Custom-build homes today

This is Beechwood Village, a neighbourhood of 250 custom-built homes and part of a wider masterplan regenerating the Craylands Estate, in Basildon.

According to RIBA the PTE-designed development is “notable not only for its striking aesthetics, but for its high density and modular off-site construction technology”. The co-design framework underpinning its popular appeal, however, is the project’s most significant innovation. Residents used an online configurator to select their plot, house type, the number of bedrooms and pick external finishes such as brick type and even amend their plan.

RIBA’s South Essex chapter are touring Beechwood today with PTE partner Justin Laskin, who worked on the scheme from the start: “We were inspired by the phenomenon of personal expression in suburban housing – it’s pretty typical in the Basildon area. We wanted to make this easier for residents to do while also giving the local authority confidence that variety would create a "positive, rather than chaotic, neighbourhood character.”

And while the menu of custom-build options can generate millions of configurations one now settled in resident told us it was really easy to use. “It made changing between the different options and rooms very straightforward,” she said. “The 3D view and the zoom brought the house to life and we could really visualise how our new home will look as it was very detailed. That really made the difference for us, that we could visualise it. Buying off plan can be a bit daunting in that you don’t really know how the finished product will look.”

Sadly, Swan’s modular factory, where much of Beechwood was manufactured, was recently closed (the offsite sector is struggling to get a toehold in the UK housing sector) but, if our resident feedback is anything to go by, customisation has a key role to play shaping the future of British housing.

Landscape architect: Outerspace