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Designer Architype Developer Chisel Ltd Contractor Diggers Self-Build Co-op Planning Authority Brighton Borough Council

For over twenty years, the timber frame system which the late Walter Segal devised for low cost low skill construction has been virtually synonymous with self-build. This small development of nine houses takes the principle of a self-build co-operative one stage further by providing homes for rent: the tenant builders earning a ‘sweat equity’ from their labour which they can cash in when they leave, or trade for additional features in their homes.

On a steeply sloping site, the co-operative, and their architects, have created an Arcadian retreat with strong overtones of the great British seaside shack. With no need for expensive foundations, the houses tread lightly upon the slope, exploiting the terrain with a split level section which opens out on to a cascade of south facing conservatories and balconies, very much in the local Brighton tradition.

All access is by foot – cars are sensibly parked off the road at the foot of the site – and the stained timber, turf roofs and burgeoning flowers and vegetables create a wonderfully warm and intimate feel to the scheme. The same feeling of warmth pervades the interiors, and not only in a visual sense: high levels of insulation and the layering of rooms on plan mean that the scheme was not only comparatively cheap to build, but that running costs are also low.

We understand that while construction was under way, a group of uninvited visitors complained that the houses’ appearance was ‘un-English’. This says as much about their ignorance as their lack of manners: the rustic informality of this scheme comes as a breath of fresh air after the contrived ‘vernacular’ style of so much recent housing. For once, a development which leaves a green field better than it found it.