2009 WINNING SCHEMES > Completed Winners

 

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Hereward Hall is one of three developments built in the Fenland towns of March and Chatteris as part of an Anglo-German-Swedish programme for sharing skills needed for sustainable growth. Called SmartLIFE, the project was hit when Sweden elected a new government that withdrew support.

The UK has now completed its own commitment to build three schemes of similar house types with different construction techniques to compare efficiencies. Hereward Hall is a rarity in being a low-rise residential development using Insitu Concrete Framework (ICF).

So it is perverse that first impressions are of a bravura performance from traditional craftsmen. Ground floors are faced in brick, including inset panels in a contrasting colour where bricks are cut in half and used in a header joint with cuts exposed. The upper storey is clad in a hanging concrete tile and roofs have traditional verges with the tile bedded in cement rather than mechanically fixed. Home Group is offering 20 of the 35 houses for sale, another two as shared ownership, and clearly there is no plan to test the old saw that buyers shy away from anything that looks prefabricated. The only clue to ICF may be in the services such as flues sometimes puncturing the facade awkwardly, their positioning dictated by holes in the concrete frame. All the houses across the three schemes have modular bathroom layouts so that the same factory pods could be used.

Houses range from 76 m2 2-bed houses to 86 m2 4-beds. The gable-fronted courtyard houses have very private spaces, both within the courtyard and at first floor where a sizeable terrace is hidden behind the parapet of the groundfloor wall extended upwards. The courtyard gardens are framed on one side by the wall of the neighbouring property, less overbearing for the choice of natural toned claddings.

Houses skirted by thin strips of planting sit in a meandering shared surface mews which achieves a density of 50 homes to the hectare. This creates an intimate layout where the shared surfaces feel as safe as a turning head in a cul-de-sac but where there is a sense of enclosure and of architecture framing space. The scheme is something all new but very familiar which fits comfortably.

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