Princely homes that hold their value in every sense

25 June 2008

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Venetia Thompson says that the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment does work that nobody else can and constructs homes that buck current property market trends

And there is no contradiction. The kinds of properties that the Foundation builds — precisely because they are designed for human beings rather than to satisfy left-wing ideologues — retain their commercial value. Homes in Poundbury are weathering the property downturn more robustly than those in neighbouring areas, with building continuing as planned due to high demand. A recent report showed that Poundbury achieved 17 per cent higher value (£ per square foot) than the ‘standard’ comparator (a nearby development completed in 2004) and 44 per cent higher than the ‘old’ comparator (an area of predominantly Victorian terraces in Dorchester).

However, the Foundation sees commercial worth as only one of many ways of judging the value of a building. Citing the Guildhall in Totnes, Devon, Dittmar explains that it was originally built on the ruins of a priory in 1080. Since then it has been a guildhall, a magistrates’ court, a prison and a museum. It has been taken care of by the local community for centuries and, in this sense, its open market value would give only a hint of its true significance and worth. Dittmar believes that we need to start thinking about our island and its land in much the same way. His idea of ‘sustainability’ is not simply confined to trendy greenery but is part of a much more profound sense of the built environment that we bequeath from one generation to the next.

To return to Quinlan Terry’s 1987 speech: ‘let us build smaller and gentler buildings… make walls of solid brick or stone… and take inspiration from the wisdom of our forefathers so that our buildings will be signs and heralds of a more natural, more stable and more beautiful world...’ The Prince’s Foundation is our best hope of putting this philosophy into practice and ensuring that structures like Robin Hood Gardens soon become a nasty memory of a misguided time.