It's got to be modern

More than 200 acres of Essex greenfield: prime development land where a residential design brief would generally stipulate vernacular, which in Essex would mean the authentic old English village aesthetic of that bible of good design, the Essex Design Guide.

It is an established formula, and it sells, but landowner New Hall Projects is abandoning it in favour of a bolder vision. It is masterminding the creation of the country's first truly contemporary greenfield village on the outskirts of an earlier model of modern living, the new town of Harlow.

At New Hall old-fashioned vernacular is out, standard housetypes are unacceptable and banners are banned from developers' sales centres. You might think such constraints would deter mainstream developers from buying land there, but already Barratt and Copthorn have signed up and are just starting to build New Hall's vision. When it is complete the village will have some 2 800 homes designed by some of the UK's best residential architects, under the masterplan by urban designer Roger Evans Associates and the agenda set by New Hall Projects and key landowners brothers Jon and William Moen.

The Moens have nursed the project through the development process for seven years and are personally setting and maintaining high standards for neighbourhood and home design, signage and even developers' sales complexes "We have a responsibility to New Hall Projects landowners. It is important to show that we can get good values for the land and we think good architecture will produce good land values. We didn't want pastiche," says Jon. The Moens' desire to see high architectural quality at New Hall, and to retain control over what is developed there, has also been influenced by their experiences on nearby Church Langley, where they also owned land, but sold it unconditionally and were disappointed by the result.

By contrast New Hall has been masterplanned comprehensively by the Moens and Roger Evans Associates, its detail and what is expected of developers set out in legally-binding site design briefs. The Moens and Evans have worked with Harlow District Council and with Essex County Council officers responsible for the Essex Design Guide. Planners have given their blessing not only to modern architecture, but also to a natural approach to traffic calming which relies on such unorthodox detailing as the planting of trees in junction squares. Modern design is not in conflict with Essex vernacular, according to Roger Evans, principal of Roger Evans Associates. "Lots of the principles of the Essex Design Guide can be applied here," he says.

Evan's masterplan pays due respect to the principles established by Harlow new town's architect Sir Frederick Gibberd, which promoted green wedge open space, housing density of 50 people to the acre, amenities within walking distance and larger facilities in community centres. At New Hall 40% of the site is set aside as open green space and every home is intended to be within around 60 m of green space. Housing density is expected to be at least 1500 sq ft of floorspace per acre, with high-density areas including three storey townhouses and medium-rise apartments, and medium density encompassing the full range from detached houses to courtyard mews. Around 25% of housing will be affordable, and the overall mix runs from one to five-bedders, as well as live-work homes. Amenities are close by and the landowners are exploring the potential for coordinated facilities with local sports and education groups.

A close look at the masterplan reveals an attention to detail that reaches far beyond the norms of neighbourhood design. Streets and landscaping are clearly classified. Street lighting is contemporary in design, uses ceramic metal halide which emits a white light in preference to the more commonplace orange-glowing sodium, and has a hierarchy of lighting levels with the neighbourhood centre being brighter. Rainwater run-off is being channelled through reed beds into a balancing lake in one of a series of environmental measures, while utilities are run in shared ducting with spare capacity for the future.

The first phase of the neighbourhood comprises 440 homes, but land is being released for sale to developers in small parcels of less than 100 units to produce design diversity. "The land parcels fit together like a jigsaw," says Evans "The street pattern is set, so it is like designing for an existing town centre. The big difference between this and somewhere like Poundbury is that Poundbury concentrates on vernacular architecture and details. We have given a free hand, but set out urban design rules, given a setting and a context for architects to respond to." Different architects' designs are linked by common palettes of colours and materials. Artist Tom Porter was commissioned by New Hall Projects to research local materials and has come up with four colour palettes for facades, roofs, paintwork and floorscape. The materials palette includes such products as slate, which has to be real Welsh slate, and clay for roofs, and weatherboarding, featherboard, render, flint and two approved bricks, one handmade, for walls. All homes are also required to attain a SAP energy efficiency rating of 80, with the masterplan allowing for a high proportion to be oriented within 15 deg of an east-west axis to maximise solar gain.

Although New Hall Projects has developers on board, getting them to commit to modern design has not been easy and first tenders included a neo-Georgian design. "We have found a lot of enthusiasm but a lot have not understood what we are about," says William. Housing associations in the first phase have yet to be announced, but the first private firm to buy land was Barratt with homes designed by Robert Hutson Architects and Roger Evans. Barratt was followed by Countryside subsidiary Copthorn, working with architect Proctor Matthews.

A third tranche of land has been the subject of a design competition won by architect PCKO and is now being marketed to developers with its accompanying design. "For the first two parcels we spent a lot of time talking to developers and architects and have generally been a bit disappointed with the designs that have come in. That is why we have done the competition and we are very pleased with the result," says Jon.

"We want to show that good architecture can be done in a commercially viable way," adds William. "We have been influenced by growing up in Harlow. We knew Sir Frederick Gibberd. Harlow has a stigma to it, but some of the ideals it embodied are now coming back, and it's nice to be having a second crack."