Revolting Suburbs - Peabody Trust Housing Association - Brief Article

Architectural Review, The, June, 2001 by Catherine Slessor

This prototypical scheme in south London combines high density with ecological awareness in an attempt to suggest new models for suburban development.

In the UK, the scope for formal and ecological innovation in mass housing is limited, compared with, say, advances in Germany and Scandinavia. Notions of sustainability rarely figure as a development priority, but it is clear that sprawling, low density suburban housing is consuming far too much land and energy. Alternative models are desperately needed, but this will require a considerable shift in political policies and architectural priorities, underscored by a determination to convince a sceptical public, contentedly wallowing in its car-dependent suburban culture, of the viability of such new approaches.

Currently rising phoenix-like out of the ground on the site of a former sewage treatment plant in Sutton, to the south-west of London, is a scheme that could act as prototype for a new kind of ecologically sustainable suburb. Developed under the auspices of the Peabody Trust Housing Association and BioRegional, an environmental charity, the project is an ambitious attempt to create a high density, fully sustainable work/living complex that reinterprets the archetype of the urban terrace. Designed by Bill Dunster Architects, the basic building module is a three-storey townhouse, capable of being occupied as a single house or subdivided into flats and maisonettes. Although they occupy the least possible acreage (density is 50 dwellings per hectare), terraces have balconies, roof gardens and conventional back gardens. Dwellings will be for both sale and rent (a third will be set aside for low rent social housing) and the project includes small workshops and studios with communal facilities such as cafe, nursery and health centre.

The project is a wider application of ideas developed by Dunster in the design of his own house in nearby East Molesey. Environmental control strategy is based on a combination of compact planning, high thermal mass, use of photovoltaic panels to generate energy, and a wind driven heat recovery system. Part of the site is earmarked for coppiced willow production to fuel the heat and power needs of the development above those met by passive solar measures. All materials will be sourced within a three mile radius of the site, and will as far as possible, be recycled, minimizing environmental and embodied energy costs. Houses on the estate are estimated to expend 90 per cent less energy than an average UK family home, emissions of carbon-laced exhaust gases will be negligible.

Despite (or perhaps because of) its prototypical nature, there has been an enthusiastic take-up of dwellings. The Peabody Trust is to be commended for its enlightened approach (see also AR Nov 1999) as is Dunster for having the evangelical doggedness to see the enterprise through.

Architect

Bill Dunster Architects, East Mofesey