Housing in suburban areas is rarely successful in English towns. Detached and semi-detached houses are built on small plots in what rapidly becomes a car-dominated environment.  The outcome is neither urban nor bucolic.

Our scheme in Hemel Hempstead for Hightown Praetorian and Churches Housing Association for 56 flats revisits eight plots in a 1950s suburb adjacent to the old town, at a time when both social landowners and the private sector are seeking to redevelop land at much higher densities than previously permissible. Here we achieve a density of 144 habitable rooms per hectare but the new residents will not have to forgo a quality of life in exchange for this high density. Instead the construction of an underground car park in a sense returns the land to its original undeveloped state. Our scheme seeks to balance building footprint, parking and amenity.

Four pairs of semi-detached houses have been exchanged for four detached pavilions arranged in a chequerboard pattern. Contrary to common practice which seeks to define place with tightly defined streets, here, place is derived from the land itself, both from the topography and from the trees. Although from a distance the disposition of pavilions suggests this is open land their arrangement creates forecourts and rear courtyard gardens marking out clear defensible space.