Drop the architectural hippy dreams - people want homes with a garden

Yes this is our garden

Earlier this year, in the teeth of the pandemic, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors polled its members – pretty much all of the UK’s real estate agents – on likely trends post-coronavirus:

More than four-fifths (81%) of those surveyed across the UK believe there will be an increased desire for properties with gardens or balconies.

Nearly three-quarters (74%) predict an increase in demand for homes near green spaces, such as parks, and just over two-thirds (68%) think properties with more private space and fewer communal areas will be more desirable.

At the other end of the spectrum, 78% think there will be a fall in the appeal of tower blocks and 58% believe properties in urban areas which are very built up will be less appealing.

A clear finding and one that conversations with estate agents will confirm – well-priced, semi-detached properties with gardens are selling like hot cakes. In London a new term, “upsizing” has arrived as buyers look to buy bigger properties even if that means a less exclusive (more suburban) location. It’s obvious to almost anyone thinking about the fall-out from Covid-19 that, for real estate, the pressure will be on delivering more space. Working from home doesn’t just mean having a home office, it also means more time with family around, and this places a premium on that space.

We know that, even before the pandemic, people’s housing preference was for homes with gardens (not everybody, of course, but the majority – over 80% in that New Zealand survey). It should, therefore, come as no surprise to find that the whizzo architects given prizes to “…make the next generation of housing estates greener, healthier, better for elderly people and quicker to build…” have decided that gardens are a terrible idea:

Patrick Usborne, the director of Perpendicular, which oversaw another winning entry using wood panels made from British-only timber, said: “There’s an English perception that owning your castle needs its own land. But if we are to improve community cohesion we need to remove the ubiquitous rear garden and bring together external spaces for the community.”

The proposals contain all sorts of wonderful, gimmicky ideas for shared space that simply don’t reflect the reality of sharing, even in comfortable suburbia. I remember my Russian teacher describing the reality of her ‘sharing’ upbringing with personal things chained to walls and fences to prevent others simply walking off with them. The experience of the communal spaces on 1960s and 1970s council estates wasn’t great – a mixture of ‘No Ball Games’ signs and the appropriation of space by intimidating groups. And, for every communal space that works well (as residents in Spanish complexes will tell you) there’s another one plagued by dispute, debt, and poor upkeep.

The desire to reimagine the suburban, mass-produced home isn’t anything new – I saw a presentation on this by Red or Dead designer, Wayne Hemingway (in a fancy place on the front at Cannes, obviously) nearly 20 years ago. Those three- and four-bedroom detached homes squeezed onto small plots – for American readers, where you get four homes to an acre, we get at least 15 and often 20 – remain the core housing product because they are popular. Only rich people buy architectural gimmick, the rest of folk buy the right amount of space – and this includes a garden.

Usually that garden is a square patch of grass and paving – big enough to sit out in when the sun shines, to fire up the barbecue, to put in a paddling pool or trampoline for the kids, and maybe a fancy shed. For some this becomes a pride and joy planted with flowers and shrubs while, for others, it’s just an outside room, somewhere to thrash about in with more abandon that you’d tolerate in the living room.

The communal spaces proposed by the latest batch of anti-suburb architects will not meet these needs. Regardless of how laissez-faire the initial thinking seems, any communal space will come with a set of rules (remember those ‘No Ball Games’ signs) varying from the times you can use them – the prize-winning architect with a proposal for a bookable garden is having a laugh – through to the activities permissible while you’re using them. If the shared spaced is co-owned, there’s a company to manage, agents to appoint, maintenance contracts to issue and rents or charges to collect.

I’m all in favour of places being greener, healthier, and better for older people but this can be achieved without getting rid of private outside space, with dumping the garden. But there’s little hope from these architects – here’s Chris Brown from Igloo:

“After Covid-19, people will want their towns and cities back, to make beautiful places where home schooling and working from home is designed in – not an afterthought – and where the climate, nature and community are prioritised over profit.”

I know hippies make up a big chunk of the boomer generation but somehow, I doubt we’ll want to live in some rich person’s make-believe little commune even one designed by super-cool architects. And, you know, rich fund managers like Chris Brown won’t be living there either. Nor will anyone be building anything if there's no profit to be made (as I'm sure Aviva, who fund Igloo will explain if Chris needs help).

Homes need outside space – a balcony, a terrace, a veranda, a garden. Shared space is great, but it does not substitute for private space. This latest little indulgence of trendy urban design will, like all those before it, fall before the good sense of developers who will want to impress their potential buyers a long time before they’ll bother with ethical investors and architects with silly, unrealistic ideas about communal living.

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