Made to measure

"The only thing that must be consistent is storey height," says Beazer Partnerships managing director John Cadwallader. "We're not going to impose rigid rules on the architect."

Contrasting Amphion developments that have recently won planning permission appear to bear this out. Amicus Housing Association's four-storey apartment block in Gillingham, Kent, designed by PCKO, is irregularly shaped and hemmed in by shops and offices.

Hyde Housing Association's May Cottages in the New Forest, Hampshire, designed by PRP, is a more conventional timber-clad two-storey terrace, which lies in a sensitive countryside location. Calford Seaden Partnership's design for Broadland HA's Thorpe Marriott site in Norfolk is even more conventionally clad in brick.

Irrespective of external appearance for Beazer and Amphion to benefit from economies of scale some degree of standardisation will be necessary. "There are standard floor plans but these are designed to be flexible," says Cadwallader. Wide span floor and roof panels means that non-loadbearing partitions can be used inside to create flexible layouts.

Andrew Chlapowski, director at PCKO, is happy working within Amphion's parameters. "As long as you use their footprints they will let you do other things. We are designing homes with the minimum number of panels but we can still ensure variety with add-ons such as bridging elements and projected frontages." PCKO's double wall concept (see box) illustrates how keen the architect is to explore the potential of timber. Chlapowski believes that the Gillingham project proves the versatility of timber-frame construction and Beazer's willingness to adapt to one-off sites.

Unlike Gillingham, PRP's New Forest scheme uses some of Beazer's standard footprints. Although the architect was able to use cedar board cladding to give the development its own identity PRP found that some of its other design intentions are not being adopted.

"We were working to a very prescribed set of parameters. Some of our ideas for Amphion had to be scaled down in the real world," says PRP's managing director Barry Munday. "I can appreciate that they [Amphion] are trying hard to achieve economies of scale and the reality of the situation is that you can only innovate slowly because of the initial lack of volume."

Charlie Adams, chief executive of Hyde Housing Association, one of the founder members of the Amphion Consortium and client on the first scheme on site at Childers Street in Deptford, south east London, says that innovations such as water recycling and solar panels will come about once the production process has been honed. "It's not about modern design per se, though modern design can be used, it's about the process," he says. "We must judge the success of the project by the process not the product."

Any prospective Amphion architect will have to convince the consortium that it understands its principles. "We are very careful about increasing the number of consultants. They [architects] want variety, which will happen in the long run but the process is more important at the moment," says Adams. "The central issue is common understanding. They must understand the discipline of manufacturing and not all architects do."