belluschi, cited in Rudofsky, 1972: 6) This ‘communal architecture’ is the aspect of vernacular architecture which this dissertation will be predominantly focusing on, to examine the influence that people should have on their built environment, and to argue for a stronger focus on community in the future of domestic architecture. The connection between vernacular and communal architecture is a social one – based on the people who create the traditions and heritage that later become recognised as vernacular. Ideologically, the world is both more global and more disconnected than ever; and as humans are inherently social creatures, it can be argued that there is a subconscious desire for connection more than a directly conscious one (Day, 2002; Adam, 2008 ed.), but that people naturally desire connectivity.

In the past 15 years or so, vernacular architecture has been brought to the forefront in cross-disciplinary academic discussions on sustainability in built environments (Day, 2002; Vellinga, 2013). These conversations primarily focus on the technical aspects of vernacular architecture – viewing the topic through an engineer’s perspective, or an academic viewpoint. The most fundamental aspect of vernacular architectural styles, however, is their connection to more pragmatic elements: their community, their Page 5

geographical advantages and challenges, their physical connection to the world around them. At its simplest, vernacular architecture is architecture sans architects, created to meet the needs of those who build it.

To understand more fully how and why to apply vernacular ideals to our own built future, we must not only analyse the technical aspects of what makes traditional communal settlements more sustainable, but include and analyse the social aspects, so we can create better and more sustainable communities for the UK’s future. There is no panacea for the United Kingdom’s housing crisis, for example, or the ongoing global climate crisis, however this is not to say that there aren’t any solutions for them. The best option is to integrate several solutions and be mindful of specific contexts and needs when doing so.

The housing crisis is currently a prominent issue around the UK, with an annual shortage of up to 150,000 homes per year (Shelter, 2013) and a housing market that most perceive to be broken. This broken housing market is an opportunity to rethink the model of developer-led housing (Open House Oxford, 2019), and to ensure that future housing is built for the long term, like the houses of the past were.

Figure 2: Self-build homes at Graven Hill, December 2019

One of the proposed solutions for the housing model is a greater push towards community-led housing developments. Plenty of cities in Europe and around the world are already pioneering custom-build approaches to housing developments, the largest of these being the city of Almere, Netherlands (Grand Designs: The Street, 2019; Maak Oosterwold, n.d.). Whether this is comparable with communal architecture depends on each development, as communal architecture is spontaneous by nature, whereas developments are pre-planned and have deliberate objectives at their heart.

In the UK, the development of Graven Hill, Bicester, (Figure 2) is seeking to embody Almere’s example by creating a focus on alternative construction and community-led development. Graven Hill is Britain’s largest self- and custom-build site yet (NaCSBA, 2019). Given that Graven Hill is still a Page 6

Figure 3: Homes at Elmsbrook, December 2019

relatively new venture – the first plots having started work in 2017 (Grand Designs: The Street, 2019) – there are few academic works on it as of yet. It will likely be several years before its impacts are tangible, but in the mveantime, it still creates a starting point for large-scale alternative housing solutions.

On the other side of Bicester, Elmsbrook (Figure 3) is a new eco-village that is seeking to create low-impact community living through integrated car-sharing and public transport schemes (Fabrica representative, 2019), and a focus on sustainable homes.

Elmsbrook is the first phase of a new development plan for the North West of Bicester (Fabrica, 2019), aiming to pioneer a more environmentally-aware modern way of life for other settlements to take precedent from.

Figure 4: Homes at Poundbury

A more literal take on the idea of learning from vernacular is embodied in the developments of Poundbury, Dorset (Figure 4), and more recently in Nansledan, Cornwall (Duchy of Cornwall, 2019). These examples follow the 10 Geometric Principles put forward by His Royal Highness (HRH) Prince Charles, which will also be explored as starting points for more sustainable development. The 10 Geometric Principles emphasise the importance of harmony and coherence in an urban context (Architectural Review, 2014), stating that by directly relating to context, and using traditional materials and styles, a new development can preserve an area’s atmosphere as well as preserving these traditional techniques from being lost to history.

Poundbury is HRH The Prince of Wales’ pioneering housing project, in which his architects master planned the new suburb of Dorchester to be as organically formed as possible, creating winding streets and reflecting the vernacular architecture of neighbouring towns. Poundbury has been the subject of much academic debate over its lifetime, with both praise and criticism of the scheme and its ideas.

Both the developments in Bicester and the scheme in Poundbury will be foci for this study into how future vernacular-inspired housing developments can pave the way for a more sustainable housing system in the UK. They are all high-profile schemes and as such much of their coverage has a strong element of bias in literature and media coverage, which will create an impact on how they are viewed by both experts and the general public now and in decades to come.

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literature The study of vernacular buildings has often been relegated to one of aesthetics or history, with few studies into how they may be relevant for modern housing developments (Asquith & Vellinga, 2006, ed.). However, while most architectural studies into the vernacular and its importance in Western academia focus on documenting historical buildings and categorising them, in recent years the focus has shifted more towards what architects can learn from these traditions and heritages (Vellinga, 2013).

In the UK, studying vernacular architecture as an aesthetic practice began in the 18th Century with books on cottages by Soane, Nash, and Wood appearing (Mount, 2011) and the advent of heritage and Romanticism in the 1790s. This nostalgic view on traditional buildings continued to be the standard until the 1960s and 1970s (Rudofsky, 1964, 1972; Oliver, 1969) when new approaches were proposed – Rudofsky (1972) suggested a more global outlook on architecture that focused on a wider variety of domestic architecture than the standard Eurocentric focus, and Oliver (1969) advocated for a multi-disciplinary approach that combined architecture and anthropology.

Oliver’s belief was that vernacular buildings were more than just art objects to be admired (The Guardian, 2017) and that we can apply the lessons from vernacular architecture and their cultures to our present day. His collective works inspired many of the researchers who work with vernacular architecture today. (Vellinga, 2017)

In 2006, L. Asquith & M. Vellinga created a compilation of some of the most prominent researchers’ ideas in the field of vernacular architecture, and their book Vernacular Architecture in the 21st Century (2006) sought to create a modern dialogue on vernacular architecture which had not been present before. In this book, Asquith, Vellinga and their collaborators aim to address how vernacular architecture and its components should change in the new millennium to become less place-based and more information-based (ibid.) The works compiled and cited in this book have been instrumental in the formation of the arguments in this dissertation, giving a new dimension to how the vernacular is examined in western society and how this should change.

While this and subsequent publications have started the discussion into how we can Page 8

learn from vernacular architecture in the modern day (Orbaşlı, 2008; Vellinga, 2013), few studies have put these ideas into practice yet. As the influences for architecture are now so much more far-reaching than ever before, thanks to globalisation and its now all-encompassing scope, vernacular architecture is not a tradition to be left in the past (Vellinga, 2006).

Vernacular architecture has been given many definitions over time, but most of these essentially condense into seven key aspects: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Design without architects Localised, context-specific style Centred around function and needs Local and/or convenient materiality Draws from predecessors and tradition Develops over time, rather than being part of a specific movement Connects people to place

A synthesised definition of “vernacular architecture” might therefore read along the lines of: “Function-orientated, localised style of domestic building construction, which tends to use the most readily available local materials and often uses traditional construction methods to best adapt to its physical and social environment.” (Author’s own) This definition has been chosen as a fusion of at least nine diverse definitions of the word, which each have elements in common, such as historicism (Rice, 1991; Sharpe, 2011; Ncube, 2019), materiality (ibid.; CNN, 2017) and locality (Merriam-Webster; Designing Buildings Wiki; Charalambides, 2013).

By using this synthesised definition, we can create a more symbiotic conversation encompassing all the elements - social, physical and otherwise - that make vernacular architecture around the world so unique. In a conversation about modern housing, there is much to learn from how we used to do it, and this dissertation intends to discuss what we can learn and where we can improve in the future. With regards to the UK and its housing needs, it is not necessarily a case of “solving” the housing crisis, but instead mitigating and managing the problems that are causing it, and working towards multiple Page 9

coexistent solutions directly linked to situation and context.

outline This dissertation is divided into three chapters, with a conclusion to integrate the points discussed throughout. It will be drawing on planning theory, architectural anthropology, and vernacular studies, in pursuit of how and why the new housing developments that the UK needs in the coming decades can learn from vernacular settlements, to help their inhabitants to build and to live more sustainably.

Chapter One is focused on exploring the foundational ideas behind the case studies previously introduced. To better understand these core ideas, the chapter will first explore the concepts underpinning Britain’s historic settlements, and how these later influenced the key urban and suburban housing movements of the 20th Century. Then, it will explore how these frameworks are influencing Poundbury, Elmsbrook and Graven Hill - with a specific emphasis on the 10 Geometrical Principles of HRH The Prince of Wales (1989; Architectural Review, 2014) regarding Poundbury, and on the 10 Healthy Town Principles put forward by the NHS (Cherwell District Council, 2019) that the Elmsbrook development is seeking to employ.

Figure 5: Side street in Poundbury, December 2019

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Chapter Two further explores the physical framework of a traditional village settlement, and how both its social and physical construction went on to form the first planned estates. This chapter focuses on the application of the ideas explored in Chapter One, by exploring how each case study has implemented amenities and community into its masterplan. It will explore the different aspects of a community that a housing estate can host, and how and why these communities form, drawing on anthropological analyses,

and how this integrated approach aids in understanding the links between the past and the present.

Chapter Three puts the ideas implemented into context, asking how these approaches to communal architecture can offer solutions to the issues in the UK’s housing market. It outlines the shortcomings of Britain’s housing policies, and the potential solutions that Poundbury, Elmsbrook and Graven Hill may be able to offer, while relating back to how the traditional village was structured. This chapter draws on the calls from organisations like Open House and Homes England for more collectivised discussions towards housing development, where the community is once again at the core of designing dwellings.

In the conclusion, this dissertation will seek to tie together what has been learned and where these settlements could go from here, and what Britain could learn from these approaches regarding the future of its housing.

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chapter 1: tradition, ideas and principles To what extent do the ideas behind my case studies relate to the principles of vernacular and communal architecture?

This chapter aims to investigate the core ideas behind the experimental schemes of Poundbury, Elmsbrook, and Graven Hill. It will explore how these ideas have followed on from the traditional aspects of English settlements, and how they have learned from the legacies of the Garden City movement and of New Urbanism in the UK. The three chosen settlements have a strong focus on establishing community (Hardy, 2006; NHS, 2019; Grand Designs: The Street, 2019), and each one is working towards creating an exemplar for future developments in the United Kingdom, each by showcasing a different approach to what housing could be like.

By exploring these, this chapter will establish frameworks for vernacular and communal architectural ‘principles’, and outline what each of the three case studies of experimental housing development have in common with, or could learn from, regarding these frameworks.

Architecture itself, both as a profession and in education, often overlooks housing as it is so familiar to all of us; however vernacular architecture and anthropology are closely interlinked disciplines (Ara & Rashid, 2017). Asquith (2005, ed.) argues for an integrated approach to modern vernacular studies regarding housing, explaining that the anthropological and sociological aspects of community and domesticity are often ignored in such studies, and yet these are vital to understanding the rituals and interactions that shape the spaces we inhabit. Architectural anthropology is relevant to both vernacular studies and to contemporary urban environments (Stender 2017), therefore approaching the built form as a way to learn about socio-cultural behaviours, as anthropologists tend to do, assists architects in analysing the built environment. With this integrated approach of architectural anthropology in mind, one can explore both the theoretical and the pragmatic aspects of learning from vernacular and communal architecture.

Bronner (2005, ed.) argues that tradition is a behavioural process, but that architectural scholars tend to explore building traditions as text, with a focus on the building itself, rather than as processes or events.

The building is thought to explain all and directly reflect its context; however, it is important to regard a building’s context and surrounding influences to better understand it. Therefore, if buildings represent their parent culture and its peoples, the answer to how and why they are produced can be answered both in a ‘textual’ way – why they are – and a ‘processual’ one – why they came to be (ibid.).

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If tradition is a behavioural process, then tradition can therefore be thought of as a framework for cultural continuity. Bronner (ibid.) lays out four implications of this framework, where tradition can be viewed as various forces and processes depending on its context. In summary, these are:

1.

2.

3.

4.

Figure 6. Ebenezer Howard’s ‘Three Magnets’ diagram.

Figure 7: Graph showing permanent dwellings completed in England & Wales between 1923 and 2014. Source: Full Fact

Era and Consistency, where tradition works both as a force, dictating similarities, and as a social construct; Inconsistencies over Time, where tradition is passed down over generations, and when significant change occurs, this is due to a major paradigm shift in social or economic structure of the culture; Communication across Space, where various influences affect the transmission and diffusion of ideas; Individuality, Variations and Creative Dynamic: since traditions are themes and guidelines rather than a hard-and-fast set of rules, it is more common for vernacular buildings of a particular era to incorporate variations on a theme as opposed to all being the same.

The tradition of a settlement being a self-contained community has been the norm since the dawn of human settlements, around 23,000 to 17,000 years ago, with the neighbourhood as the unifying component of villages, towns and cities (Douany, 2003, ed.). In the United Kingdom, models for efficient neighbourhood planning in first appeared as early as the 1780s with a small amount of entrepreneurs & business-owners who believed that their workers’ housing should be harmonious and positive, rather than just “work camps” (Lock, 2003, ed.) Later, Ebenezer Howard’s (1850-1928) Garden Cities movement was the first to comprehensively approach an overarching methodology for the success of these planned towns, which combined together town and country and was swiftly adapted for suburban extensions and urban expansions (ibid.) (Figure 6) – the New Towns and Garden Cities of the early 20th Century, such as Letchworth and Welwyn garden cities, closely followed the ideas put forward by Howard (Howard, 1898; Neal, 2003 ed.). The implementation of the Garden Cities and their subsequent impact on the housing market, and on the way my case studies have been formed, will be discussed in a later chapter.

However, with the increased convenience of cars after the Industrial Revolution and the post-war house-building booms of the 1930s and 1960s (see graph Figure 7), housing estates became much more commonplace. These estates Page 13

followed Modernist ideas of compartmentalised districts, isolating different land functions and neighbourhoods (Neal, 2003 ed.); but in recent times attention has started to be refocused on the role of the neighbourhood on urban spatiality.

Independent housing estates, according to Rice (2001), have no roots in their surrounding community, and do not integrate into their locale.

Despite their perceived isolation, some estates have their own community vibe and communal core, but others lack the facilities and spaces for meaningful connections to form between neighbours (The Guardian, 2020). Rice describes an independent housing estate’s ‘isolation’ as ‘socially divisive’ from the rest of a settlement (Rice, 2001: 13), but Poundbury’s residents still Figure 9: Leon Krier’s Masterplan of Poundbury rely on Dorchester for a lot of its services, while Poundbury itself has provided more jobs and services for the people of Dorchester. Poundbury, as with many modern developments, has been bolted on to the edges of Dorchester at one hinge, skewing the town’s naturally-evolved footprint.

Until twenty years ago, Poundbury was nothing more than a farmstead along Dorchester’s Roman road (Figure 8). Elmsbrook and Graven Hill, both extensions to the market town of Bicester, also follow this pattern by expanding Bicester’s urban footprint outwards, with Elmsbrook and the rest of its proposed development arcing along Bicester’s north-west periphery, and Graven Hill occupying a brownfield site in the south-east, close to its arterial roads.

Figure 8: The growth of Dorchester: 1930 - 2020 Page 14

HRH Prince Charles’ 10 Geometric Principles (Figure 10) are largely based on his ideas for

Poundbury (HRH The Prince of Wales, 1989; Hardy, 2006) – which is the Prince of Wales’ pioneering housing project. The architects in charge of Poundbury master-planned the new suburb to be as organically formed as possible, creating winding streets, enclosed squares, and reflecting the vernacular architecture of neighbouring towns. While it is difficult to succeed at creating a truly naturalistic settlement when its plans are highly intricate, it is envisaged that Poundbury will be well-established in its surroundings in the decades to come (Hardy, 2006), helping the urban extension to integrate itself into Dorchester over time.

The 10 Geometric Principles have a strong focus on integrating traditional design elements with context and scale (ibid.; see also Architectural Review, 2014). The Prince of Wales explains that buildings should relate to their surroundings, to the human proportion, and to the character of their locale. By directly relating to context, using traditional materials and styles, a new development can preserve an area’s atmosphere as well as preserving these traditional techniques from being lost to history.

On reception of these principles in 2014, some dismissed them as overly hierarchical and “socially regressive” (Professor Alister Scott, cited in The Independent, 2014). Others partially agreed on the direction of Prince Charles’ guidelines, but explained that many of the points were possible with well thought out contemporary design as well as traditional design.

Nick Willson, of Nick Willson Architects, commented: “We should build to the year that we are in, in the same that cars, medicine, planes, clothes and technology has moved on, so should building processes and materials etc.” (Willson, cited in Architects’ Journal, 2014)

Figure 10 : The 10 Geometric Principles of Sustainable Development, after HRH Prince Charles

The developments in Bicester are much more rooted into their modern context than Poundbury, exploring more anthropological solutions to providing housing for the UK’s future. The different ideas explored in Graven Hill and Elmsbrook are more focused on social aspects of housing than physical ones – by designing with a view to create modern housing solutions for a changing housing market.

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Graven Hill has been described by its advocate Kevin McCloud as a “laboratory of ideas” (Homes & Property, 2019) – McCloud is well-known for his championing of the self-builder throughout his career (NaCSBA, 2012), hence his enthusiasm for this venture. While it is too early in the development of Graven Hill to tell how well it responds to its community, the residents seem convivial enough (Visit to Graven Hill, 2019). Self-building in close proximity to one’s neighbours can either make or break relationships (Grand Designs: The Street, 2019). Otherwise, as a large-scale pioneer project, it is a tabula rasa – as more residents move in, they will decide what Graven Hill’s community will be like. Graven Hill is built on Ministry of Defence land, leased from Cherwell District Council with relaxed planning laws for self-build (Cherwell District Council, 2019), inspired by Almere in the Netherlands.

Almere, specifically the district of Oosterwold, designates areas of custom- and self-building, where the State provides infrastructure, and the residents are able to build the rest to their needs. Holland said of Oosterwold that “anything goes, within certain dimensional limits” (Holland, 2018, p.108), and residents in Oosterwold even build their own sections of infrastructure as it suits their needs (ibid.).

While there are numerous examples of self-built communities in Britain, many of these are small-scale, and so Graven Hill is the first to encourage self-building in a much larger community. It is hoped that Graven Hill will be a pioneer in largescale self-building initiatives in the UK.

On the other side of Bicester, the eco-village of Elmsbrook has been established a few years longer than Graven Hill has, and is further along the development process, with the last of its homes nearing completion as of December 2019 (Visit to Elmsbrook, 2019). Overall, 393 homes are planned at Elmsbrook (MacFarlane, 2016), and it already has a primary school, Gagle Brook School, with its first cohort in 2019-2020 (Fabrica, 2019a).

In Elmsbrook, 30% of the houses provided (A2Dominion, 2014) are being marketed as affordable rented housing (Figures 11 & 12), or as part of shared ownership schemes (Fabrica 2019a), so that Elmsbrook makes it “easy, attractive and affordable for people of all ages to live healthy, sustainable lifestyles in high quality homes” (Hornblow, 2016). The development has a strong community focus, with a shared electric car club and with residents saying hello to their neighbours regularly (Fabrica, 2019b). According to a handout from Elmsbrook developer Fabrica, ¼ of the UK’s residents don’t say hello to their neighbours (Fabrica, 2019b), but this Page 16

statistic may be an oversimplification – while it is less common nowadays to be close to one’s direct neighbours, these neighbourly connections have not been completely lost over time and settlements with clubs, allotments and the like will have a stronger community focus than those without similar binding elements.

Elmsbrook is in turn a part of a much larger masterplan for Bicester (Fabrica, 2019a), connected to the NHS Healthy New Towns programme. The Bicester Healthy New Town initiative was started in 2015, when Bicester was already designated a ‘Garden City’ by the Government (Cherwell Figure 11: Elmsbrook Masterplan, Phase 3 & 4 A2DominDistrict Council, 2019). Bicester was selected by the NHS ion to be one of 10 Healthy New Towns, as a testbed for better wellbeing and public health (NHS, 2016), As part of this, 13,000 new houses are being constructed around the town, led by Cherwell District Council, aimed at promoting healthy, integrated living. The NHS Healthy New Towns programme focuses on creating a healthier built environment, emphasising the need for compact neighbourhoods and green spaces (NHS, 2019). This push towards compact communities echoes some of Prince Charles’ Geometric Principles that he employed at Poundbury, although while the Geometric Principles are more focused on architectural character, the Healthy Town Principles (Figure 13) are focused on personal and communal wellbeing through the built environment, with a much higher priority on the people living in settlements than the settlements themselves.

Figure 12: Elmsbrook Masterplan, Phase 1 & 2 A2Dominion

Traditionally, Nature was viewed as something humans were inherently connected to, something to be respected and kept in balance – the Enlightenment pushed for the mastering of Nature, for it to be exploited and conquered in pursuit of economic and societal growth, an attitude that still pervades even in the face of dramatic climate change and resource depletion. This attitude is among the reasons for a change of approach regarding

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

PLAN AHEAD COLLECTIVELY ASSESS LOCAL HEALTH AND CARE NEEDS AND ASSETS CONNECT, INVOLVE AND EMPOWER PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES

CREATE COMPACT NEIGHBOURHOODS

MAXIMISE ACTIVE TRAVEL

E

INSPIRE AND ENABLE HEALTHY EATING

FOSTER HEALTH IN HOMES AND BUILDINGS

ENABLE HEALTHY PLAY AND LEISURE

DEVELOP HEALTH SERVICES THAT HELP PEOPLE STAY WELL CREATE INTEGRATED HEALTH AND WELLBEING CENTRES

Figure 13: NHS Healthy Town Principles, NHS

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settlements and connection as: “by contrast to traditional societies, the West has lost its sense of connection to the earth.”

(Franklin, 2006: p.251).

Figure 14: Homes at Elmsbrook come with inbuilt ecofeatures, December 2019

The environmental social movement which is slowly coming into more prominence nowadays had its roots in the 1970s (Franklin, 2006), and has led to more ecologically responsive design in the past 50 years. The eco-village concept, borne from this movement as early as 1972 (Findhorn Foundation, n.d.), was originally to be as self-sufficient and connected to the spirit of the land as possible, with 3 key dimensions to their structure (Global Eco-Village Network, cited in Franklin, 2006):

1. Social – support, responsibility, belonging, participation

2. Ecological – using local materials, protecting soil, water & air, connection to the earth

3. Cultural (Spiritual) – respecting the Earth & each other, shared values, creativity, rituals

Elmsbrook, 48 years later, uses a much more technology-orientated take on the ecological aspects, conserving resources via smart technology (Figure 14) (A2Dominion, 2019). Meanwhile at Graven Hill, Passivhaus homes are being constructed to high sustainability standards (Figure 15, and depending on the priorities of their builders, some of the self-build projects at Graven Hill will also be more attuned to these ecological dimensions.

Figure 15: PassivHaus homes at Graven Hill, December 2019 Page 18

Studying vernacular architecture as well as studying contemporary culture and ideas assists in creating developments that are sensitive to both their physical

and social environment (Stender, 2017). The ideas discussed in this chapter have laid out the importance of regarding tradition and progress as interconnected processes, especially regarding the construction of sensitive settlements that act to enhance their contexts and their inhabitants, and the principles that underpin each of the case studies have solid foundations, with their corresponding foci on respecting tradition and historicism in Poundbury; improving health and wellbeing at Elmsbrook; and providing a blank canvas for individuality at Graven Hill. They are each unique examples of peoples’ visions for British housing, and in practice, they each have their merits and drawbacks.

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chapter 2: how to construct a community: How does the design, planning and construction of developments facilitate a community spirit?

Villages are not static creations – they develop over time, and often play host to dramatic rises and falls in populations and prosperity (Brown, 2004). The ideas and implementation of housing in England are equally dynamic, with changing priorities shaping how settlements and communities act. Over time, housing innovation and adaptation has shifted from being peoples’ only way of surviving to more structured explorations of how to improve peoples’ lives (Sharpe, 2011).

In this chapter, the concept of a ‘village system’ will be explored - how traditional self-contained village structures from pre-Enclosure England influenced the first planned estates, and subsequently how contemporary housing developments are moving forward from the suburban developments of the last century. The foundational ideas of all three settlements explored in this dissertation have not come about in a vacuum – the United Kingdom has a rich history of housing innovation spanning the past few centuries (Scoffham, 1984; Neal, 2003 (ed.); Hardy, 2006). This chapter explores the execution of the ideas described in the previous section: To what extent do the case studies selected draw inspiration from how the traditional English village developed?

It is argued that historically something within collective human consciousness sought out companionship and security, dating back to the first communities who clustered around a campfire (Rudlin & Falk, 1999).

This ‘campfire organisation’ is likely to have directly translated into the common or central square, which shaped our settlements from then on. A settlement comprises of two elements: the common and the private. The common land and public buildings, including churches, schools & shops, are where people can congregate; with private lands restricted to the individual.

The core qualities that the village provides have been retained in the urban environment, specifically the communal qualities, and has contributed to the way urban centres have been created (Neal, 2003, ed.) (Figure 16).

The Garden City movement restructured these core qualities as a response to the issues of decaying industrial centres. Later, the Modernist movement in the 1930s encouraged segmentation and the creation of compartmentalised function-specific districts, and its widespread application of much faster Page 20

Figure 16: Andrew Wright Associates - Mixed-use Neighbourhood diagram

Figure 17: Allotment corner in Elmsbrook, December 2019

building techniques made it more appealing for rebuilding after World War II. For the past century, the Garden City and Modernist movements have co-existed, acting as foils to each other; however the Garden City concept seems to have remained stronger in the public consciousness of the UK as the suburbs first created by Howard, Parker & Unwin have “become an almost universal aspiration of UK households” (Rudlin & Falk, 1999: p.33). The Urban Village concept aimed to re-establish the historic principles of town-making, and the results of these have marked a shift away from 20th Century Modernist segregated use, returning to mixed-use and mixed-affordability, and a higher focus on pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods (Neal, 2003, ed.). The early Urban Village principles were seen as too prescriptive, with not enough of the spontaneity that made organically developed villages so attractive to live in, and the term has often been hijacked to achieve planning permission for developers, with these ‘urban villages’ often falling short of carrying through with their basic principles (ibid.).

The “Social City” – a model envisioned by Howard (Rudlin & Falk, 1999) – incorporated agricultural and urban uses within a structured framework, with land owned co-operatively, every resident paying rent on the land. This co-owning concept harks back to rural England before the Agricultural Revolution, when villagers cultivated individual strips of land for their own sustenance and shared common grazing land for animals (Hammond & Hammond, 1911). Over time many of these were encroached on, especially after the Enclosures Acts (Hammond & Hammond, 1911; Brown, 2004) completely redefined the social, economic and physical structure of the rural village. Elmsbrook and its masterplan is seeking to restructure this, with 40% of its land use designated as open green space (A2Dominion, 2014) (Figure 17) and some of the common land in both Elmsbrook and in Graven Hill has been set aside for orchards and allotments, for the inhabitants to use and cultivate (Figure 18).

Not every village had a village green – these were more common in lowland areas, and especially common in eastern England (Brown, 2004). In contrast, market squares were more prevalent in the west of England – hence Poundbury reflects these typologies in its public squares. One of the most striking things about Poundbury is that there are so few people walking around: pedestrians congregate in car parks modelled after these

Figure 18: Green space at Graven Hill, December 2019 Page 21

marketplace typologies, such as at the Buttermarket (Figure 19). One of Prince Charles’ 10 Geometric Principles was that settlements should be designed around the person, and not the car – this is a shortcoming of Poundbury’s that critics of the scheme were quick to point out, but might be mitigated in time if car usage reduces.

Poundbury specifically follows a lot of the guidelines to New Urbanism, as Leon Krier, the master planner for the settlement is one of the authority figures for the New Urbanist movement on both sides of the Atlantic (Hardy, 2006). Some recurring themes over different development models and charters following New Urbanism include the concept of ‘decentralised concentration’ (Lock, 2003, ed., see also Aalborg Charter, 1995) where everyone is within accessible walking or Figure 19: The Buttermarket, Poundbury cycling distance of connection to higher level services such as hospitals, university campuses and inter-city connections; as well as the need for a clear urban structure, including a central core. New Urbanism advocates that neighbourhoods should be friendly, compact and mixed use, and that design should be used to encourage a sense of community.

Planners are however still cautious about reverting to mixed land use, a remnant of planning laws during the Industrial Revolution, which led to conscious attempts to separate housing from sources of pollution such as factories and mines, in an effort to create healthier places to live. Krier (2008, ed.) argues that single-function zoning is dehumanising (Figure 20), and so Poundbury ‘pepper-pots’ (Hardy, 2006) its mixed-use plots, as well as its 35% share of affordable housing, around its plan. For the most part this has been a successful approach, as the mixed tenure intersperses different services and encourages walking to reach different shops; as well as integrating households with different financial brackets in the same community. Most residents are happy with their houses and their neighbours (Hardy, 2006), however it still can create social exclusion and an ‘us-and-them’ divide between residents (ibid.). Originally the master plan for Poundbury was still very focused on creating a zoned settlement, until the Prince brought in Krier for master-planning in 1988 (Krier, 1998; Hardy, 2006).

According to Transport for New Homes (2018), despite the ‘royal overtones’ (TFNH, 2018) of Poundbury, which may not be to everyone’s tastes, it is a ‘thriving town’ (ibid.), with a variety of shops and businesses integrated into the masterplan (Figure 21). Poundbury Page 22

Figure 20: Krier, City and Anti-City; from Krier’s ‘Drawing for Architecture’

hosts a nursery and primary school; the primary school, Damers First School, is attached to the church and has been open since 2017 (Damers First School, 2017).

Based on how the phasing system of development works in Poundbury, it is likely that its workplaces were built around the same time as the houses surrounding them. Even 15 years ago, when Poundbury was still in its early phases it had already become a popular place to live and work (Hardy, 2006). By integrating housing and workplaces into one scheme, this provides a settlement with a way to give back to its surrounding area by providing jobs and services.

As far as amenities go, it is common in housing estates to have a central parade of shops or a shopping centre, as somewhere people naturally gravitate towards.

Graven Hill and Elmsbrook have both taken the same route regarding facilities, by first housing people and then providing extra amenities for them once a large enough population has moved in. Currently under construction in Elmsbrook is a mixed-use parade of shops with apartments above, and a Passivhaus Plus certified eco-business centre (Figure 22) for local people to work, complete with co-working spaces for 115 people (ibid.). Poundbury, meanwhile, used a more combined approach: amenities were constructed at the same time as the surrounding houses, in the early phases of development (Hardy, 2006) and scattered more evenly around different parts of the town. Over the past 2 decades, this has allowed businesses to develop at the same rate as the community around them.

Figure 21: Queen Mother Square, Poundbury, hosting a pub, a supermarket, apartments and a butchers’.

Unlike its neighbouring housing estates of the 1990s, Elmsbrook feels like its own settlement: it is far enough out of central Bicester that it feels rooted into its surroundings, but is close enough to have its own bus link and to be accessible from the town with very little issue (Visit to Elmsbrook, 2019). Once more amenities are set up here in the coming years, Elmsbrook is likely to act more like its own settlement as well. NHS England has now finished funding the Bicester Healthy New Town programme (NHSE, 2019), but development along the lines of its core principles is set to continue, with Cherwell District Council recognising that it needs to continue the programme (Cherwell District Council, 2019) in order to promote Bicester as a healthy town and continue its population and economic growth in a sustainable way.

Figure 22: Charlotte Avenue, Elmsbrook, with the eco-business centre under construction. December 2019

Graven Hill meanwhile, is still in the early stages of a 10-year development plan, with provisions for a pub, community centre and shopping facilities planned but not yet in place (Figure 23). However, Bicester Village is located close by, with bus facilities and easy driving route. It can be argued that a settlement should Page 23

develop with a communal hub, rather than only using the existing facilities available to it, but in Graven Hill the communal ‘hub’ is the shared experience of self-building.

One of the pioneering residents said “We’ve got a little community going already, even though the community centre isn’t built.” (Graven Hill, 2019).

However, this shared experience does not apply to all of Graven Hill’s residents, as many of the properties are developer-built to custom specifications rather than the entire project being self-built, which creates areas of the development where the core connection is that of spatial proximity (Figure 24). Residential communities only have the connection of sharing physical space, potentially without any reason to interact with their neighbours (Gallent & Ciaffi, 2014, ed.), whereas more dynamic identitydriven communities tend towards self-selection and self-identification. The self-builders at Graven Hill can be considered an embodiment of the two - people with shared interest towards constructing their own home congregate to one space in order to do Figure 23: Graven Hill Community Centre (as yet unso and subsequently make connections with those physically around them. Traditional built). December 2019 communities were not always harmonious, often with strict, ordered hierarchies, (Rudlin & Falk, 1999; Day, 2002) but individual collectives tended towards being “selfcorrecting” (Day, 2002). Day argues that nowadays we can consciously direct actions and both acknowledge and question tradition in the sense of community connection (ibid.). As Graven Hill is already beginning to demonstrate, a dynamic community gives residents a reason to care about where they live - the small things bringing people together bind a neighbourhood together (Rudlin & Falk, 1999).

Figure 24: Graven Hill Masterplan, GHVDC Page 24

The benefit of building with these ideas in place – creating a communal hub, and providing housing for a variety of income brackets and lifestyles – is that this promotes crossgenerational living and better connections, which could help with some of the possible scenarios facing the United Kingdom in the future, such as an ageing population or an increase in shared living (Design Council, 2019). A series of community workshops in Autumn 2019 were run by the Design Council and the Ministry of Building Innovation and

Education (MOBIE), which sought to start conversations with the general public for a collective vision of the Home of 2030.

These workshops aimed to work towards people’s visions of what future homes might be like in 10 years’ from now, exploring different scenarios of where Britain’s housing may focus in that (Figure ). Findings from the Home of 2030 Oxfordshire workshop showed that people were looking for future homes which created communities, and brought people together (Design Council, 2019) (Figure 25).

20 years ago, Rudlin & Falk believed that the concept of community would become a “potent influence” on the 21st Century home, as people moved away from the standardised view of ‘home’ and more single people and elderly would search for community as “an antidote to loneliness” (1999, p.101) Following on from their predictions, The Design Council and MOBIE envisage that the way we live and work will change significantly over the next 10 years (Design Council, 2019) with changing work and living patterns meaning that people’s schedules are more unpredictable, and the concept of ‘home’ will become more flexible. Therefore, living spaces and neighbourhoods should be adaptable towards these changes. Settlements with core communities, like at Graven Hill, and with integrated shared public transport, like Elmsbrook, are set to be more popular for people to settle in.

Figure 25: Flipchart from the Home of 2030 Workshop, 2019, grouping positives and negatives of future housing scenarios.

Before and during industrialisation, the village was seen as backward (Hammond & Hammond, 1911; Franklin, 2006) yet only after rapid urbanisation did the village become a romantic concept for escapism and idyll, used as a symbolic utopia. Contemporary ‘villages’ are often appropriations of the term, creating imagery of tradition and natural harmony (ibid.), which do not always materialise. This appropriation can also be seen with ‘community’ – “a word devalued by over-use”, (Rudlin & Falk, 1999: p.101) - and ‘neighbourhood’.

However, by promoting genuine community cohesion through providing facilities for neighbours to meet and connect, this can give people a sense of place and belonging, and by letting settlements be self-sufficient this can increase mobility and reduce the reliance on cars.

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chapter 3: rethinking the model: How can vernacular and community architecture offer solutions to the issues in the UK’s housing market?

This section analyses the impact of the ideas implemented in each chosen case study, and where these sit in the state of the wider British housing system. It will explore where these ideas can go next, and how and why to encourage them in the UK, advocating for a diversity of housing developments inspired by the approaches taken, in order to create new domestic settlements for the future which fulfil the United Kingdom’s housing needs in a sensitive and sustainable way. The label ‘sustainable architecture’ implies a static condition, but sustainable building constitutes active involvement (Oliver, 2005, ed.): it is an ongoing act to be sustainable in all facets of life, including construction.

“Sustainable development is not a master-plan or blueprint [...] but a dynamic process.” (Lock, 2003, ed.: p.51) In 2015, the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) estimated that the UK was building half as many houses as it needed to every year (TCPA, 2015), suggesting that the UK needs 220,000 additional new homes a year until 2031 to keep up with household growth (ibid.) in that time. Open House Oxford in 2019 argued that we need more new homes than this, especially social homes (Beswick & Down, 2019), of which we need up to 200,000 each year. In 2018, there were 8,000 new social homes nationally, a much lower figure than the estimated annual 200,000 social homes Beswick (2019) suggested.

According to the New Economics Foundation (NEF), the Government’s housing policies have been focused in the wrong place for affordable housing to benefit (Wheatley, 2019; Beswick & Down, 2019), leading to the money allocated being used for land acquisition at the highest bid, and subsequently for market housing rather than affordable housing (ibid.). A key issue of the British housing market is that homes are treated as entities with financial value over social value. Development is seen as an investment in capital as land prices in the UK are highly expensive (Beswick & Down, 2019).

Much of the land in the UK is owned by the public sector, therefore councils will sell land for short-term financial gain, rather than long-term investment. (ibid.) Poundbury is an exceptional case, in that it was built with funding from the Duchy of Cornwall. 35% of Poundbury is designed to be for affordable housing schemes (Poundbury, n.d.), which have been “pepper-potted” (Hardy, 2006) around the settlement (Figure 26) - but there is Page 26

still a preconception that the urban extension is for a higher-end market than the average citizen: “Really lovely buildings, but I wouldn’t be able to afford to live here!” (anon., 2019) Gallent (2009) argues for a more systematic approach to the UK’s housing policy, which would give greater support to community empowerment. Could communityorientated developments help to re-focus these policies?

Figure 26: Diverse housing, Poundbury, December 2019

There is growing support for more community-led initiatives in the UK (Gallent, 2009), due to the gaps in successive governments’ economic and housing plans.

While none of the case studies explored in this dissertation are directly communityled, it is possible that Graven Hill’s self-build focus could allow for a community-led initiative to be formed. For example, when the remaining Ministry of Defence land around Graven Hill’s site is eventually sold off to Cherwell District Council, this would allow for more access to self-builds for less affluent households who might not currently be able to afford a plot at Graven Hill. Cherwell District Council relaxed planning laws for Graven Hill (Cherwell District Council, 2019) which has already helped prospective self-builders with smaller budgets onto the scheme.

There are also small groups of friends who have been searching for “a place to dwell together” (Basra, 2018) and found that Graven Hill was an ideal place for people to set up their own projects.

Graven Hill’s self-build approach follows on from Walter Segal (1907–1985) in the mid1970s, whose determination to give people a chance to build their own homes was realised when Lewisham Borough Council allowed him to build on spare pockets of land (Ward, 2007) and who sparked a legacy of self-building (Ernst, 2018; Holland, 2018). Walters Way, Lewisham, built in the mid-1980s, brought co-operatives of residents together to build homes for less. This legacy continued in the 1990s with two small-scale schemes in Brighton using the same construction system (Holland, 2019; Architype, n.d.) and another small scheme proposed in Lewisham (Architype, 2015; RUSS, 2017). These schemes have focused on small communities of perhaps one or two streets, on land that would otherwise be wasted, and have allowed resident co-operatives to build their homes for considerably less than a standard house would cost (Holland, 2018). This is another reason why Graven Hill is already proving popular – it allows for this on a scale much larger than a few streets, with comparative design freedom depending on specific areas of the site. (Graven Page 27

Hill, n.d.).

Self-building and custom builds are more common in Europe – around 10% of UK housing is considered to be self-build (AMA Research, 2015) compared to upwards of 50% in countries such as Germany & Austria (Brinkley, 2013) Self-building appears to be more common in Europe as ‘self-building’ is a looser term on the Continent, with more ‘home manufacturers’ and custom building. Small builders may also be more prevalent than they are in the UK as most of these went out of business after the financial crisis (Beswick & Down, 2019).

Countries such as Germany and the Netherlands also have more “interventionist” planning schemes than the UK (Brinkley, 2013), allowing more direct involvement with neighbours, farmers, etc. The city of Almere in the Netherlands is Europe’s largest custom- and self-build initiative, where the State provides the infrastructure, and the residents are free to construct the rest, with citizens and community actors working alongside each other as equals to create ‘horizontal’ relationships (Van der Pennen & Schreuders, 2014, ed.). In Oosterwold, one of Almere’s districts, the residents build their own sections of infrastructure, and “anything goes, within certain dimensional limits” (Holland, 2018: p.108). At Graven Hill, Cherwell District Council have taken a lot of inspiration from Almere’s approach (Grand Designs: The Street, 2019), by giving aspiring self-builders and residents a wide variety of options for how they can create their home: ranging from ready-built ‘turn-key’ houses (Visit to Graven Hill, 2019), through customisable houses that can be tailored to individuals’ needs, all the way to ambitious self-build “dream homes” (Figure 27). This variety has allowed Graven Hill to become much more accessible to people who may not otherwise have the time or funds to fully build their own home by themselves.

Land ownership has long been a leading influence on the structure of settlements in Britain (Hammond & Hammond, 1911; Brown, 2004). Traditionally, villages were either closed or open settlements, depending on who controlled the land (Brown, 2004). A closed village meant that the land was owned by one person who would usually completely control the development, much like the modern housing estates where only a handful of developers create similar-style housing. In Elmsbrook, for example, the housing has been delivered by one company which specialises in high-specification housing (A2Dominion, 2019). In an open village, land was under ownership of many individuals, which created places with a variety of styles to Page 28

Figure 27: Different options at Graven Hill: ‘Turn-key’ housing; Custom-build specifications & Self-built projects Graven Hill, December 2019

directly suit the needs of their inhabitants (ibid.). Nowadays this might be akin to self-build or custom build communities, such as parts of Graven Hill, where the individual has more agency over their house than developer-led properties.

Figure 28: Birds-eye view of Poundbury, Krier (1989)

Developers usually invest in settlements for the short run, not the long haul (Neal, 2003, ed.); however, programmes that seek to create and improve neighbourhoods & communities need considerable investment of finance and enthusiasm over a longer period. This is demonstrated especially in the masterplan for North West Bicester, which is set to continue over the next 15 years (Cherwell District Council, 2019), continuing to implement and encourage healthy initiatives through Elmsbrook and its future neighbouring developments. Likewise, Poundbury has its own benefactor in Prince Charles, which has given the urban extension greater freedom and funding than standard developments would. The Prince’s vision has allowed the historic building styles of Dorset to be renewed, giving Poundbury a unique sense of place that standardised housing estates often lack. Modern buildings referencing traditional orders & styles can be both historicist and traditional, such as at Poundbury, or can be traditional but use the latest engineering to improve on what has been done in the past (Adam, 2008, ed.), like at Elmsbrook, where the regional Cotswold stone is sensitively used for facades, but homes are equipped with smart technology to reduce energy consumption and ensure the buildings are as efficient as possible (Fabrica, 2019a).

The UK’s current housing crisis offers opportunities to redesign the development model.

Organisations such as the New Economic Foundation and Homes England (Beswick & Down, 2019) are calling for a stronger focus on individualised society and collective infrastructure, where housing is designed for a community rather than as separate units.

By creating homes for communities, this can help ensure that housing needs are better met (ibid.) Lock (2003) argues that new development should be a collective task, with the community that developments are designed for closely involved in the planning and construction process. The top-down process used by governments has often been criticised because this approach assumes that the needs of individuals and communities can be serviced remotely (Gallent & Ciaffi 2014, ed.), a view also taken by developers that do not assume responsibility for ensuring that their estates are places that integrate into their surroundings and create spaces for people to meet and to co-exist (The Guardian, 2020).

The existence of strong community ties is “of inherent value in human society” (Sage, 2012, cited in Gallent & Ciaffi, 2014, ed.), which demonstrates that developments which Page 29

work with their existing and potential community will become stronger in the long term.

The three case studies this dissertation has been examining have all made efforts to involve the existing communities surrounding them in the process, but to different extents.

Poundbury runs events to involve its community such as its annual ceilidh (barn dance), held in Pummery Square, and its Open Gardens Day (Hardy, 2006), where residents open up their gardens for their neighbours to visit, as well as running a bi-annual magazine, ‘Celebrating Poundbury’. Poundbury, therefore has worked out considerably well as a speculative development: it has been an alternative pioneer to single-function housing estates, while it has also been a financial and visionary success for the Duchy of Cornwall (Hardy, 2006).

Elmsbrook, as a part of a masterplan for Bicester has worked with local communities, volunteers, and stakeholders (Cherwell District Council, 2019), aiming to involve the whole population in improvements to Bicester’s health and wellbeing; the key Eco Town principles for Elmsbrook (as covered in Chapter 1) and the NHS’ Healthy New Town principles are very similar (ibid.), and have given Bicester’s growth clear directions that are set to benefit the whole town’s mental and physical health.

Graven Hill has been less focused on existing communities than its contemporary at Elmsbrook, and is instead concentrating on creating a thriving community on a brownfield site and bringing life to the area. By planning at the community scale (Gallent & Ciaffi, 2014, ed.), and letting individuals fill in the gaps themselves, Graven Hill has created an opportunity for inclusion and participation, allowing for its growing community to belong to a dynamic place to live and work. Its fledgling self-build community has the potential to create a strong model for housing innovation in the years to come, however its residents will achieve more by working towards being an active community, such as in Almere (Van der Pennen & Schreuders, 2014, ed.), rather than settling as separate households.

These diverse approaches have their positive and negative aspects, and some parts have more merit than others as to what the British planning and housing industry can learn from them. The strengths of Poundbury, Elmsbrook and Graven Hill all lie in having clear founding principles and clear directions of what their individual methodologies can achieve. As of 2020, Poundbury can claim an advantage to the others as it has been an established settlement for 28 years (Celebrating Poundbury, 2017) and has had more time to grow and become settled in its surroundings. Given time, it will become clear whether or not Elmsbrook and Graven Hill will do the same.

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While each case study has endeavoured to include affordable housing options in its masterplan, the houses that each one provides are aimed at middle- to upper-class citizens with higher income brackets. This is due to the location of each of the schemes – both Bicester and Dorchester are relatively well-off towns, and all three of the case studies have been privately developed.

A ‘one size fits all’ approach to housing will not work in Britain, therefore a diversity of housing developments inspired by the approaches of Poundbury, Graven Hill and Elmsbrook are good examples of what we can do from here. By learning from our rich domestic heritage, we can improve our housing for the future.

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conclusion “[when we build] let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for.” (Ruskin, cited in Wheeler & Whiteley, ed. 1992 p.221)

This dissertation discussed the pragmatics of housing & vernacular, focusing on the underlying traditional social structures that made villages so unitive in the past, and seeing whether these structures were still present or making a comeback, and in what way they might continue to do so. By analysing current pioneering housing developments in the United Kingdom, this aimed to discover whether the community and context was a core focus of the developments, as advocated for by the New Urbanism movement, which inspired much of the research and analysis for this dissertation.

One case study – Poundbury, Dorset - was much better established than the other two, having been running for 28 years at the time of writing this thesis, therefore sources were more abundant for Poundbury than they were for Graven Hill and Elmsbrook. However, this led to the exploration of a wider variety of sources in the pursuit of information and answers, covering a very wide array of topics.

I decided to use Poundbury over Prince Charles’ more recent development at Nansledan, Cornwall, because I wanted to explore a pioneer that had a few more years’ experience to draw upon in relation to the other case studies chosen. Elmsbrook was stumbled upon when visiting Graven Hill for the first time, thanks to a chance encounter with other visitors to the site, and its premise was intriguing enough to warrant inclusion alongside Graven Hill for its direct focus on wellbeing and the environment.

The variety of literature chosen for this dissertation has ranged from as early as Ruskin’s ‘The Lamp of Memory’ (originally published 1849) to reports and articles from as recent as late 2019, and has covered a wide variety of subjects. By examining crossdisciplinary sources for architecture, planning, and anthropology, this has given a greater understanding of the need for integrated approaches towards architectural studies, specifically for domestic architecture, which has often been overlooked in such studies.

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Much of the literature used in this dissertation covered the historical timeline of the Garden City movement and its competition with Modernism, but did not discuss the implications of the movement which still impact us today. Garden Cities, while only partially successful when implemented in the real world, created frameworks for British urban planning that, while buried under Modernism’s campaign for compartmentalisation, have returned in New Urbanism and in urban regeneration schemes.

Figure 29: Homes in Poundbury. December 2019

Figure 30: Eco-homes in Elmsbrook, December 2019

Figure 31: Self-build home in Graven Hill, under construction. December 2019

The core ideas of Poundbury can be summed up thus: traditionally-adorned domestic constructions are still sought-after places to work and live (Figure 29), and this new urban extension to Dorchester is not as much of a pastiche as it superficially appears to be. Poundbury, thanks to its high-profile patron, has drawn much criticism on being too traditional, and earlier phases of the project were built to a lower standard, but in later phases it has improved, showing that Poundbury itself is learning from its mistakes as it develops. Poundbury has a thriving community, even if its streets aren’t well-frequented by pedestrians, and it is set to be an exemplar in mixed-use urban planning. It has been shown to respond well to the needs of its locality (Hardy, 2006; APSE & TCPA, 2017), without retracting key functions from its parent settlement.

In Elmsbrook, while the health benefits that the NHS are aiming to implement through it and throughout Bicester will take several years to materialise (Cherwell District Council, 2019), it is shaping up to be a popular place to live and work, with many benefits to the surrounding community and to its residents both in planning and already in place (A2Dominion, 2019). Its integration into a much larger nationwide scheme proves that the importance of physical health and mental wellbeing is becoming more prominent in the UK’s collective mindset, and it is likely that housing developments will follow suit in creating healthier developments. (Figure 30) Graven Hill has a long way to go before its completion (Figure 31), and is so far sending a mixed message – the representations of Graven Hill on television (Grand Designs: The Street, 2019) and in the media depict it to champion self-building more than its current building plots suggest. Given time, it will become clearer whether its large-scale self-build initiative will work. For now, it has potential both to be a pioneer like the Netherlands’ Almere, or to be another standardised housing estate built on Ministry of Defence land.

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The approaches displayed at all three case studies have benefits and drawbacks, both of which are important elements to learn from. All three case studies are designed for the middle-range to upper-range of housing, with around a third of the dwellings in each case study designed as part of affordable housing schemes, and so if these approaches are to be used for affordable housing, it is important to ensure the approaches are as affordable as possible, without compromising on quality.

Taking the core argument of this dissertation full circle, the aspects of village structures and village life which engraved themselves into the British psyche for centuries were once new concepts, as were the model towns and suburbs first pioneered more than 200 years ago (Rudlin & Falk, 1999). Innovation and adaptation were the driving forces for what we consider vernacular architecture today (Sharpe, 2011) and continue to drive the search for more efficient and more connected architecture, even down to the domestic realm.

Tradition has always been a process that is constantly in the making (Bronner, 2005, ed.; Poppi, 2008, ed.), and, while often viewed as static points in the past, is as fluid and dynamic as change and innovation are. It is clear that by learning from precedents, and from what forebearers achieved before, we can create innovative, exciting new approaches to problems; and by collaborating in their creation and implementation, this can lead to bold new initiatives that in the future the next generations of planners and visionaries can learn from.

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image references COVER IMAGE: Montage of sketches from Poundbury, Elmsbrook & Graven Hill, Author’s own Fig 1: Playground under construction in Elmsbrook, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 2: Self-build homes at Graven Hill, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 3: Homes at Elmsbrook, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 4: Homes at Poundbury, , Author’s own Fig. 5: Side street in Poundbury, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 6: Howard, E. (1898) ‘Three Magnets’ diagram, Source: http://urbanplanning.library.cornell.edu/DOCS/howard.htm [Accessed 29 Dec.2019] Fig. 7: Graph showing permanent dwellings completed in England & Wales between 1923 and 2014. Source: https://fullfact.org/economy/selfbuild-britain-uk-lagging-behind-other-countries/ [Accessed 2 Jan. 2020] Fig. 8: The growth of Dorchester: 1930 – 2020. Source: https://digimap.edina.ac.uk/roam/map/os [Accessed 2 Jan. 2020] Fig. 9: Krier, L. (2013) Masterplan of Poundbury Source: https://tristotrojka.org/interview-leon-krier/ [Accessed 2 Jan. 2020] Fig. 10: 10 Geometric Principles, after HRH Prince Charles, Author’s own Fig. 11: A2Dominion (2019) Elmsbrook Masterplan, Phase 3 & 4. Source: https://www.fabrica.co.uk/elmsbrook-bicester-ox27 [Accessed 28 Dec. 2019] Fig. 12: A2Dominion (2015) Elmsbrook Masterplan, Phase 1 & 2. Source: https://www.fabrica.co.uk/elmsbrook-bicester-ox27 [Accessed 28 Dec. 2019] Fig. 13: Cherwell District Council (2019) NHS Healthy Town Principles. Source: NHS Healthy New Towns: Putting Health into Practice Executive Summary Fig. 14: E1 Bus and Elmsbrook eco-homes, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 15: PassivHaus homes at Graven Hill, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 16: Andrew Wright Associates (2003) Mixed-use Neighbourhood diagram. Source: Neal (2003, ed) ‘Urban Villages’ London: Spon Press, p.9 Fig. 17: Allotment corner in Elmsbrook, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 18: Green space at Graven Hill, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 19: The Buttermarket, Poundbury, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 20: Krier, L. (2009) ‘City and Anti-City’ Source: https://www.archdaily.com/896720/a-different-kind-of-architectural-drawing-leon-krierssketches [Accessed 11 Jan. 2020] Fig. 21: Queen Mother Square, Poundbury, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 22: Charlotte Avenue, Elmsbrook, with the eco-business centre under construction. December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 23: Graven Hill Community Centre (as yet unbuilt). December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 24: Graven Hill Village Development Co-operation (n.d.) Graven Hill Masterplan. Source: https://www.gravenhill.co.uk/resources/maps/ [Accessed 29 Dec. 2019] Fig. 25: Flipchart from the Home of 2030 Workshop, 2nd Dec. 2019, grouping positives and negatives of future housing scenarios. Author’s own.

Fig. 26: Diverse housing in Poundbury, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 27: Different options at Graven Hill: ‘Turn-key’ housing; Custom-build specifications & Self-built projects Graven Hill, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 28: Krier, L. (1989) Birds-eye view of Poundbury. Source: https://poundbury.co.uk/about/history/ [Accessed: 13 Jan. 2020] Fig. 29: Homes in Poundbury, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 30: Eco-homes in Elmsbrook, December 2019, Author’s own Fig. 31: Self-build home in Graven Hill, December 2019, Author’s own Page 40

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