Architype was commissioned to design a scheme of 150 sustainable houses in Kingstone, Herefordshire, on a 20-acre site by client, ArchiHaus, a new locally established company with Architype’s director, Jonathan Hines, whose vision is to transform the quality and improve the sustainability of housing in Herefordshire and the Uk. We have worked to achieve Archihaus's vision of higher quality and truly sustainable housing: By building to higher design quality, including Lifetime Homes, HQIs and CABE ‘Building for Life’ standards. By creating more spacious and flexible plans. By achieving Passivhaus – the most rigorous energy standard in Europe. By creating a distinctively ‘Herefordshire’ architecture, and rural site environment. Whilst there is a presumption in favour of sustainable development under national planning policy, most new housing is not actually sustainable, and in the rural areas of Herefordshire, new housing tends to be inappropriately ‘suburban’ rather than ‘rural’ in character. In response, Architype has developed a strategy for realising this at an affordable and competitive cost: By rethinking the design and construction of a house as a high quality Passivhaus ‘product’. By manufacturing the houses locally in a new house factory that we will help Archihaus establish. By re-interpreting the local Herefordshire vernacular in an efficient and modern form. The proposed houses designed to Passivhaus, the most rigorous energy standard in Europe, are set within a landscape of winding lanes and native hedgerows, swales and wetlands, and generous green community open space with natural play, allotments and traditional orchards. The scheme will create significant new demand for village facilities and businesses – such as the schools, which are significantly short of pupils - and will generate major financial investment for existing and new community facilities. It has been proposed that the scheme is built gradually in phases to match the number of houses that can be sold, although it is expected that demand for higher quality sustainable houses sold at competitive prices will prove attractive to the market – and strong interest has already been shown from potential local purchasers. The majority of the 35% socially ‘affordable’ houses on the site will be available as ‘low cost market’ for sale, with priority given to local people in and around the village. A number of small commercial and live/work units on the site will create opportunities for existing or new local businesses.