OUT WITH THE NEW, IN WITH THE OLD
Modern new-build housing is often depressingly banal, but it doesn’t have to be this way, discovers Richard Bath
Did you know that the quintessential Highland castle, Eilean Donan, one of the country’s most visited attractions, was built immediately after the First World War? There has been a castle on the island since the 1200s, but the castle as we know it was built by Lt Col John MacRae-Gilstrap, a British army officer who bought the island and its ruined castle in 1919 and constructed a castle based on what he thought would (or should) have been there. He also built the iconic arched bridge, the first time the island had ever been connected to the mainland.
Today, such an approach would be dismissed as ‘pastiche’ if it were allowed at all, which it would not. Similar attempts to rebuild ruined historic buildings – Castle Tioram in Lochaber is the highest-profile example – have been stymied. We would rather see many of our historic old buildings fall into disrepair than repair them to live in.
Pastiche – which the dictionary defines as ‘architectural work that imitates the style of previous work’ – is anathema to conservationists, while an aversion to it has also underpinned the approach of planning departments since the second world war. But an antipathy to the old has given
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Such an approach would be dismissed as ‘pastiche’ if it were allowed at all
us a muddled approach where every self-builder is a Grand Designs wannabe, and every building development of any scale is made up of lowest common denominator cookie cutter buildings that would sit as well in Benidorm or Baltimore as they would in Bearsden or Balerno.
That, at least, is the view of architect Ed Taylor, who is part of a movement seeking to reassess how, where and why we build houses. Rather than seeking a break with the past, he is part of a movement that wants to integrate past and present to create homes that people actively want to live in.
‘Architects are trained to see every building as a chance to do something new, and have little opportunity to contribute to the conservative volume housebuilding market,’ he says. ‘The housebuilder’s job is to drive down costs, especially where they are competing against each other on price alone to buy the land in the first place. Design quality is often the first casualty.
‘But it doesn’t have to be this way, there are alternatives. House builders have been operating in a sellers’ market, but all the evidence is that the public want houses of classic beauty and charm, and are prepared to pay a premium for such houses.’
Taylor’s main point is that there is a disconnect between what is permitted to be built and what existing communities and house buyers actually want (a large proportion of whom will not buy new houses). With planners effectively refusing to dictate to largescale house builders, we end up with houses built almost entirely on the basis of cost, with little thought for the greater social good.
‘Outside of cities, you have estates being built in small towns which can double them in size,’ he says. ‘Developers like to build in beautiful historic towns and villages such as North Berwick, Gullane, Kilmacolm or Roslin, where there are already amenities like schools, or shops. But the houses they build rarely add to the beauty and amenity of the existing place. There’s a danger they can erode the very qualities that make such towns so desirable in the first instance.’
There are alternatives, says Taylor. Just as planned settlements like Inveraray were built two hundred and fifty years ago, several new villages have been built along similar lines. Tornagrain, Scotland’s answer to Prince Charles’ successful Poundbury project, is a new town between Inverness and Nairn which is made up of traditionally designed houses, while also incorporating a mix of uses and employment. Ditto Chapelton near Aberdeen.
Individual houses and buildings can be built that have all the advantages of modern houses, such as the energy efficiency, but also the character and
architectural integrity of traditional buildings. The garden cottage at Prince Charles’ Dumfries House and the church currently under construction at Ben Alder estate near Dalwhinnie encapsulate this approach perfectly.
On behalf of Wemyss and March Estates, Taylor is championing a development of 450 homes being built in conjunction with Cruden Homes and ZeroC in the East Lothian vernacular (defined as ‘picturesque, characterful, with high ceiling heights and a regard for symmetry’). Located in Longniddry, east of Edinburgh, it is laid out around a late 18th-century steading that is being converted to accommodate a variety of shops, offices and amenities. Served by a train to Waverley, it should create little additional commuting traffic, and includes significant, dignified social housing. It has been designed as a community which enhances Longniddry rather than harming the character that currently makes it a desirable place to live.
Those aspects are equally important in cities, where developments have often been of a particularly poor quality. Importantly, they have also lacked the density of previous buildings, which along with a growth in demand has pushed the city sprawl outwards. Taylor believes this is a mistake.
‘If you look at the original buildings of Edinburgh’s New Town or Glasgow’s West End, you have enormous buildings of classic proportions which provide wonderful and desirable places in which to live, but which achieve a far greater density of population than most current developments,’ he said.
‘Using devices such as parks and showcasing urban natural features like the Water of Leith or the River Kelvin, the original Georgian developments managed to accommodate far more people in much less space. So you got people able to commute on foot, more sustainable communities, terraced housing which requires far less energy per person, and the local council gets more council tax revenue.’
The problem with building such houses today is, of course, one of cost, which means developers are understandably less keen. But according to estate agent Robert McCulloch of Strutt and Parker, there is such demand for developments in the local vernacular style – such as Fettes Row in Edinburgh’s New Town, which was recently rebuilt in the traditional style as a sweeping terrace – that they invariably sell quickly and attract a premium. ‘Buyers love the classic aesthetic, but many also want a house designed for modern living,’ he says. ‘It’s quite rare that such homes come up for sale, so when they do, they are consistently popular with buyers, who are usually willing to pay a premium to acquire them.’
Left to their own devices, however, builders will revert to type and construct modern buildings which are completely out of character with the area. Further along Fettes Row, the plans for the old RBS building envisage a concrete lubyanka of 435 flats that are in complete contrast to the New Town in which they sit. Because of their situation they will sell, but they are hardly in keeping with their surroundings.
With some massive new developments planned around Scotland, including a £1.3bn new waterfront town in the Edinburgh district of Granton, it is surely time to prioritise aesthetic sensibilities when building homes across Scotland, particularly in historic areas such as Edinburgh, a UNESCO world heritage site. Whilst there are encouraging words in Scotland’s new National Planning Framework, Taylor believes that the skills and resources of local authorities to be able to get on the front foot and work effectively with landowners and developers are often lacking.
‘Serious steps are being taken in countries such as the Netherlands to try and improve the aesthetic quality and legacy of new housing stock, and to make the system easier for developers who take their wider social responsibilities seriously,’ he says. ‘Everyone has a role to play in improving quality – the planners, the housebuilders, the landowners, the designers – even the house buyers. It’s time to demand better.’
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It is surely time to inject more aesthetic sensibilities into house building