Why traditional urban design is often the braver solution

Why traditional urban design is often the braver solution

Traditional architecture, particularly in the context of urban design, has often attracted accusations of “pastiche”. Here ADAM Architecture traces the history of the design debate and the pejorative associations with that word. Our concept of a living tradition, where traditional design principles reflect the character of the surrounding area and walkable neighbourhoods promote sustainable lifestyles in beautiful, vibrant new settlements, demonstrates an approach to urban design which is surprisingly radical.

ADAM Architecture has long been known for employing a consistent approach to new housing developments by means of design codes. The codes are vision-centred, place-specific, simple, objective, binding, offer a variable level of control and promote the permanence of buildings. Above all, they embrace and celebrate the concept of a living tradition, whereby traditional design principles adapt themselves in response to the needs of each generation, walkable neighbourhoods prioritise pedestrians and cyclists over cars, and the vocabulary of the architecture and public realm respect the scale, materials, proportions and character of the surrounding area.

We have shown evidence of the success of design codes in previous phases of work for the Duchy of Cornwall estate at Poundbury, an extension to Dorchester and, more recently, at Nansledan, an extension to Newquay, where the principles continue to be supported wholeheartedly by the current Duke, by the local community and by the UK government, which regularly cites it as a national exemplar of traditional architecture, town planning and sustainable living.

Bringing back beauty

The use of design codes more generally has sprung from a strong desire to bring beauty and better design quality back into the heart of planning policy. Roger Scruton’s 2018 report with Jack Airey, Building More, Building Beautiful included conclusive polling evidence that most of the public, from every age, income bracket and ethnicity, prefers traditional design and believes that newly built homes and properties should be sympathetic to their surroundings. This led to the government launching the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission, with the commission’s eventual report, Living with Beauty, arguing for the public’s preferences to be considered and respected, and for individual communities to have a say in the aesthetics of new development.

The design codes which ADAM produces prescribe controls beyond the scope of normal planning policies or existing statutory regulation such as the National Model Design Code (NMDC) and the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which now promote the importance of local distinctiveness and the importance of placemaking. While ADAM Architecture has pioneered the use of non-stylistic design coding, we also produce detailed pattern books. These focus on local identity and visual assessment, describing urban form and character in terms of the architectural language, materials and local planting palettes most often seen.

Sustainable benefits

With a widespread and growing concern regarding sustainable development and lifestyles has come a reawakening of interest in, and an appreciation of, the benefits of traditional design, using passive environmental control within buildings in place of air conditioning, and the use of local materials, contractors and craftspeople, from bricklayers and carpenters to plumbers and electricians. This approach integrates environmental sustainability with economic and social sustainability.

The misuse and misunderstanding of “pastiche”

Yet, despite these well-researched ambitions and evidence of the widespread economic and popular success of traditional developments, critics, on occasion, still repeat the accusation of “pastiche” at traditional design. It is a term frequently misunderstood in the architectural context and usually used as a pejorative, most famously in the early years of the development at Poundbury. The argument runs that traditional architecture today is often a hollow copy of historical styles, despite the fact that most architecture borrows proportions and geometries from the past. Architect Giles Heather in his article on pastiche in Building Design magazine, 4 July 2022, argued that the word “needs to be reclaimed and understood anew in recognition of the fact that precedent and tradition are at the heart of most good contemporary architecture…”

Defenders of structural honesty as a historical rule who believe that pastiche buildings use stone or plaster facades to deceive the eye and cover up cheaper, less attractive construction beneath, forget that many buildings of the past - from the Colosseum to gothic cathedrals - used exactly this practice. The technique was, and is, used for means of economy and a respect for the surrounding buildings, not deception.

Tradition and creativity can coexist

Finally, critics of traditional architecture have questioned its ability to be creative and progressive, ignoring the fact that the work of some of England’s best and most revered architects, such as Sir Edwin Lutyens, have been both creative and traditional. The two are not mutually exclusive. Similarly, architects have long been happy to blend their work with existing styles, as evidenced by Nicholas Hawksmoor, one of the most inventive architects of any period, at Westminster Abbey.

The argument that traditional architecture is not original overstates the importance of stylistic originality, as pointed out by Samuel Hughes, a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and at the Centre for Policy Studies in his piece “In praise of pastiche” in Works in Progress magazine, 19 October 2020. The majority of buildings of any period are not stylistically original; “take Georgian terraces, many rural building styles of the mediterranean and the middle east hardly changed between antiquity and the 20th century… Nor is it only vernacular architecture that often lacks stylistic originality: some great architects, like Kent and Chambers, were original at most only in the way they used a received style, not in the way they transformed it. Stylistic originality is an optional virtue possessed by a small minority of good buildings, not a condition of architectural legitimacy. It may be that contemporary traditionalists tend towards stylistic conservatism, but that is no more an argument against them than it is against the Tuscan farmhouse.”

Government guidance on pastiche

So vitriolic had the argument against traditional design become in the 1990s and early 2000s that the then Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE, which merged with the Design Council in 2011) was compelled to provide guidance on pastiche in architecture, which they had until then dismissed out of hand as something to be avoided. They agreed that the pejorative use of the word should not be levelled at traditional or classical designs which are well-proportioned, use local materials and fit seamlessly into the local neighbourhood.

It is not the case that today’s traditional architecture is simply a poor copy of any particular period of time, including Georgian or Victorian architecture, which it should be remembered are themselves expressions of a rich cultural and architectural heritage. Contemporary traditional architecture references the materials, proportions and detailing of local vernacular building of many different types, sizes and styles.

CABE advised that good design should be judged by context – does the building or buildings, respect the size and height of the buildings around it/them; materials – are they of good quality, do they age well; and character – does the design respond to the history and character of the local area? If the best new traditional architecture references Georgian or Victorian architectural vocabulary, it is because that language is most appropriate in the context of a particular site, as according to the criteria set out by CABE. Such an approach is far from pastiche, in the pejorative sense of the word which implies a thoughtless copy of a superior design. Giles Heather concludes his 2022 article in Building Design with this thought:

“… civilised and humane architecture [remains] an urgent priority. But this depends on the recovery of an idea of history and the legitimacy and currency of diverse architectural languages, an enterprise in which some contemporary, classicist and historicist architects are rightly engaged”. He describes the opposite of pastiche as “someone who has absorbed and internalised a traditional architectural language and has the elan to use it boldly and without self-consciousness”.

Simon Thurley, prominent architectural historian and chief executive of English Heritage from 2002-2015, in his wide-ranging 2017 lecture at Gresham College Perfection or Pastiche? New Buildings in Old Places, recognised that there is a place for overtly modern architectural interventions in large cities which must be allowed to continue to evolve. However, he argued that a different and more subtle set of skills is needed to judge the impact of new buildings in smaller market towns and cathedral cities. “In some cases… it’s important to commission new buildings in a vernacular style. In fact, I think it’s downright arrogant to introduce new materials and styles of an aggressively contrasting nature in historic towns…’

New buildings in the smaller towns and cities Thurley was referencing cannot be separated from their setting and context. They must subjugate themselves to their setting and reflect the materials, roofline and scale of the existing buildings. He concludes:

“There’s a need to be brave, unfashionable and to talk about style and the buildings that respect the scale, the material and proportions of those with which they are going to stand. Some architects will hurl abuse and talk about pastiche, but they should look back through history and realise that all the most popular places to work and live and visit are places where changes have been made which preserve the central harmony of the place. Many of the most reviled places are places where the architects of the last 60 years have turned their backs on the past.”

ADAM’s design codes ensure a comprehensive understanding of the architectural, environmental and cultural context of sites. They direct and inform the aesthetic appearance and character of proposals to ensure that – far from being a lazy copy, or pastiche, of Georgian or Victorian buildings – the designs reflect the architectural language and scale of the local vernacular and can therefore be authentically, bravely, traditional.