Assessing group build as a Delivery vehicle for Low Carbon Housing in the UK: An analysis of existing case studies

List of Figures

Figure 1 - Case 1: Cardiff University Zero Carbon House Page 7

Figure 2 - Case 4: Oxford eco-house Page 8

Figure 3 - Case 6: Graven Hill, Bicester, England Page 11 Figure 4 - Case 9: Findhorn, Moray, Scotland Page 14 Figure 5 - Case 10: Lancaster Co-Housing, Halton, England Page 15 Figure 6 - Case 16: Climate Innovation District, Leeds: Page 18 Figure 7 - Case 18: HafenCity, Hamburg, Germany Page 20 Figure 8 - Case 19: Village Homes, Davis, California, USA Page 21

List of Tables

Table 1 - Case Studies Page 5

“The presence of a large self-provided sector would, undoubtedly, drive the speculative market to compete more vigorously on quality. But recognising the potential in this paradigm shift, many of the existing large housebuilding companies will alter their business model to serve and profit-from the self-provided sector as much as compete with it. The transition from a speculative-housebuilding-only world to a more diverse range of housing models can therefore be gradual, competitive and surprisingly permissive.”

- Parvin et al. 2011 A Right to Build: The Next Mass-Housebuilding Industry

The objective of this paper is to explore, via analysis of a range of case studies varying in both typology and location, the extent to which an emerging class of ‘grouped’ modes of custom build housing procurement, offer a potential vehicle for the delivery of low and zero carbon housing.

The rationale for exploring the potentiality of group build approaches to housing delivery stems from a critical issue facing the construction of low and zero carbon homes worldwide - the issue of scale.

While technological advancements have made the construction of energy efficient, even zero-carbon, houses achievable, the potential to scale this up to the point at which it penetrates mass market housing is currently both under theorised, and lacking in practical exemplars. This is due, in part, to the UK government’s decision to drop its commitment to legislating that all new houses constructed from 2016 onwards would need to be zero-carbon.

The NaCSBA (2018) state that custom build approaches to house building “act as an incentive to build more sustainably”. Given the obvious ‘scaling-up’ potential offered by group build approaches over individual ‘self-build’ projects we want, here, to bring together a diverse collection of case studies from the UK and further afield, as part of an explicitly low carbon focused analysis.

In order to do this the study has identified a variety of different ‘typologies’ of group build housing, distinguishable from one another based on the manner in which the ‘group’ approach is formulated, and on the additional actors (public, private, or third sector) involved in facilitating the group’s obtaining of land, financing of the project, and constructing of homes.

The six different forms identified are as follows1:

- The Zero-Carbon Model Home

- The Eco Self-Build

- Custom Build ‘Plot Passports’

- Collective Custom Build

- Developer-Driven Collective Custom Build

- Enabler-Driven Collective Custom Build

These different typologies will be engaged with in turn to assess:

1 These typologies have been developed in line with earlier work carried out at the University of Sheffield (2013) but has been expanded to incorporate additional formats identified by ourselves.

a) what they reveal with regards to best practices in delivering sustainable, low carbon housing and; b) how they either alleviate, or succumb to, the issue of scale with regards to their potential to be operationalised as transferable models of procurement for elsewhere.

In all cases, the examples selected for inclusion under each typology are based upon their categorisation as group build housing projects that have exhibited low carbon and sustainability themes as part of their mandate for delivery.

In addition to serving as a platform from which to launch our own examination of a prospective group build, zero carbon, housing project in Edinburgh, to date there is no published research explicitly exploring the potential of group build to act as a delivery vehicle for low and zero carbon housing in the UK. Through its case study approach, therefore, this part of the report also seeks to open up a new critical avenue of study regarding the affinity (and disaffinity) of group build housing methods, and the zero-carbon agenda.

As a source of reference, the table below contains details of all twenty-two case studies drawn upon by the research

Table 1 - Case Studies

Type 1 - The Zero-Carbon Model Home: Maximum Possibilities in a Vacuum

Before opening up our exploration of recognised group build approaches to housing, the intention with this first typology is to examine the status quo with regards to the construction of zero carbon homes and the sort of actors who are currently at the forefront of pushing the agenda.

In 2006, the UK government announced that zero carbon housing would be a requirement for all new build homes from 2016 onwards. This, admittedly ambitious, plan was ultimately scrapped in 2015, owing to a lack of clarity over how, if at all, this could be delivered cost-effectively within current market conditions (McPartland 2017). Despite this, however, the technological aspirations at the root of the government’s plans have been taken on by various actors outside of the state apparatus in order to ‘prove the concept’, such as in the case of Cardiff University (see Figure 1 below).

As a result of the government’s rollback of its plans, ‘industry-led sustainability standards’, as Greenwood et al (2017) put it, are where more progress has perhaps been seen, particularly when such standards are able to be codified into a clear set of building principles. This agenda has been given its most material impetus through the codification of the German concept Passivhaus.

According to the Passivhaus institute, the definition of a passivhaus is “a building in which thermal comfort can be achieved solely by post-heating or post-cooling of the fresh air flow required for good indoor air quality without the need for additional recirculation of air” (Passivhaus Trust 2018). In the case of the ‘Elsworth Passivhaus’ (see Annex A), a combination of the government’s decision to drop its commitments to zero carbon housing, and the marketability of the Passivhaus ‘model’, was vital to elevating the ethical credentials of the developer in question.

One of the core rationales for these projects, irrespective of whether they are driven by university research agendas, profit seeking private companies, or as charitable endeavours (as is the case with the Prince of Wales’ Natural House - see Annex A), is to demonstrate the fact that, if they wanted to, house builders would be able to construct homes to this zero-carbon specification.

In light of this, future barriers to delivery would no longer be technological but, rather, societal, political, and economic. Indeed, as we look to move forward, and towards a more ‘real world’ typology of cases, we must recognise that the ability to deliver zero carbon houses at a technological level is only half the battle, if that.

Figure 1 - Case 1: Cardiff University Zero Carbon House

Scholars at Cardiff University’s Welsh school of architecture have designed and built what is said to be the UK’s “first purpose-built, low-cost energy smart house, capable of exporting more energy to the national electricity grid than it uses” (Cardiff University 2015).

The brainchild of Professor Phil Jones and his team, rather than starting with the concept of a British home and seeking to build it in a certain, environmentally friendly manner (for example see the Princes Trust House in Annex 1), the Cardiff Zero-Carbon house instead took leave from the governments original target of zero carbon housing requirements and sought to explore what such a house could look like. By combining a reduced energy demand with a renewable supply, the house was constructed in 2015 using the latest design and technology advances to ultimately achieve an ‘energy-positive’ status. The house took a total of 16 weeks to construct using the following mechanisms:

“In order to drastically reduce the energy demand, the house was built with high levels of thermal insulation reducing air leakage and uses an innovative energy efficient design which includes low carbon cement, structural insulated panels (SIPS), external insulated render, transpired solar collectors and low emissivity double glazed aluminium clad timber frame windows and doors. The south facing roof comprises of glazed solar photovoltaic panels, fully integrated into the design of the building, allowing the roof space below to be naturally lit. This has been designed to reduce the cost of bolting on solar panels to a standard roof. The house's energy systems combine solar generation and battery storage to power both its combined heating, ventilation, hot water system and its electrical power systems which includes appliances, LED lighting and heat pump.”

Stating that it was ‘disappointing’ to see the government scrap the zero-carbon targets that had been previously set, Professor Jones told the Guardian newspaper that “for every £100 spent on electricity used, [the house] should be able to generate £175 in electricity exports” (Vidal 2015). Similarly, John O’Brien of BRE, commenting on the Cardiff project, stated that "[t]he chancellor’s reason for dropping the Code for Sustainable Homes and then the zero carbon homes commitment was because these could not be achieved while still coming in at £1,000/m2. These homes show that is flawed” (Vidal 2015).

Type 2 - The Eco Self-Build

Going beyond proof of concept houses, a second typology can be identified along similar lines but with an important added element - liveability. With the right opportunities, liveability and sustainability can become concomitant aspirations.

A number of such cases exist in which private individuals have embarked on their own projects to construct and inhabit a form of ‘eco-house’. In contrast to the examples from type 1, these cases have

been delivered not on research parks, but in the ‘real world’ and exist amongst the standard neighbourhoods within which they were constructed. Perhaps the best example of this, at least in the context of the UK, is the ‘Oxford Eco-House’ (Figure 2).

Figure 2 - Case 4: Oxford eco-house

The Oxford eco-house was, in 1995, the first in the UK to be built with a photovoltaic cell roof. Located in suburban Oxford, the house was designed and constructed by Susan Roaf, a university professor. Her aim was quite simply to maximise energy efficiency in what is a six-bedroom family home. Because of its pioneering agenda, and its actual realisation, the house has gone on to become a featured and recognised model for architectural discourse around the world (Roaf 2016).

As with the zero-carbon house at Cardiff University, the eco-house was constructed in order to make a clear point regarding the potential of solar cells to contribute to energy supplies and demonstrate how exactly this can replace existing sources of energy. In comparison to a ‘regular’ house of the same size, which produces 6,500 kg of CO2 per annum, the eco-house produces only 148kg per annum.

The oxford eco-house is constructed to look as ‘normal’ as possible and, solar panel roof aside, achieves this intention. Traditional materials were used in the house construction, as were traditional building methods.

“There are 48 photovoltaic modules arranged in 4 vertical rows mounted on a built-up aluminium frame screwed on the roof. Oxford only receives about 4.0 peak hours of sun in the summer and 0.6 hours in the winter. During summer months there are surpluses, predicted to be around 12 Kwh per day, that are exported to the local electricity station or stored for use at night… The house is oriented roughly east–west with a south-facing rear elevation which provides good solar access. Heating costs are minimised through the use of passive solar gain” (Madsen 2006).

Projects of this kind serve as vital ‘pace-setters’ in illustrating what is achievable with regards to building one’s own fully sustainable home given the right opportunities. And, as a result, both the Oxford Eco-House and the similarly constructed ‘Autonomous House’ (Annex B), are readily cited as exemplars worldwide.

Despite this, however, we must recognise that, while their locations and their being the product of private citizens own motivations gives them a certain aspirational quality, examples of this kind remain best suited to the role of exemplars in the canon of sustainable house building. As models, their unique, almost celebrity, status means they offer little more than an additional source of best practices in design and technology.

Type 3 - Custom Build ‘Plot Passports’: A Gateway to sustainable housing?

“Self-provided value architecture, described by Parvin et al. as procuring long-term use value more effectively than a speculative house-building model of housing delivery that procures short-term exchange value, is structurally more able to deliver higher-quality, less energy- hungry dwellings that can achieve long-term affordability whilst also unlocking investment from self-providers themselves and supporting the development of functioning communities and a more resilient housing supply” (Brown et al. 2013).

While the case studies in type 2 above move us forward to the construction of sustainable low carbon homes in the ‘real world’, they remain the privilege of a select few, committed individuals. What separates this from the average person’s ability to inhabit a home of this kind, is opportunity.

This opportunity could be seen to comprise not only access to the required technologies, but also access to the requisite financial resources in the form of bespoke mortgages and other tailored funding instruments, access to legal advice over the construction of a new build home and, perhaps most important of all, access to land. As identified in a survey carried out by Wallace et al. (2013), this represents the biggest barrier to self and custom build for people of all ages and backgrounds.

This brings us on to the first type of what we might accurately be able to describe as ‘group build’ projects - the sale of already identified custom-build plots of land. Development projects of this kind attempt to facilitate the construction of custom built homes by removing the constraints of all the aforementioned obstacles, obstacles we might also associate with the construction of a zero carbon home.

Given the status endowed upon custom build by the NaCSBA as ‘an incentive to build more sustainably’ - what this means for our purposes here, then, is that this offers considerable potential for the construction of sustainable, zero-carbon housing on a larger scale. It also means that the provision of more opportunities to undertake custom home building doubles up as the provision of more opportunities to construct low and zero-carbon homes tailored, as the above quote suggests, to the anticipated lifestyles of the homeowner in question.

Inspired by the UK governments current agenda to elevate the potential of custom-build approaches in order to alleviate the UK’s housing crisis, a number of notable, large scale projects of this type have recently been operationalised. Perhaps the most widely cited example is Graven Hill on the outskirts of Bicester (Figure 3) where a large piece of land has been adapted for home building by the local authority. Rather than going down the route of selling the land to large, speculative, house builders, the council has decided to sell plots directly to individual home buyers.

Given that only the house size and type (detached, semi-detached etc) is defined, there remains considerable room for adaptation and the voluntary embracement of various sustainable technologies. What remains however, is the requirement for a willingness to pursue such goals on the part of those purchasing the plot.

While the relatively recent initiation of the Graven Hill case means that its success remains the privilege of the future, another, very similar, case study from Trevenson Park in Cornwall (Annex C)2, provides us with a number of warnings over the potential of this procurement route.

In this case, while the local authority was responsible for repurposing the land upon which the project would be built, the custom build agenda is being driven by a private real estate company - Carillion Igloo. Having adopted a sustainability themed marketing approach, Igloo’s ambitious attempt to fast track the custom build plots and provide a range of options for prospective buyers to choose between in designing their home, resulted in the registration of over 100 interested parties for their proposed 55 plot development.

As reported by The Architects Journal (Marrs 2018) however, as of February 2018, only one home is under construction, and a further five plots have been reserved, leaving 48 currently untouched. The first plots had been expected to be up for sale in 2015 and the project had an anticipated completion date of 2018. Owing to considerable caution on the part of homebuyers, this case serves as a reminder that interest does not necessarily transition into demand.

The experience in Trevenson Park South perhaps calls into question the potential of this type of development to deliver low carbon housing, at least in its current format. In addition to this, we might also be cautious in overestimating the willingness of custom build homebuyers to actually want to build sustainable houses, and the associated educational and financial resources this is likely to consume. As Wallace et al. (2013) report, environmental ideals are not the primary motivator for all, or perhaps even the majority, of self-builders.

2 Also included in Annex C, is the case of Almere in the Netherlands, on which both the Graven Hill and Trevenson Park South projects based their ‘plot passport’ approach.

Figure 3 - Case 6: Graven Hill, Bicester, England

Graven Hill, located on the outskirts of Bicester, is a planned new town, to be constructed on the site of a former military base. Having purchased the land from the Ministry of Defence, Cherwell District Council, through the establishment of a wholly owned company, sought to put into motion plans to develop a brand new development in line with other new towns across the country, albeit with one crucial difference. In the case of Graven Hill, all of the residential properties would be custom built. What this meant was that, rather than selling the residential plot sites to housing developers, the council would put in place a system through which eventual homeowners would purchase an individual plot of land directly with view to constructing their own house. In addition to a planned town centre, new schools and recreational facilities, the 188 hectare site would designate plots for an eventual total of 1,900 residential dwellings.

With a special 'Local Development Order' in place to cover the sites permissions at a macro-level, a system called ‘plot passports’ inspired by similar, more established custom build developments in the Netherlands, is used for the individual build sites. These passports contain a summary of each plot’s main features, the rules associated with the build process, information on ground conditions and the infrastructural services provided, as well as helpful guidance on how to design a home on the plot. There is also an exclusive mortgage partnership for homes at Graven Hill with 'Buildstore mortgage services'. This offers 95% of the value of both the land and the final build value. According to the Graven Hill Company, "price points for the plots, together with the average build costs, puts them firmly in the same bracket as similar sized homes locally” (CBS 2016).

"The development company will arrange for all the infrastructure works and the sales and marketing team will then sell the plots to individuals. The council does not want to sub- contract sections of the sites to custom build developers or other housebuilders, though it expects to work with a panel of housing associations to provide the affordable housing” (NaCSBA 2018)

- 6 types of Custom home have been envisioned, with 3 currently available (Graven Hill 2018):

 'Golden Brick' Plot - For Detached homes of all possible sizes (up to 6-bed)

 'Golden Brick Pocket Plot' - 2 or 3 bed detached homes provided on smaller plots

 'Tailored Finish/Mews Home' - Customised finishes under a 'turnkey' arrangement.

3 further forms will be available in the future:

 'Shell Build' - This offers buyers full control over the internal design of the house but provides an outer 'shell'

 'Shared Ownership and Rental' - This format is tailored for the affordable housing aspect of Graven Hill.

 'Apartments' - Apartments will be constructed in the village centre close to local amenities.

The first plots released were offered directly to local Cherwell district council residents before going to open market.

Case Study Type 4 - ‘Collective Custom Build’

While building one’s own house offers the potential to construct sustainably, it remains difficult to see how this can be effectively scaled up to the extent that delivery of such housing takes place at a mass market level. Even with the current technological potential, there remains little opportunity for the average citizen to deliver this sort of project, and when such opportunities have been provided, as in Graven Hill and Trevenson Park, questions remain over the desire to do so. Simply giving people the option to build their own home, let alone build a sustainable home for themselves, is not enough to stimulate a wide uptake of the potential. The issue of scale therefore continues to loom large.

The source from which the quote at the start of the previous section is extracted describes itself as a ‘web-based advocacy tool’, promoting the potential of ‘Collective Custom Build’. A joint project between the University of Sheffield and a number of architectural partner firms, it aims to ‘make the case’ for collective custom build as a viable housing delivery strategy for the UK moving forward.

Brown et al.’s (2013) choice of ‘collective custom build’ rather than simply ‘group build’ is a strategic one. In their study, which itself draws on a large array of case studies from across the UK, they focus on projects in which the ‘grouped’ nature of the custom build project is not scaled up solely through an increase in the number of houses being built, but through the integrated way in which they are collectively constructed, managed, and, ultimately, lived in.

In these cases, unlike those above in type 3, the ‘group’ of individuals through which the project will emerge is already assembled prior to the commencement of the construction and development process. The concept of ‘group build’ serves as the driving initiator of the custom build process, rather than the eventual outcome of a set of individual homes in the same location. As they put it, “…housing which supports strong community interaction has, for a long time, been a key objective in housing policy, but usually as a rhetorical addendum to housing policy, rather than a practical structuring mechanism” (Brown et al. 2013).

While the purpose of Brown et al’s study is on the value of collective custom build approaches to expanding and diversifying the housing market in a general sense, and not on low carbon and sustainability issues per se, a re-reading of the case studies that they draw upon from this perspective uncovers some useful reflections.

It is clear that, despite a multitude of different scenarios from which these sorts of projects emerge, and the various funders and community organisations that support them, the commitment to the group approach is vital in also embedding principles of sustainability into the construction both of the homes, and of the infrastructures that connect them together.

The cases of Findhorn, Moray (Figure 4) and Lancaster Co-Housing in Lancashire (Figure 5) complement each other well in this regard given their contrasting origins and development forms, but shared realisation that the group process is fundamental to the integration of the sustainable, low carbon features embedded within. This realisation takes the form of both the increased affordability of sustainable technologies when levied across a larger group, as well as an expanded appreciation of how various co-living approaches can drastically reduce the carbon footprint of individuals.

Figure 4 - Case 9: Findhorn, Moray, Scotland

Findhorn eco village is an example of what is often referred to as an ‘intentional community’ – a group of people who pursue a collective agenda to live together from the outset of constructing their collective settlement. First started in 1962, the unique nature of the community, located on the edge of the Moray Firth, has meant that Findhorn is an internationally recognised example of sustainable eco-living. Numerous books, such as Talbott’s (1993) Simply Build Green have been written to detail the wider sustainable lifestyles of the residents. From a residential perspective however, it can also be seen as an example of a ‘Collective Custom Build’ approach to the construction of housing (Findhorn Ecovillage 2017).

Since its foundation, a total of 44 homes have been constructed across the large Findhorn site. In the first instance the ‘Findhorn Foundation’ charity was set up by residents as a means of procuring the funds for house construction, however over time the wider local community has become a source of both technical expertise and funding for the construction of housing. As Marcus (1993) writes, “Findhorn was not consciously created but, rather, slowly evolved from simple, inauspicious beginnings”. This is most evidenced by the fact that the settlement started out as caravans and mobile homes, eventually replaced by the permanent housing structures that we are most interested in here.

Given its location and longevity the site has worked to establish self-sufficiency in many aspects including through the use of community supported agriculture and food production, all brought together by the establishment of the settlement’s own currency. In terms of its built environment, it actively promotes the use of shared facilities from laundry services right up to lounges and kitchens in order to encourage group interaction, but also to cut down on the duplication of resources. This is a key method used to integrate the construction of homes, despite the fact that they have been built over a considerable period of time. Building a new home on the Findhorn site offers residents the means of reducing build cost by limiting the facilities they need to install in their own home. In addition to this, their building has been governed by both the need to use locally sourced materials and by a set of strictly defined ecological ‘building codes’, used as a baseline for construction. As a result, Findhorn has the somewhat oxymoronic status of containing an almost complete absence of visual guidelines, resulting in a diverse set of house styles and shapes, but a rigorously governed build approach, from which all of these different dwellings have emerged. In addition to this, diversity of lifestyle is also evident with houses ranging from large six bedroom homes, to very modest houses.

Well established wind turbines and an extensive arrangement of solar panels, means that the site is already set up to accommodate new build housing in an energy efficient manner and continues to be a net exporter of energy. While this means that new houses can be constructed on an individual basis while remaining tied into the local community by virtue of their location and adherence to principles of sustainability, in recent years, a more coveted attempt to embrace the green building agenda was pursued through the construction of the ‘East Whins’ co-housing neighbourhood – a set of 25 terraced houses, integrated with one another throughout the build stage.

Figure 5 - Case 10: Lancaster Co-Housing, Halton, England

Located a few miles north of the city of Lancaster, the Halton Co-Housing project is one of the most well recognised examples of community driven collective custom build in the UK. It also happens to exhibit considerable green, sustainability credentials, containing no less than 41 zero-carbon homes.

Certified to Passivhaus standard, the homes are part of what is described as an “affordable community housing project” developed through a “participatory design process with the individual householders” (Brown et al. 2013). Located on riverside land, repossessed from a former owner, the co-housing approach, through the establishment of a limited company, was able to make the site work in ways that would not have been possible through more traditional housing development practice, which requires certain on-street access for personal cars – something the cohousing development rejected in favour of communal carpooling.

Much like Findhorn, the site also contains a plethora of communal facilities, used to stimulate and encourage interaction between the residents. These include guest bedrooms for when occupants have visitors, children’s play rooms, and some office workspaces to try and cut down on the need for commuting.

While the longevity of the project cannot match that of Findhorn, it did take a considerable amount of time from conception in 2004 to full completion in 2013. This however was primarily due to the challenges faced in developing the site and securing the funds, rather than any intentional desire to let the settlement grow and develop over time. The current landscape design of the area maximises the land available and the originally planned homes remain the only ones to be developed.

Roughly matching or slightly exceeding the cost of similar size properties in the local area, units cost between £100,000 and £300,000. According to Brown et al. however, the fact that the houses offer vastly improved environmental performance means the running costs are reduced and the access to shared facilities, as well as the location of the development, more than make up for any differential in cost that may exist.

Once again, however, we must also moderate the way in which projects of this kind are portrayed as success stories and also address some the challenges faced by certain examples. This is particularly important with regards to how we might see this type of development as a potential model for replication elsewhere.

Firstly, while this is less of an issue for projects that have a specific set of built out units in their designated location (such as the Lancaster case), for projects like Findhorn that are open ended with regards to future home constructions on the site, there exists the risk of certain individual’s private interests coming to dominate the collective’s.

While this has emerged to varying degrees over the course of Findhorn’s more than 50 year history, it is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the case of Ashley vale in Bristol (Annex D)3. Despite having its

3 Also included Annex D are additional case studies of this type from Stroud, Nottingham, and Leeds.

origins in a community’s resistance to plans for a large volume house-builder to take over a piece of communal land, the situation subsequently turned sour as the ethos of collectivism was, according to a number of residents, seemingly eroded by the impulses of self-interest and grandeur (Morris 2005).

A further, and related, concern for projects of this kind, and one we will return to again shortly, is their somewhat idiosyncratic emergence in very specific places as the products of very specific circumstance. These projects very often rely upon a group of like minded people coming together at the right place, at the right time.

We might therefore argue that these examples, while also effective as rich sources of inspiration regarding best practices in integrated, grouped sustainable house building, offer less in the way of an established transferable model of procurement.

Case Study Type 5 - Developer Driven Collective Custom Build: An Emerging Market in the UK?

In the previous section we used a number of case studies, well established in locations across the UK, to illustrate the way in which ‘collective custom build’ projects can work to effectively deliver sustainable housing options to people seeking to live more sustainable lifestyles and how, by building together and integrating the developments, a variety of innovative practices can be used to embed a lower carbon lifestyle.

As well as presenting the series of case studies from which the above section drew, as part of their ‘web advocacy tool’, the Collective Custom Build project of Brown et al. and the University of Sheffield, goes a step further to identify what they see as three derivative forms of Collective Custom Build.

While, as they state, each individual initiative is “a product of its particular partnership of stakeholders and local context”, the three broad categories they identify are: Independent Group Custom Build, Supported Community Custom Build, and Developer Enabled Custom Build.

In the section above (and the associated Annex) we saw numerous examples of both the ‘Independent Group’ and ‘Supported Community’ versions of collective custom build. These are where either the group in question works alone to develop the housing or, in the case of the latter, is supported in doing so by the local authority either in the obtaining of the land parcel, or in the delivery of resources.

These two formats are indeed the most commonly identified collective custom projects in the UK. The final version, Developer Enabled Custom Build, therefore, offers something a little different and is less well established here. The following definition for this third category is given by Brown et al. (2013): a development “in which a private developer or house-builder will build homes specifically for known occupants on a ‘multi-unit site’. Projects are initiated, led and project managed by a private company”. It is further described as being

- ‘Relatively simply and risk free’

- Offering a say in the design or choice from a range of designs

But,

- An undeveloped market in the UK

- More expensive if the developer seeks to recover costs and make a fair profit.

Due to its relatively recent (and still sporadic) uptake in the context of the UK, this offers an additional, and for our purposes here entirely separate, type of group build project to examine. What is particularly interesting, given some of the drawbacks seen in the previous sections, is the way in which the developer could, potentially, function as the glue with which to bind the group together, providing that central point of reference that keeps the project on track.

The example of Leeds’ new ‘Carbon Innovation District’ delivered by the sustainable housing development company ‘CITU’, would certainly seem to embody this ethos offering, as it does, a fully master planned sustainable district right in the heart of the city centre (Figure 6). The viability of the project however, is arguably entirely predicated on the value of this location.

Despite this seemingly utopian low carbon district, very little opportunity exists for those living in the community to be a part of shaping its design. Indeed, buyers’ choices are limited to three different ‘finishes’ to their homes, named the ‘craft pack’, the ‘comfort pack’, and the ‘refined pack’. While the craft pack is the ‘standard’ model delivered without additional costs and therefore allowing buyers to “design their home exactly how they want it”, this only extends to features such as the flooring and mirrors in the bathroom – the sorts of options provided in any ‘normal’ new build, off-plan, purchase.

The implementation of a sustainable community is therefore leveraged from the top down, with very little input from the individuals who will come to inhabit the homes. Once again, then, we find ourselves immersed in a plethora of best practices in low carbon and sustainable homebuilding, without any real sense of how to elevate these sorts of projects for delivery elsewhere in the country as part of the more generic delivery of marketable housing.

Seyfang (2009) warns the diffusion of practice beyond these niche manifestations and into wider societal discourse faces significant challenges in its attempts to bridge the local and regional or national scales. Perhaps the crucial point here is the fact that, as of yet, the market for developer provided collective custom approaches to housing delivery remains considerably underdeveloped in the UK, subordinated by the country’s more common mode of mass market housing delivery – speculative new builds.

Other cases of this particular typology serve to further illustrate this point. In the case of Dormont Park in Dumfriesshire (Annex E) government subsidies were required in order to make the development competitive. Elsewhere, in the case of Hanham Hall, Gloucestershire (also Annex E) the project was actually delivered by an existing mass market homebuilder, Barratt Homes, but with substantial government support, both in the obtaining of land, and through carbon-challenge funding. Additionally, the ability of homebuyers to participate in the customisation of both their home and neighbourhood was virtually non-existent.

The cases of Dormont Park and Hanham Hall, being rural and suburban locations respectively, combined with the inner city example of the carbon innovation district illustrates that these sorts of projects are no more viable in one particular type of location than they are in another. Instead, they

emerge from very specific sets of circumstances and opportunities. As Seyfang (2009) describes, perhaps the best ‘lessons’ that can be taken from cases like these, relate to the wider ‘policy instruments’ and institutional landscapes from which they were able to emerge, rather than from the specific development practices themselves.

Figure 6 - Case 16: Climate Innovation District, Leeds:

The climate innovation district in Leeds prides itself on being unique on two different fronts. It represents the first time that new residential homes have been built in Leeds city centre for “over 90 years”, as well as being the “UK’s largest urban sustainable development” (CITU 2018).

Offering a platform for sustainable living by situating itself right in the heart of the city, thereby reducing the need for commuting, the Carbon Innovation District has been driven by CITU, a sustainable development organisation challenging traditional housing developers.

The design of the carbon innovation district is based around “greenery, public spaces, shared gardens where you can sit and relax, or just catch up with your neighbours”.

“The design of the Climate Innovation District will create an inspiring place to live using technology at the cutting edge of sustainability. Green spaces and a car free landscape will encourage walking, cycling and outside play, helping to create a strong and low carbon community. The district’s design brings together a series of innovations to create a safe, sustainable and healthy place for its residents, and for the benefit of the wider city”

In terms of the residential homes themselves, a timber frame design seeks to achieve airtightness which is then combined with “ultra-insulated panels”. Each home comes with its own rain garden and electric car charging points come as standard with each under croft parking space alongside the homes.

The first 6 homes are due to be completed in the summer of 2018 and all of the planned homes are currently available for reserve.

A ‘community interest company’ has been established as a not-for-profit entity which controls and manages the development in a manner that encourages certain sustainable lifestyles. Central to the marketing message of the development is the ability of the district to offer residents the chance to help in “accelerating the transition to Zero-Carbon cities.

Case Study Type 6 - Enabler Driven Collective Custom Build: The International Perspective

In reviewing all of the different types of group build projects thus far, whenever the possibility to deliver low carbon, sustainable housing at scale arises, a difficulty in striking the right balance emerges. This balance is between, on the one hand, carrying the ethos of sustainability through stages of conceptualisation, construction, and ultimately co-habitation as part of a collective, and the need

for some form of centralised control over the development in order to ensure that the project is delivered successfully. If a viable model of group build, low carbon housing provision is to emerge, understanding how exactly this balance should be struck, will be fundamental.

The previously cited article by Seyfang (2009) is notable not only for its contribution to the points being made above, but due to the fact it draws its inspiration from outside of the UK context - something that this report is now going to turn its attention towards.

In the UK, custom and self-build account for only 10% of new build housing, compared to an average of 50% across Europe and in countries such as Australia. At current build rates of about 200,000 a year in the UK, that is a difference between 20,000 and 100,000 new homes.

Wallace et al. (2013) state that “historic developments within the housing and planning systems, the propensity of the government to provide housing, and the emergence of large volume house-builders and/or local commitments to the ethos of home ownership” are all important to shaping the differences seen between countries with regards to the self-provision of housing.

These historical and cultural dimensions extend far beyond the aspirations of individual home buyers, and are embodied by the wider landscape of the housing development industry. It is this, institutional, affinity with group and custom build approaches elsewhere in the world that will be central to our exploration here.

For the case studies in question - taken from the cities of Hamburg, Germany (Figure 7) and Davis, California, USA (Figure 8) - we see how both the environments in which the projects emerged and, crucially, the individuals capable of acting as the catalyst for the project, were vital to their realisation as developer driven, collective custom, group build, projects that embody the ethos of sustainability at the stages of conceptualisation, construction, and co-habitation.4

4 Additional case studies from Berlin, Freiburg, and Den Haag, are included in Annex F

Figure 7 - Case 18: HafenCity, Hamburg, Germany

In total 2000 homes across 80 projects have been delivered in Hamburg through a group build process. One area where such projects are particularly prevalent is in the new ‘Hafen City’ district - a dockside regeneration project. According to the right to build toolkit, “it is possible to deliver group private homebuilding projects on high value city centre sites” so long as the groups have a good ‘enabler’ on board to steer them through the process” (NaCSBA 2018).

The wider HafenCity project is Europe’s largest urban re-development project, covering 150 hectares in total. The Baugemeinschaft (meaning building group) Hafenliebe project is located right in the heart of this re-development district in an area that had been agreed as designated for group build projects by the HafenCity development company and the city council. Only registered building groups could apply to purchase these designated plots of land and, as long as they stay within the parameters of the tenure mix required by the overall redevelopment master plan, can design the neighbourhood according to their own specifications. This, however, must be done in collaboration with an experienced group build development ‘manager’. Despite its group approach then, this development project comprising 54 apartments, has been led by an individual architect, Iris Neitmann, acting as a facilitator, through her own development company.

Neitmann designed a concept that would specifically target young families, older people, and the self-employed who struggle to get financial aid through the normal channels. Neitmann worked as the ‘enabling developer’ and recruited the group of people who would purchase the homes. Her organisation secured the site prior to recruiting the group of individuals who would ultimately purchase the homes. According to the Right to build toolkit: “Neitmann outlined the basic ‘concept’ set out in her original tender submission to the development corporation – the style of architecture, shared facilities, location and opportunities for customisation. Brochures that showcased some of her company’s earlier projects also helped to convince people to join the group”.

Based on her previous experiences, Nietmann determined that the best approach to managing a combination of overall structural design by the architectural firm, and individual designs by the homeowners was to use a “scrapbook’ of materials and layouts that set out the choices members could make”. Neitmann’s company initiated the project by itself and funded the work required to secure the development site through an ‘exclusivity option’ – a common tool used in Hamburg to allow grouped housing projects to bid for publicly owned land earmarked for residential development. After being granted full permission by the council, the group of recruited residents, supported by the ongoing facilitation of Neitmann’s firm, became the official ‘developer’ as they worked to customise their homes during the build process. With initial ground-breaking occurring in March 2009, the private homeowners all moved in by August 2010. The building is 100% owner occupied and ranges from one to four bed flats.

In total about 90% of the funding for the project came from development banks with the rest topped up by a special loan targetting the construction of energy efficient dwellings. With the construction work funded up front by Nietmann’s company borrowings, the group members were able to obtain individual mortgages upon completion of the project. According to the right to build toolkit this was possible because of the “reduced planning risk and absence of a requirement for detailed design work to be done before the site could be secured – a notable difference to conventional practice in the UK.”

Figure 8 - Case 19: Village Homes, Davis, California, USA

Known in the United States as an example of a ‘planned community’ – a community development master planned and constructed in its entirety on previously undeveloped land – ‘Village Homes’ was designed and developed by local architects Michael and Judy Corbett. Planning for the project began in the 1960’s and construction then followed throughout the 70’s and 80’s, with full completion in 1982. While at the time it was constructed on undeveloped land, its location alongside existing residential areas, and the subsequent further development of land since its establishment, has meant that village homes is now well embedded within the city of Davis.

The 60 acre development comprises 222 homes and 20 apartment units, all of which are orientated around a series of open spaces used as common areas located at the rear of the dwellings, thereby reducing the need for large private back gardens. These common spaces include parkland, orchards, play areas, and even an outdoor community owned restaurant all of which is described as an ‘edible landscape’, actively managed by the residents. Designed as energy conserving buildings, all of the homes are orientated on a north-south axis in order to maximise passive solar design efficiency. This has become standard practice for new developments in Davis since the development of village homes.

The construction of village homes took place in phases of 50 houses at a time between 1975 and 1982. The total cost of the development including purchasing the land, remediation of that land, and the development of the houses was a little over $3m (in 1974). Funding for the project was secured by the Corbett’s from the Sacramento Savings bank. They describe how despite this the project was still met with significant resistance from the city planners and that they were essentially attempting to break every planning code in the city in order to get their plan approved.

Given that the design of the site began from aspirations to be both as environmentally and community orientated as possible, central to this challenge of being granted planning permission was the fact that it sought to revolutionise what had become a much standardised approach to street layout. Rather than the usual grid pattern seen in the United States, the plan for village homes was to use weaving, narrow cul-de-sacs that privileged interaction rather than personal vehicles, and banned on-street parking. This was met with resistance from planners, emergency service actors and the public works department, who also objected to the mixed use land pattern proposed by the design and the communal rather than private approach to gardens. As Francis (2002) notes, the Corbetts responded to all of these setbacks with ‘missionary-like persistence’ in seeking to allay any external fears over transportation, low- crime, and communal living potential. In the end, it was through appeals processes and the liberal nature of the Davis city council that ultimately allowed the project to be given the go-ahead. Without this the Corbett’s believe that the project may never have been realisable.

In terms of organisation, the original design process was conducted by the Corbett’s and a group of community members whom they had brought on board as interested potential homeowners. However this became difficult as various parties either withdrew through lack of commitment, or became disillusioned by the aforementioned hurdles and logistical barriers faced. As a result, the final design of Village Homes was the sole work of the Corbetts, and their own backgrounds in landscape architecture and environmental psychology.

By establishing a homeowners association which would eventually serve to manage the communal aspects of the development, the Corbetts fed much of the decision making about the communal space into this institution. As residents themselves they regularly state that they regret that in certain cases the home owner’s board has, and continues to, go against some of what they had originally proposed. Despite this they maintain the importance of participation and collaboration in decision making.

Francis (2002) writes that having been originally seen as a “high-risk development” by local planners and investment bankers, “Village Homes today is one of the most desirable and economically successful developments in California”. Data compiled by Francis’ study shows that the resale cost of the homes in 2000 was between $10 and $25 per sq. ft. higher for those in Village Homes than other house sales in the city of Davis. Given its longevity, unique status at the time of construction, and seemingly timeless ability to maintain both its environmentalist credentials, and the home values associated with this, Village Homes has become a well-recognised ‘learning lab’ for home builders, environmental engineers, and urban planners alike (Wack 2005). It has also been the subject of numerous television documentaries, books, and even presidential visits. It remains one of the best examples of sustainable community construction, delivered into an otherwise ‘normal’ location through otherwise ‘normal’ market realities, albeit by taking advantage of the political climate needed to gain the requisite permissions.

Taking Stock: Lessons for the UK, Scotland, Edinburgh, and Shawfair

“…the financial rewards for self-providers who build sustainably are still very tangible – in that, as users of the product being produced they benefit directly from investment in energy-saving measures such as higher-than-normal levels of insulation, passive-solar design and renewable technologies – and an aspiration to procure housing that supports a sustainable life-style is often a founding principal of Collective Custom Build Groups” (Brown et al. 2013).

The affinity between group build approaches that nurture the value of the collective (and indeed the increased values that the collective can achieve) and the agenda of low carbon, sustainable living described by the above quote, is indisputable at a theoretical and conceptual level. At the very least the plethora of case studies contained in this report have shown us this much. Indeed, despite their differences, they have all served as a vital source of inspiration regarding a variety of best practices in low and zero carbon home building. Beyond this, however, the research has shown that how groups are assembled, how their relationship to sustainability is nurtured, and how they organise themselves in relation to the build process, are all vital elements in determining the ultimate success of any project.

The purpose of this report was to open up the question of how group build approaches could offer a potential means of delivering zero-carbon housing in the UK. Additionally, it was hoped that, by journeying through the different formulations of group build, the challenges they have faced in cementing themselves as viable modes of housing procurement, and their relative successes to date, some form of transferable model would begin to emerge.

In light of this, the following key learning points have been identified both to take forward in this report, and to be built upon by future research seeking to embrace and explore these issues.

Key Learning Points:

• Technological progress has ensured that, despite government rollbacks regarding zero- carbon housebuilding legislation, the potential to construct buildings of this kind continues to advance apace.

• The scaled delivery of low and zero carbon housing projects is achievable - given the right set of circumstances, and technologically, the ability to integrate housing developments in a way that maximises their suitability credentials has been possible for a number of decades.

• Group build projects can be delivered within the confines of more ‘normal’ development paradigms and alongside ‘standard’ neighbourhood forms, with sustainability firmly embedded into the build process so that the added value is passed on to the consumer both in terms of everyday living costs and in terms of future resale values.

• Scaling up the delivery of low carbon housing through a group build approach would rely upon economies of scale that increase the affordability of low carbon technologies. The more

integrated the grouped approach to development is, the more cost effective the delivery of low carbon housing can be.

• This integrated approach to the build process also allows groups to benefit from the advantages of collectivism while protecting homeowners from future self-interested partners.

• Raising awareness is crucial in order to generate demand both in terms of the benefits of low carbon lifestyles, and the need for it at a wider societal level.

• These benefits are most easily sold to owner-builders who have a vested long term interest in their home’s sustainability, and the value that can be harnessed from this.

• The role of the development ‘enabler’ - usually a small scale private developer with a vested interest in pushing sustainability goals themselves - is crucial. This is true for all development locations, whether they be urban, sub-urban, or rural.

• One of the most pressing issues for the UK context is the facilitation of opportunity. Opportunity for both prospective home builders, and for the small and medium size developers who could potentially act as these project enablers.

• The barriers to mass market delivery of low carbon housing in the UK is less a symptom of the market dominance by large ‘volume’ speculative house builders themselves and more an institutional issue relating to the way in which opportunities for alternative development types emerge, and the relationships between local authorities, developers, and home buyers, that nurture this emergence.

• Additionally, the embedded nature of the speculative approach in the UK context ensures that this cannot easily be ‘written away’. As a result, future successes in delivering low and zero carbon homes are more likely to occur through collaboration and co-operation with existing market players and their own procurement processes, rather than in direct competition with them.

References

Boydell, R (2014) ‘Vale, Robert & Brenda: The Autonomous House’. An architectural journal. http://ranaldboydell.blogspot.com/2014/08/vale-robert-brenda-autonomous-house.html First Accessed: 14/04/18

Brown, S, Cerulli, C, Stevenson, F, Ash, C, and Birkbeck, D (2013) ‘Motivating Collective Custom Build’ ISBN - 978-0-9576914-6-9

Barratt (2018) ‘Hanham Hall, Bristol’ Barratt Developments. http://www.barrattdevelopments.co.uk/showcase/hanham-hall-bristol First Accessed: 12/05/18

Budsock, A (2014) ‘Quartier Vauban: A Tiny Town with Big Sustainable Ambitions’ Impakter. https://impakter.com/quartier-vauban-tiny-town-big-sustainable-ambitions/ First Accessed: 23/04/18

Cardiff University (2015) ‘Smart’ carbon positive energy house’ Cardiff University News. https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/122063-smart-carbon-positive-energy-house First Accessed 15/05/18

CBS (2016) ‘Graven Hill reveals first custom build plot prices’ Custom Build Strategy. http://custombuildstrategy.co.uk/news-article/graven-hill-reveals-first-custom-build-plot-prices/ First Accessed 08/05/18

CITU (2018) ‘Climate Innovation District’ CITU Places. https://www.citu.co.uk/citu-places/climate- innovation-district/ First Accessed: 17/05/18

Clarence House (2018) ‘The Prince’s Natural House’ HRH Prince of Wales. https://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/princes-natural-house First Accessed: 26/05/18

Dormont Estate (2018) ‘Dormont Park Passivhaus Development’ Dormont Estate: Living in Balance with the Environment. https://www.dormontestate.com/dormont-park/ First Accessed: 11/05/18

EST (2017) ‘The Clean Growth Plan: A “2050 ready” new-build homes policy’ Energy Savings Trust. http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/reports/ERP4_The%20Clean%20Growth%2 0Plan_A%202050-ready%20new-build%20homes%20policy.pdf First Accessed 26/06/2018.

Feary, T (2015) ‘Inside Almere: the Dutch City that’s pioneering alternative housing’ The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/dec/15/almere-dutch-city-alternative- housing-custom-build First Accessed: 24/7/18

Findhorn Ecovillage (2017) ‘Key Dates’ Eco Village Findhorn. https://www.ecovillagefindhorn.com/index.php/ecovillage-findhorn/key-dates First Accessed 26/04/18

Francis, M (2002) ‘Village Homes: A case study in Community Design’ Landscape Journal 21(1): 23-41

Graven Hill (2018) ‘About Graven Hill’ Graven Hill. https://www.gravenhill.co.uk/about-graven-hill/ First Accessed: 08/05/18

Greenwood, D, Congreve, A, King, M (2017) ‘Streamlining or watering down? Assessing the ‘smartness’ of policy and standards for the promotion of low and zero carbon homes in England 2010-15’ Energy Policy 110: 490-499

Harrabin, R ‘Designers create the ‘impossible’ zero-carbon house’ BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33544831 First Accessed: 26/06/2018

HHP (2018) ‘Hockerton Housing Project: About us’ Hockerton Housing Project. https://www.hockertonhousingproject.org.uk/about-us/ First Accessed: 26/06/18

HTA (2018) ‘Hanham Hall’ hta. http://www.hta.co.uk/projects/hanham-hall First Accessed 23/05/18

LILAC (2018) ‘Community’ LILAC: Low Impact Living Affordable Community. http://www.lilac.coop/community/ First Accessed: 03/05/18

Madsen, K (2006) ‘Eco-house Oxford’ University of Idaho. http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/arch504ukgreenarch/CaseStudies/EcohouseOxford2.pdf First Accessed: 17/05/18

Marcus, C.C (1993) ‘Designing for a Commitment to Place: Lessons from the Alternative Community Findhorn’ In Seamon, D Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing: Toward a Phenomenological Ecology New York: SUNY Press

Marrs, C (2018) ‘Custom build’s possibilities meet with homebuyer caution’ Architects Journal. https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/custom-builds-possibilities-meet-with-homebuyer- caution/10028334.article First Accessed: 12/07/18

McPartland, S (2017) ‘Will we ever achieve zero carbon homes?’ National Building Specification. https://www.thenbs.com/knowledge/will-we-ever-achieve-zero-carbon-homes First accessed: 03/05/2018

Morris, S (2005) ‘Green Dream site has become Bristol’s vale of tears’ The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/feb/21/environment.housingpolicy First Accessed: 12/08/18

Murphy, N (2016) ‘A flying visit to Almere’s Homeruskwartier’ Town. http://www.wearetown.co.uk/almere-homeruskwartier-custom-build/# First Accessed: 19/7/18

NaCSBA (2015) ‘Custom and Self Build: Extending Housing Choice’ National Custom and Self Build Association. http://www.nacsba.org.uk/about-us First Accessed: 24/04/18

NaCSBA (2018) ‘Graven Hill Bicester’ Right to Build Toolkit. http://righttobuildtoolkit.org.uk/case- studies/graven-hill-bicester/# First Accessed: 08/05/18

NaCSBA (2018) ‘Baugemeinschaft Hafenliebe, Hamburg’ Right to Build Toolkit. http://righttobuildtoolkit.org.uk/case-studies/hafenliebe/# First Accessed 13/05/18

NaCSBA (2018) ‘Homemade @ Heartlands, Cornwall’ Right to Build Toolkit. http://righttobuildtoolkit.org.uk/case-studies/homemade-heartlands-cornwall/# First Accessed: 29/04/18

NaCSBA (2018) ‘Spreefeld Genossenschaft, Berlin’ Right to Build Toolkit. http://righttobuildtoolkit.org.uk/case-studies/spreefeld-genossenschaft-berlin/# First Accessed: 13/05/18

NaCSBA (2018) ‘Isabellaland, The Hague’ Right to Build Toolkit. http://righttobuildtoolkit.org.uk/case-studies/isabellaland-the-hague/# First Accessed 02/05/18.

Passivhaus Trust (2018) ‘What is Passivhaus’ Passivhaus Trust. http://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/what_is_passivhaus.php First Accessed: 15/05/18

Parvin, A, Saxby, D, Cerulli, C, Schneider, T (2011) A Right to Build: The next mass-housebuilding industry. University of Sheffield School of Architecture

Potton (2018) ‘Elsworth: Show House Summary’ potton.co.uk. https://www.potton.co.uk/gallery- case-studies/show-homes/elsworth First Accessed: 29/04/18

The Princes Foundation (2018) ‘The Natural House: Traditional meets Eco-Living’ The Princes Foundation. https://princes-foundation.org/project/the-natural-house First Accessed 26/05/18

Roaf, S (2016) ’The Oxford Ecohouse - timeless and iconic’ Green Building Ezine. http://gbezine.greenbuilding.co.uk/the-oxford-ecohouse-timeless-and-iconic/ First Accessed: 17/05/18

Selfbuild Central (2011) ‘Ashley Vale, Bristol’ Selfbuild-central. https://www.selfbuild- central.co.uk/first-ideas/examples/ashley-vale-bristol/ First Accessed: 03/05/18

Self Build Portal (2018) ‘Almere, Holland’ The Gateway to more Self and Custom Build Homes. https://www.selfbuildportal.org.uk/homeruskwartier-district-almere First Accessed:18/07/18

Seyfang, G (2010) ‘Community action for sustainable housing: Building allow carbon future’ Energy Policy 38(12):7624-7633

Tolson, S (2016) ‘A Case Study of Springhill Co-Housing, Stroud, Gloucestershire’ CDLH. http://www.pencohousing.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Springhill-Co-housing-Case-Study- 2016.pdf First Accessed: 23/04/18

Vidal, J (2015) ‘Britain’s first ‘energy positive’ house’. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/15/britains-first-energy-positive-house- opens-in-wales#comments First Accessed 15/05/18

Wack, P (2005) ‘Village Homes, Davis California: A Learning Lab for Planners’ Focus Journal 2(1): 35- 39

Wallace, A, Ford, J, Quiglars, D (2013) ‘Results of a survey of people engaging with self-build’ University of York: Centre for Housing Policy. https://www.york.ac.uk/media/chp/documents/2013/Lloyds%20supplementary%20report-3.pdf First Accessed: 23/04/18

Annex A - Case Study Typology 1

Case 2: The Princes Trust House

The ‘Prince’s Trust Natural House’ is a project developed as part of the Prince of Wales’ environmental and ‘eco-living’ agenda, aiming to illustrate the possibility of constructing traditional looking houses but using natural materials and to a low-carbon specification. Constructed at the Building Research Establishment’s Innovation Park in Watford, the Prince’s house “uses timeless principles of thermal mass, passive ventilation and natural insulation to create a low carbon, healthy and attractive alternative to the high-tech solutions favoured by most architects.” (Clarence House 2018). The marrying of traditional British house design and sustainable, low carbon credentials in terms of the materials used and the technological framework around which it is based, is key to the narrative the house seeks to instil.

Acting as a proof of concept, the project aimed to illustrate the ease with which lower impact, healthy homes can be constructed, in the hope that the high profile endorsement of (and even participation in) the house by the Prince of Wales, would stimulate wider engagement with possibilities. In addition to this the project seeks to work as much as a teaching tool as a learning one given the perception that, ‘while lower bills are the primary concern of most homebuyers’, a better understanding of health impacts is long overdue. “The house uses thermal mass, passive ventilation and natural insulation to create an environmentally healthy and attractive alternative to mass housing. The walls are made of strong, lightweight clay blocks that act as insulation by trapping pockets of air throughout the house. Added to this, the roof and floor space are insulated with lime hemp and sheep’s wool, making the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter, reducing heating and cooling bills. When extra warmth is needed, a wood-burning stove with gas boiler heats the house efficiently. Many new homes have a problem with poor ventilation, but in the Natural House breathable materials including paints and floor finishes are used, stopping dust or moisture from getting trapped and potentially causing damp or mould. These natural, non-toxic materials make for a healthy indoor environment, too. Materials have also been sourced to maximise end-of-life recyclability, including floors and windows made from FSC-certified timber and clay roof tiles. Outside is an organic garden featuring native wildflowers and grasses, fruiting shrubs and trees, herbs, vegetables and horticultural plants to provide leisure, food and medicinal value” (The Princes Foundation 2018).

Case 3: Elsworth Passivhaus by Potton

The Elsworth Passivhaus offers an attempt to construct a low carbon, sustainable home, by a market orientated development company. While both an inability and an unwillingness by the housebuilding industry to embrace the stringent regulations proposed to come into effect in 2016 was central to the decision to ultimately drop the agenda, there remains a niche market for the delivery of such homes by smaller house builders seeking to take advantage of an interest and willingness beyond the mass- delivery, speculative builders. One such organisation is Potton, and the decision to include them as a case study here stems from their assertion that they have constructed “the UK’s first show home built to Passivhaus standard” (Potton 2018).

Opened in September 2016, Potton’s Passivhaus is a 2100 sq ft house in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. A proof of concept of sorts, the ‘showhouse’ has been constructed to simultaneously demonstrate Potton’s modern design styles, and the potential to deliver passive houses on the UK market. The need for a show house of this kind, they believe, is down to the ‘long payback duration’ of around 10 years that is required to see the value in owning a passivhaus, meaning additional, reified, aspects of what it will look and feel like is required in order to convince potential buyers.

“The amount of heat turns out to be 15kwh/sqm/year. This is about three times more efficient than current UK building regulations, and still more than twice as good as planned for the regulations in 2016 before the government irresponsibly canned them immediately after the last election” (Potton 2018).

Voicing their own disapproval over the governments scrapping of the regulations, Potton use this as a core selling point and position themselves as a more responsible developer. Moreover, what is perhaps most interesting about Potton for our purposes here, is that they describe themselves as a ‘self-build’ company that is able to design and construct a Passivhaus to the specific requirements of the consumer, wherever they may wish to build.

Annex B - Case Study Typology 2

Case 5: The autonomous house

While ‘Autonomous house’s a generic term, referring to a building which functions entirely disconnected from any mains services, it also serves as the name of a specific dwelling located in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, England (Boydell 2014). Seeking top put what is otherwise seen as a utopian concept into practical materialisation, Robert and Brenda Vale constructed the home in 1993 in a manner that was not outlandish in its design principles but, rather, aligned closely with the build style and form of its neighbours.

Given that their primary objective was to sell the idea of sustainability, the Vales note that "a deliberate effort was made to design a house that would look a natural part of its setting. If a radical proposal is made to change the way that houses are serviced, it is perhaps too much to demand that people should also have to change their expectation of what a house should look like... Had the house been very unconventional in appearance, it might have elicited a response that the idea was interesting, but that the technology was clearly not for the ordinary householder." (Boydell 2014).

The walls of the house are comprised of standard red brick with timber, multi-paned windows, and terracotta roof tiles. The sustainability mandate however, is achieved through the addition of both active and passive technologies including: rainwater tanks, composting toilets, heat recovery ventilation, and solar panels feeding a battery bank. Because, in order to fit within the existing streetscape, the orientation of the houseman there was no south facing roof planes, the solar panels remounted on a pergola in the back garden in order to angle them as precisely and effectively as possible. This particular factor illustrates the extent to which the Vales went to illustrate the ‘ordinary’ nature of their sustainable home.

Annex C - Case Study Typology 3

Case 7: Trevenson Park South, Cornwall, England

Part of a ‘Heartlands regeneration initiative’ located between Redruth and Cambourne, Trevenson Park is a development project located on the site of an old tin mine. The Homes and Communities Agency (now ‘Homes England’), had been responsible for trying to regenerate the area and produce a development master plan, included in which would be plots designated for building. It was through this process that the HCA identified custom build as a potentially suitable delivery mechanism for the site.

The total development will contain 144 homes, 54 of which will be designated as custom build plots. Originally agreed in June 2014, infrastructure implementation works began in June 2016. While the rest of the homes are being delivered in a standard, speculative manner by a different housing developer, the 54 custom build plots are described as the “largest private sector custom build project in the UK” (NaCSBA 2018). The project is being delivered by Carillion Igloo and a group of custom house builders, between which potential buyers can choose from a range of models and adapt them accordingly. Plots are available for £50,000 and an “entry level” house is suggested to be possible for around an additional £130,000. According to the ‘right to build’ toolkit website from the NaCSBA:

“[Carillion Igloo] believes it can deliver a larger and better quality home, compared to an equivalent house from a traditional housebuilder. So a three bedroom home on the adjoining site (80 sq m) is currently available for £175,675. The nearest equivalent on the Igloo site is a 88 sq m three bedroom home, costing £185,000. So purchasers get a house that is 10% larger (and a better design/specification) for an additional 5% cost. It achieves this – in part – by avoiding some Stamp Duty (which is only charged on the plot/foundations, rather than the full sales price).”

Carillion Igloo describe themselves as a “responsible real estate company” seeking to achieve “financial and sustainable returns”. Seeking to ‘disrupt’ the existing new build housing market in the UK through the use of innovative approaches to procurement, the company has worked on projects in Leeds, Nottingham and Newcastle, most often inner city development and re-development projects. While also explicitly engaged with environmental agendas, a core part of their more ‘responsible’ approach to real estate is to offer customers more choice in the design of their home.

Case 8: Almere Poort, Netherlands

Also known as Almere’s ‘Homeruskwartier’, Almere Poort is the blueprint on which both Graven Hill and Heartlands in Cornwall are based. It is here where the concept of the ‘plot passport’ was first pioneered.

Described by the Self Build Portal (2018) as an ‘innovative experiment’, while the scale of the project in Almere is ground-breaking, it seeks to take advantage of the Netherlands’ long-standing tradition of self and custom build approaches to housing - considerable more embedded, culturally and historically, than is the case in the UK.

Containing upwards of 3000 self build plots, the Almere Poort area has been completely master planned by the local authority over a 250 acre space on the outskirts of the main city (itself a new town). Individual plots vary in both size and typology, extending from 86 sqm up to over 1200 sqm and the type of building that can be constructed on the site is defined by the plot passport. This, however, is not restrictive and with the exception of the height and the plot boundaries, homeowners have free reign over what they want their home to look like. Architectural diversity has been one of Almere Poort’s primary motivations since the onset of the project (Self Build Portal 2018). Despite this however, as Murphy (2016) notes, a considerable degree of circumspect has emerged in many parts of the developments, as homebuilders proceed with caution over outlandish design approaches. Despite this, there are a certain amount of rather innovative dwellings (Feary 2015).

The council is responsible for the installation and maintenance of all the local infrastructure and all of the plots were sold at the standard price of 375 Euro’s per sqm. The price of the building is then left to the homeowner to decide based on the type of house they want to build and the contractors they choose to build it. Herein also lies the opportunity for groups of people to join together in building a collective site using a single contractor (Self Build Portal 2018).

Annex D - Case Study Typology 4

Case 11: Ashley Vale, Bristol, England

Ashley Vale is a 26 plot development of detached and semi-detached self-built and self-finished houses organised around a shared garden with recycling facilities, a community hub, and designated workspace units. The houses were built to a ‘completed shell’ status and then finished off by the individual residents who would occupy them. This meant that the commitments to green living and low carbon lifestyles varied across the site with some homebuyers opting to pursue this to a significant degree, while others embodied the sustainability mantra through their collectivism rather than any technological commitments within their own home.

In a similar vein to the project at Findhorn, Ashley Vale is known not only for its environmentally friendly approach to communal life, but for how this manifests itself not through rigid alignment of housing style but through a wide variety of dwellings in terms of their type, size, design, and external appearance. In this manner it has benefitted substantially from individuals and organisations with a vested interest in certain aspects of the place, without actually living there (SelfBuild-Central). This is particularly the case with a number of custom build architects who have worked with residents on the designs of their own houses. Over time these builders became more involved in the project due to its interesting genealogy and collaborated on the infrastructural aspects of the site

The original group responsible for its development, known as the Ashley Vale Action Group, was born out of local desires to resist plans for a new housing development to be delivered by a volume builder. Rather than backing the rapid turnaround provided by a volume developer, the local authority decided to back the more emergent approach of the action group which would ultimately take six years to develop. This is therefore a good example of how political will on the part of local authorities can play a crucial part in allowing projects of this kind to come to fruition, something without which they may struggle to establish a foothold in the housing market.

Case 12: Springhill Co-Housing, Stroud, England

As with the case in Lancaster seen earlier, another co-housing development which took advantage of land deemed unsuitable for the mainstream housebuilder, is Springhill, located in Stroud, England. A 35 unit development, it comprises terraced houses, semi-detached homes and a block of flats. Much like the case in Lancaster, narrow, pedestrian streets without car access to each of the homes not only encourages a more communal neighbourhood, but was vital to being able to plan and develop on this unusual site (Parvin et al. 2011).

Now well established, Springhill’s collective approach to development has been carried forward not by the construction of new homes or extended areas, but through the increasingly intertwined lives of the residents to the extent that they cook a number of meals together throughout the week as well as hosting a variety of events. This is in addition to the ‘infrastructural’ integration of the site which orientates around a central ‘common house’. This comprises a “three-storey building comprises communal kitchens, dining, workshops, a games room and communal laundry facilities.” (Brown et al. 2013) Having this space allowed the private dwellings to be much smaller in size and therefore, crucially, cheaper to build, purchase, and maintain.

Once again, cars were a key area where the collective approach actively sought to embody an environmental agenda. Personal vehicles are kept well away from the central areas of the site, and a car share scheme is in operation. In addition to this a significant proportion of the site’s electricity is produced by solar panels

Perhaps the most interesting dimension of the collectivism at Springhill is in its financing. The aim was to create the most equitable distribution of costs as possible and in order to achieve this, the different members were all made directors of a special ‘Development Company’ in exchange for a £5000 equity stake. This company was then used to purchase the land and, with plots priced per sq metre, residents would pay according to their house size. The value of each sq metre was divided by the total land area including that to be used for the construction of common areas (Tolson 2016).

Case 13: Hockerton Housing Project, Nottingham, England

While the original development at the Hockerton Housing project only consisted of five houses, it is of interest here for a number of reasons but particularly because the houses were designed by Robert and Brenda Vale, whom we covered earlier in the case of their own ‘autonomous house’ project.

The project involved five families working together to build the ‘earth sheltered’ housing shells and then finishing off their own individual homes. This approach offered an additional way of reducing the ‘green footprint’ of the housing, by integrating it fully with the surrounding landscape, to the point where the houses are almost invisible on three sides. In contrast to some of the other examples of this type, then, the focus at Hockerton was not on diverse aesthetics, but stringent adherence to an environmental agenda, allowing for customisation and individualisation only on the home interiors. In total each house cost £90,000 to construct and all were completed in 1998.

As well as a system incorporating wind turbines and an array of solar cells, all of which are grid linked, the site is also notable for its intensive focus on water capturing and reuse through rainfall recycling,

reed bed sewage systems, and the construction of the sites own reservoir. The large 40,000 sq. m site also allows the residents to grow much of their own food.

While in some of the other cases explored above, guided tours of the site and catering for interested external parties was part of the sustainability message effervesced by the residents, at Hockerton this has been taken a stage further, and an actual not-for-profit business, orientated around guided tours and ecological living courses, has been established (HHP 2018). This is run by the residents who commit to working, unpaid, on both the business and the maintenance of the site. The aim of the business, according to its website, is to “act as a catalyst for chance towards ecologically sound and sustainable ways of living”.

Case 14: LILAC, Leeds, England

Standing for ‘low impact living affordable community’, the LILAC project in Leeds offers another good example of how the public sector can work to support independent groups to deliver their own housing. Beginning in 2006, the project was established by five likeminded local residents who themselves devoted a considerable amount of time to researching the possibilities for sustainable community building inspired by the ‘Danish model of co-housing’ (LILAC 2018).

It includes 20 houses on a former school site not far from the centre of Leeds and emphasised both ‘greening’ and ‘affordability’ in its delivery mandate. The houses were built using ‘off-site’ panel based straw bale construction and combine a passive solar specification with a ‘mechanical ventilation heat recovery system’ and a solar PV array on the building roof.

Once again, the commitment to sustainable lifestyles goes beyond the technological however and incorporates car sharing, meal sharing, and the privileging of local food sources for anything that cannot be sourced from the sites own allotments.

According to Brown et al. (2013), “[t]he new homes are owned and managed by a fully mutual co- operative housing society – known as a Mutual Home Ownership Scheme (MHOS) - which ensures rents are fair and makes ownership affordable, and are built around a community ‘common house’ designed with shared cooking, laundry, leisure and meeting facilities, which forms a core component of the Cohousing ethos around which the group was formed”.

Annex E - Case Study Typology 5

Case 15: Dormont Park

According to the project’s website, Dormont Park, located in rural Dumfriesshire in Scotland’s South- West, is an “award winning development of 8 new 2 and 3 bedroom semi- detached Passivhaus Homes.” The project was completed in 2011 and was driven by the Scottish Government’s ‘Rural Homes for Rent’ grant scheme, seeking to construct homes specifically designed for long-term affordability for renting tenants.

Building the homes to Passivhaus standard allowed the project to target one particular aspect of affordability facing rural communities in Scotland – fuel poverty. Built in the same external style as other, traditional, homes in the area, in comparison they release 20 tonnes of CO2 less a year thanks to higher insulation qualities and a reliance on solar and biomass renewable energy. This, as stated by the project “means lower energy bills in an area off mains gas, which, with affordable rent levels, are having a significant impact on tenants’ disposable incomes and helping to support the survival and sustainability of a fragile rural community.” (Dormont Estate 2018)

Another targeted element of the schemes affordability agenda, is the individuals for whom the homes are made available. Rather than being released on the open market, the houses are allocated to those in the local area first and foremost, according to the following set of priorities (Dormont Estate 2018):

 those living locally with family and friends  retiring local tenant farmers  those in tied housing needing to move  people moving to the area to work  those moving to the area to support their family  those living in unsatisfactory housing conditions Using an off-site manufacturing process, a local construction company used closed timber panel frames to dramatically reduce build times and reduce the environmental impact of the construction process as well as the final product. The houses are built to a standard which exceeds “what is likely to be the 2019 building standard for zero carbon housing” (Dormont Estate 2018). As stated above, the homes combine a traditional, locally contextualised aesthetic with an ultra- efficient, carbon reducing ergonomic. The rural theme is portrayed via:

 Chimneys and porches  A colour palette that matches the neighbouring sandstone properties.  Farm road access with an identical compacted gravel surface in line with Scottish Government guidance in street design  Locally sourced tradespeople, in turn, improving the local economy.

Meanwhile, the homes have:  Triple glazed windows for maximum solar gain, super insulation and high levels of airtightness  A mechanical ventilation and heat recovery unit drawing moist warm air from the kitchens and bathrooms, passing it through a heat exchanger which warms fresh air from outside  Hot water entirely from renewable energy sources via roof mounted solar thermal panels and small log burning stoves using local timber from the estate

Case 17: Hanham Hall

Hanham hall in South Gloucestershire, 7km outside the city centre of Bristol is a new housing development constructed on the site of an old hospital. The development consists of 186 units ranging from one bedroom apartments to five-bedroom family homes. All of the homes are constructed to meet the proposed 2016 zero-carbon standards regarding energy efficiency.

“Attempts to redevelop the Hall and surrounding site for residential purposes were made from the mid 1990s until it was included as part of the Carbon Challenge competition in 2007, with Barratt Bristol selected as the preferred development partner in December of that year. The application for the site was submitted in December 2008 and approval was gained in November 2009” (Barratt 2018)

The project is described as “the flagship Carbon Challenge schemes promoted by the Homes and Communities Agency and, England’s first large-scale housing scheme to achieve the 2016 zero-carbon standard” (Barratt 2018).

Maximizing its use of the former hospital site, beyond that of residential buildings, the project also constructed a series of green spaces consisting of cycle paths, walking routes, ponds and parkland as well as plans for a community hall, restaurant and nursery, to be located within the old hospital building itself.

Designed by landscape architecture firm HTA, the project layout focuses on both views of the local area and on maximising light. Living areas in the homes open up onto balconies and verandas that are orientated towards communal areas in order to establish links between public and private space.

HTA state that they:

“…have worked closely from the very start of the design process on a structured engagement programme with vast range of parties including our Client and design team partners, the Parish Council, the Homes and Communities Agency, English Heritage, South Gloucestershire council, the Green Belt Society, local residents, and the supply chain.” (HTA 2018).

While the project is not a recognised group/custom build approach, with the homes and the wider layout of the setting designed and developed privately, the project had embodied some of the other aspects of collectivism that we saw in some of the earlier cases. For example it prioritises walking and cycling by directing vehicular traffic away from public access areas into discrete locations on the site. Perhaps the most innovative community aspect however is the fact than Hanham Hall is to be run by its residents through a Community Interest Company that will manage the buildings and the grounds. The idea is that the company seeks to empower residents to live more sustainable lifestyles than would otherwise be the case by endowing them with a greater sense of responsibility over their local area.

Annex F - Case Study Typology 6

Case 20: Spreefeld Genossenschaft, Berlin, Germany

Reflecting the more mature self and custom build culture in Germany, grouped approaches to housing delivery are particularly common in Berlin, with over 100 such projects completed in the last couple

of decades. The Spreefeld Genossenschaft project is, according to the right to build toolkit website, “one of the largest and most innovative” of its kind (NaCSBA 2018).

Similar to some of the examples we saw in the UK earlier, the project was initially born out of resistance to a planned development. In this case however, it was not a speculative housing development project that had been proposed, but rather new office buildings which would absorb a considerable amount of what was previously public space alongside the city’s waterfront. Another key difference compared to some of the UK cases, is the fact that the project’s success was not dependent on opportunist political will (at least on the local level) but was able, due to the integrated nature of the building supply chain, to purchase the land at face value in direct competition with the proposed office complex. The members formed a housing cooperative organisation in order to create plans for the new development and bid for the land. Having been granted planning permission for the project, the land was purchased for 340 euros per sq. m.

Completed in 2014, the housing comprises three seven story blocks of apartments totalling 65 private homes, all of which are constructed to Passivhaus standard. In total 10,000 sq.m of space is contained in the development, a little over half of which is residential accommodation, with the rest made up of communal and commercial spaces including guest apartments, fitness rooms, a salon, and business units used by the residents.

The building shells were provided by a contracted developer and the interiors finished off by the individual residents of the home. According to the right to build toolkit’s case study of the project, the 2,100 euro per sq. m cost of the apartments is three times less than a similarly sized block of flats nearby. They state that: “the group kept its construction costs down by opting for:”

 A modular building design and a simple concrete frame construction across all three blocks

 A kit of standard fixtures and fittings – windows, balconies, doors etc

 Residents fitting out their own flats

 An efficient renewable energy system across the whole site

 Economy of space: there are few elevators; or wasted spaces

Key to rationalising this project was the fact that not only could costs be brought down due to the scale at which the building resources were acquired and integrated as part of the construction process, but in actual fact a greater degree of diversity and individualism in the private dwellings could be obtained as a result. Cheaper, more desirable individual homes could be constructed simply by pursuing a grouped approach to their delivery. With the project seeking to house a variety of people on various incomes, the wealthier coop members contributed 50% of their homes upfront while others took out mortgages to secure 50% equity. All of the residents then pay the other 50% of the cost in rent.

Right to build toolkit:

“The individual blocks were designed by three different architects working with the three separate groups of residents, with a fourth architect acting as masterplanner and ‘design controller’. While the overall development looks broadly similar each block has its own distinctive features. For example one has double height spaces, another has very large

balconies.” “The site cost the group €2.5m in 2011 (£1.8m), and the total construction cost for the three blocks worked out at €14.2m (£10m). This includes the communal spaces at ground level and the various workshops and offices that have been rented out. Once the co- op members rents have paid off the loan they took out to cover the construction costs this income will be used to help similar developments get off the ground.”

Case 21: Isabellaland, Den Haag, The Netherlands

The Hague, located on the coast of the Netherlands has long been active in promoting self and custom build approaches to housing delivery by providing the frameworks required for delivery. The project at ‘Isabellaland’, is indicative of this mandate (NaCSBA 2018). As with the case in Almere the project is orientated around the provision of individual plots which private homebuilders can purchase and then, following local guidelines, construct their own home, either by themselves, or in collaboration with an architecture firm. In total 100 units on 63 plots of land have been designated at Isabellaland, on the outskirts of Den Haag. Denoted as a form of urban ‘infill’, the project is of interest here for a couple of reasons. Firstly because of its aspirations to deliver a particularly ‘green’ housing project by encouraging residents to embrace certain approaches to home-building and legislating that homes must have ‘green roofs’, the obtaining of which could be supported by municipal subsidies where required. Secondly, this agenda is driven even further through an encouragement for residents not to approach the building of their home in an isolated manner, but to collaborate and cooperate with one another as part of building groups. The fact that Isabellaland represents an urban development project, located in an area already bounded by residential apartment buildings, ensures that the sorts of homes that would be constructed would already need to be both dense and integrated in certain ways, meaning the step to approaching their delivery in an equally integrated manner (despite being individual private homes) was a small one.

Right to build toolkit:

“Where private homebuilders are interested in saving costs, they are encouraged to join together and form a bouwgroep (‘building group’ or ‘assembly’) with other plot purchasers. This could be for the full design and construction of homes, but also just for sourcing materials or putting in the foundations (which are often piled using specific machinery that it makes sense to share). The municipality encourages and facilitates collaboration – even supporting informal knowledge exchange by hosting occasional drinks evenings at the city hall. The municipalities overall experience across all its sites is that 75 per cent of private homebuilders choose to cooperate with others in some way. At Isabellaland, one group of individual plot purchasers has clubbed together on an entire row, and is having its homes designed by a single architect, while others have conducted some tasks – such as material sourcing – in pairs or smaller groups. In total, 24 of the 63 plot purchasers have collaborated in some way, in four separate groups.”

What this example demonstrates is the value of balancing different means of achieving sustainability by using both policy and legislative tools, and also softer forms of persuasion to allow homebuyers to see the benefits of collaborating with fellow homebuilders. It also demonstrates that it is possible to vary the degree to which this collaboration takes place, not just between different projects and sites, but within the same development. While some home builders may wish to keep to themselves, being

exposed to others who are involved in more collaborative, sustainable projects, is likely to have a positive impact across the board. Facilitating a diverse set of paths to home procurement is crucial to the provision of housing stock not just at Isabellaland, or even The Hague, but across the Netherlands.

Case 22: Quartier Vauban, Freiburg, Germany

Quartier Vauban is, in many ways, an urban extension of the city of Freiburg, located in Germany’s far South-Western state of Baden-Wuttemburg. Located on the site of a former military base, its emergence as a new build development is strikingly different to the similarly located project we saw earlier at Graven Hill in the UK. While Graven Hill was developed as a master plan which would then be sold to individual custom build properties, Vauban was master planned as a “sustainable model district”, seeking to integrate construction as much as possible from the outset in order to fully embed the principles it sought to embrace.

Given the size of Vauban, a variety of different low energy consumption techniques were used across the different buildings in the development. 100 of the units are built to full Passivhaus standard while others are networked to a wood chip burning mini power station, and others rely upon solar panels for their energy. One particular area of note is the ‘Solar Settlement’ in the Schlierberg part of Vauban where, between 2000 and 2005, after the original development had been completed, an additional plot of 59 homes were constructed to ultra-sustainable standards by completely covering the roofs with solar panels. This is recognised as the first housing community in the world to have a positive energy balance which could be sold back to the grid for a profit of 4000 euros a year for each homeowner. The concept known as PlusEnergy, is described by its founder Rolf Disch as the superior standard of sustainability to Passivhaus.

The potential to offer such a high-spec energy saving home was facilitated considerably by its locating in the wider Vauban development where other sustainability measures are already in place to encourage a particular community ethos to emerge. For example 70% of the households in Vauban live without a private car. The emphasis on walking and cycling in the district has inevitably led to the ability to locate commercial opportunities in close proximity to residential homes, galvanising the local economy (Budsock 2014).

Despite its unique history and opportunistic beginning on the former military base, Vauban’s success can also be put down to the influence of Baugrappen housing groups and the weight they carry in political spheres with regards to housing delivery, particularly in urban locations. Having decided to pursue an eco-friendly development on the site, the Freiburg city council sold the majority of the plots of land at Vauban to these housing cooperatives. According to Brown et al. (2013), a cocktail of available public land, an attuned political audience, and a strong environmental building industry all fell into place to facilitate this unprecedented project of considerable size – Vauban currently has around 6,000 residents. The delivery of the development itself was also facilitated by partnerships between the local authorities and local developers along with their supply chains.