Think Barratt Homes and the image that probably springs to mind is a row of identikit boxes plonked on a patch of grass on the edge of some suburban sprawl. But it need not be that way, says the housebuilder responsible for selling more than 15,500 new properties every year.

It has just launched a complex of seven new terraced houses and three flats on a development on the outskirts of Sittingbourne, in Kent — and they look radically different from the traditional terraces and semis around them.

The properties are the result of a competition, launched in 2004, to design an innovative, energy-efficient townhouse that would “meet modern homebuyers’ needs for adaptable space, privacy and a sense of security”. More than 650 entries were received, and the winner was PCKO, a London-based architectural practice.

The houses, priced from £325,995, are tall, thin and partially clad in grey-painted wood, conjuring up images of New England, though with a nod to the Kent vernacular. Viewed from the side, they have a tall three-storey section with a pitched, tiled roof at one end, a glass-roofed atrium that lets in plenty of light in the middle, and a two-storey section, also with a pitched, tiled roof, at the other end.

All seven houses have three bedrooms and a garden (approximately 42ft long), at the end of which is a garage with a studio room above, for use as an office or spare room. The design is reversible — the houses can be built with the three-storey section at the front or the back, to create more interesting rooflines. At £184,995, the three two-bedroom flats — or “Fags” (flats above garages), as the architects call them — are similarly styled, with brick below and wood cladding above.

The competition was run by David Wilson Homes (which was taken over in April by Barratt) and organised by Design For Homes, an independent organisation that champions good housing design. The entrants were given a budget of £105 per sq ft, a brief to create a timber-framed house and a list of recommended suppliers.

The challenge faced by most housebuilders working in urban areas is that plots are typically long and narrow. PCKO, which kept to a budget of £99 per sq ft, tackled the problem by including the atrium. A familiar feature in office blocks, but not in residential homes, it ensures that all the rooms have natural lighting and ventilation.

The ground floor, which has a normal townhouse width of 17ft 9in, is open-plan, stretching 36ft from front to rear wall. With light flooding in from above, it appears much bigger as a result. Above are the bedrooms, two in the three-storey section, one in the two-storey one. The two on the first floor overlook the ground floor through sliding glass doors, again bringing in more light.

The houses also feature a “living wall” — a noise buffer zone along one side of the house, in which all the boring bits such as utility rooms, cupboards, services, bathrooms and loos are located. “We tried to create a much more coherent space, says Peter Chlapowski, the director of PCKO. “We wanted to create light and space and storage.”

So, has it worked? Well, the houses are certainly more interesting than the usual offerings from British housebuilders. The show home has been dressed with orange wallpaper and modern furniture, and has a glossy orange kitchen. Walking into the living space, the overwhelming feeling is of light pouring in, almost scarily so — one wall is almost entirely glass, so a purchaser might want to invest in some thick curtains.

The house next door, in the middle of the terrace, is less exposed, but still feels light and airy, even on a grey and wintry day, thanks to the glass ceiling. It’s not the place for those looking for lateral living — just like the Georgian architecture that partially inspired PCKO’s design, the houses have plenty of stairs to climb. The living space on the ground floor is a decent size, though, and the open-plan layout makes it good for entertaining.

The bedrooms are less generously proportioned — the cupboards are not enormous, and the beds with which the properties have been dressed are definitely not full-sized doubles. Still, the overall sense is of a modern and rather more exciting living space than you usually find on a housing estate.

Are the architects pleased with how their designs have been realised? Overall, it seems so — though there are a few notes of disappointment. The wooden staircase that ascends to the spare room above the garage has been built to a much lower specification than originally intended, and the cheap wooden fencing used to divide the gardens looks, well, cheap.

Whether the houses will appeal to the general public remains to be seen. The competition was, after all, to redesign the townhouse, and a housing estate on the edge of a commuter town in Kent might not have been the best place to test out the development.

Nevertheless, Barratt is happy with the results — even though the project was something it inherited when it took over David Wilson Homes. “Historically, we housebuilders have had a bad reputation, and we’ve got to change that,” says Nick Fenton, managing director of Barratt Kent. “We’ve been guilty of building houses, laying out roads, then getting out of there. Now we’ve got to think more in the American way — of creating parks for people to live in.”

Barratt would also like to roll out this and other new designs elsewhere — although Fenton concedes that it may have to find ways of building them more cheaply to make it worthwhile. “It’s not a one-off as far as we’re concerned,” he says. “We do need to consider how people are going to live for the future.” Perhaps the housebuilders are waking up — at last — to the fact that not everyone wants to live in an identikit box.

Barratt Kent: 01795 599055

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