Overview: Why we have to stop building the same little boxes

A damning report last week about the quality of our new homes is hardly uplifting news coming, as it did, in the week the Government announced its latest building programme for the South-East.

A damning report last week about the quality of our new homes is hardly uplifting news coming, as it did, in the week the Government announced its latest building programme for the South-East. The conclusion of Cabe (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) that 83 per cent of housing developments were either average or poor, leaving only 17 per cent as good or very good, paints a rather gloomy picture. But, before we retreat to our solid period semis, it is worth looking on the bright side.

First of all, it is Cabe's job to rattle the cages of everyone involved in development. Since its role is to encourage good design, it is hardly going to take a complacent view of what is currently on offer. Even so, through the Cabe awards scheme, it does give generous plaudits where it feels they are deserved. Second, we only have to look back a few housebuilding years to recognise that just having a public body commenting on design is good news.

And design is at the forefront of everyone's mind in a way it never used to be. Yolande Barnes, a director of research at FPDSavills, believes it has never had a higher profile.

It may have been forced on developers by the price of land and government directives on density levels, but it all adds up to more innovative designs. The "cookie cutter" approach of yesteryear can't be fitted into tricky brownfield sites and, for this reason, explains Barnes, we should take on board that it is more financially risky for housebuilders.

"They are also subject to a plethora of regulations, in some cases contradictory," she says. "Certain kinds of developments from the USA favoured by the ODPM (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) would not be allowed by traffic engineers." She points out other contradictions, such as keeping noise levels down while using untried modern methods of construction. It comes down to a "hell of a lot of change coming together at once".

A danger she foresees is that the needs of families for mid-market urban houses are being overlooked as the focus on urban regeneration and high density (and for that read apartments) developments intensifies.

In this respect, Cabe need not worry that buyers are not discerning enough. The values of good-quality houses with space and gardens in good locations have soared, and that should be evidence enough, believes Yolande Barnes.

At Crest Nicholson, whose recent schemes should place them among Cabe's top 17 per cent, the managing director Stephen Stone is keen on the idea of intermediate density. "We need houses as well as flats and the challenge will be to get the density the Government wants while providing the kind of community that people want to live in."

Surveys of their buyers should be encouraging to Cabe, who are keen to foster a sense of place. Crest Nicholson found that although purchasers were prepared to compromise on gardens and car parking space, they would not accept any "trashing" of the design of the development as a whole.

Stone, himself an architect, sees the public as far more design-savvy than perhaps they are given credit for. They want flexible ground-floor layouts, for instance, which are a feature of the sustainable development.

As for the developers, he lines up pretty much with Cabe in believing that there is still a great deal of room for improvement.

He describes it as a "two-speed" movement. Some recognised five years ago that changes had to be made, while others are just waking up to it.