The Way Forward

RSHP is celebrated for its innovative office buildings. One of the latest is 300 New Jersey Avenue, in Washington, D.C., for the JBG Companies. But the project that grabbed my attention is in a much humbler category of building, one that leading international architects tend to ignore. Oxley Woods, in Milton Keynes, for the developer George Wimpey, is RSHP’s first venture into mass-market housing. “There’s been more interest in this project than in any other project the office has ever done,” says Harbour, who was the lead architect. “Everywhere from Russia, Saudi Arabia, America—you name it.”

The challenge set in 2005 by the British government’s Design for Manufacture competition was to design high-quality, affordable homes that could be built for a construction cost of just £60,000 (now around $95,000). “When our bid got selected,” Harbour says, “I remember saying, ‘I know that this doesn’t seem great, but this is actually one of the most important projects in the office.’ Simply because, if we can make just the smallest change in the thinking about mass-market housing, that’s going to have a huge influence. We’re at the crux of whether we can make that change. Certainly, the housing associations have shown a lot of interest.”

Milton Keynes is 51 miles northwest of London, and Oxley Woods is located about two miles from the new town’s center. My first view of the estate, which will eventually consist of 145 two- and three-story houses, was as extraordinary as the photographs led me to expect. The houses look like nothing else in the U.K. They’re boxlike, angular, and smooth-sided: sleek, habitable machines with inverted red caps bolted to their roofs. (These “EcoHats” contain a low-voltage fan for circulating air.) The external walls are covered with 70 percent softwood panels, from renewable forests, in a range of colors: white, silver and anthracite gray, and mahogany red.

The first homes were ready in 2007, but some of the houses on the seven-acre-plus site are still under construction. I watched groups of workers hoist into place prefabricated timber wall sections, while others used cherry pickers to position the panels on the frames. It’s the same quick-assembly model used in precision-cut flat-pack furniture. No scaffolding is needed. It takes just two days to put up a waterproof shell, then a few weeks for the trades to do their finishing, one task at a time, to avoid the damage that can occur when carpenters, plumbers, and electricians work on a house simultaneously.

It was baking hot, and I wandered along the access roads, dazzled by the light bouncing off the houses. On a drab day these reflective surfaces—you can wipe them clean—would brighten the street. There is a traditional housing estate a few hundred yards away with cottagelike brick houses, tiled roofs, and small windows. The interiors probably require a lot of lighting. Oxley Woods houses have large windows and corner windows that increase security by allowing occupants to see visitors at their front doors and keep an eye on the neighborhood. (I felt like an interloper myself.) There are no attics under the angled roofs, and the top-floor rooms benefit from the entire volume, though some buyers have raised storage as an issue. Other than that, feedback from buyers, who range from first-time homeowners to retired physicians, has been positive. Carbon emissions are generally lower than those of a conventional house of the same size. The homes display the way they are built rather than trying to conceal it, and Harbour says that many buyers chose them because they like the design.

“The mood of the country has gone beyond enjoying a pastiche of the past,” Harbour says. “People are more sophisticated now. With globalization, they’re more aware of what’s going on around the world, and they realize that not everyone lives in this dolls’-house view of heritage England.” This sounds like a not-so-oblique reference to Prince Charles, who has built a nostalgic, neo-Georgian model village, Poundbury, which now has 1,500 residents, on his Duchy of Cornwall estate in Dorset.

Harbour’s one reservation concerns the Oxley Woods site plan, which was predetermined by English Partnerships, the U.K. government’s national development agency. “This shouldn’t be seen, certainly from our side, as something we would condone as a way of planning housing.” He thinks the public spaces could be tighter and more considered, and no doubt they could. However, the variety of types (there are ten configurations) helps to differentiate these standardized homes. A more uniform arrangement would be even more economical, but it would have less appeal to buyers. Rogers has repeatedly argued for high-density living in cities—more than 120 homes per hectare, or 2.5 acres. In Oxley Woods, the density is around 45 dwellings per hectare, which is hardly excessive. This isn’t a city, and there is plenty of space in Milton Keynes, so why shouldn’t people enjoy it?

My only criticism, now that the houses are occupied, is that their futuristic style makes conventional timber fences, gates, and garden sheds look incongruous and unsightly. (Harbour notes that even the cars parked outside seem old-fashioned.) These backyard necessities require a better integrated design language, but that is more restrictive than even the most aesthetically aware owner is likely to accept. A few residents have even put up net curtains. Ultra-modernity is a demanding visual code to live up to.

Nevertheless, Oxley Woods offers a rational, low-cost, environmentally sensitive approach to building mass-market houses that has important lessons not just for Britain but around the world. RSHP’s willingness to think so progressively makes nonsense of the reactionary criticisms Rogers has faced in recent months. Oxley Woods is driven by the same conviction that has informed his work from the start: the quality of the built environment is fundamental to realizing the goal of social inclusion. “By working closely together, we have been able to develop an approach which links construction closely to design, giving real value to the home owner,” he explained in a 2007 press release. “The scheme at Oxley Woods is highly flexible and sustainable and will, we hope, provide homes for a diverse community for many generations to come.”

Recognizing long ago that these ideals can only be realized at the city and national levels by winning over politicians, Rogers has devoted great energy to building these partnerships. “I was told by a senior civil servant, ‘If you ever want to be taken seriously in politics, you must never use the word beauty.’ Afterwards, I used it everywhere,” he laughs. “It’s a critical part of our culture.” In 1998 John Prescott, then the deputy prime minister, appointed Rogers chair of the government’s urban task force. He also enjoyed a warm relationship with Ken Livingstone, London’s controversial Labour mayor from 2000 to 2008, working for him as chief adviser on architecture and urbanism.

“Ken said, ‘You’ve done the theory. What about delivering it?’” Rogers relishes the company of politicians “who don’t quite fit into their box” and insist on doing things their own way. Despite the political shift from left to right, the eccentric new Conservative mayor, Boris Johnson, seemed to be another in the same mold. Johnson retained Rogers as a design adviser, though in a much reduced role, and appointed him to a second panel earlier this year. Rogers was too well seasoned an operator to say anything ungenerous about his new boss when we met. In September, though, Rogers announced his resignation from both panels because they didn’t give him “sufficient scope to use his expertise,” according to the mayor’s spokesman.

It was another setback in a tough year for Rogers. Like other firms, RSHP has been buffeted by the global downturn. Some projects have been canceled, while others, such as the Leadenhall building in London, are now on hold. RSHP laid off 35 employees in March, causing Rogers and his partners real pain. Shortly before cheerily whisking away to another meeting, Rogers mentioned Roosevelt’s New Deal. Obama has it right in his view: seize the moment to invest in housing, transportation, public-works programs, public spaces, and public art. “The big thing is to do the good things, because you’ve got such a mess going on,” Rogers says. “Let’s deliver the physical things and the social things. Now’s the time.”