The house of Orange

Their build techniques are more efficient, their streets safer for children due to car-taming home zones, and their homes are better designed with up to 25% more internal space. The Dutch have been held up as paragons of best housebuilding practice by Lord Rogers' Urban Task Force and others, and it has made the Dutch study tour de rigueur for forward-thinking UK architects and developers.

Now you no longer have to go to the Netherlands to see how the Dutch do it; new housing schemes around the UK are going Dutch. Housing association Southern Housing Group is putting Dutch build technology to the test at the Nightingale Estate in Hackney, east London. UK architects are designing home zones into new housing estates, and Dutch company ING Real Estate is developing Dutch-designed homes in Milton Keynes that look completely different to the units most UK housebuilders are marketing in the region.

At Campbell Heights ING is not only developing Dutch-style homes, it is also seeing whether the Urban Task Force's enthusiasm for Dutch design is shared by UK homebuyers by selling a proportion of homes in the 129-unit scheme. This is the first time ING has developed homes for sale in the UK, the company's core UK residential property activity being in the private rented sector, where it has developed some 500 homes.

"The decision to sell was driven by financial requirements and the number of units - there were too many to rent them all. So we are renting 77 and selling the remainder," says Peter Davies, director of asset management. Selling has not altered ING's approach, he stresses: "We still go for quality of location and build."

ING prefers to develop its own schemes rather than buy off the shelf, because, explains Davies: "We don't have to pay developers' profits, and it gives us control over the quality. In UK housebuilding there is not enough quality of build."

The company competed against the mainstream housebuilding industry for the chance to develop the English Partnerships site in Milton Keynes. The Dutch design concept by Inbo Architecten BNA was a key factor in winning ING the site. ING had worked with Inbo in the Netherlands, but Inbo had never worked in the UK before, so the developer also brought into the team London architect Haddon Few Montuschi, whose partner Christopher Haddon had worked on innovative first generation homes at Milton Keynes with its development corporation.

Inbo produced the concept design, with Haddon Few Montuschi refining it for the UK market. The two architects have worked together so well on this initial project that they have since entered and been shortlisted for the competition to design homes for a site at Chatham Maritime, and Inbo hopes to do more work in the UK. Also on the Campbell Heights team were project manager Deacon and Jones and contractor Miller Construction.

The urban scheme within a parkland setting has been described by its Dutch designers as a palace and a mews: on the crest of the hill site sits a crescent of apartments, bookended by a row of townhouses. On the slope are two courtyards of townhouses. Their design marries Dutch and UK approaches. "The Dutch have taken on board the perceptions of UK traditions, heading towards the suburban house with the pitched roof," says Haddon. First concept sketches favoured a flat roof design. But for the UK market the designers specified a shallow pitched roof, made from Plannja's aluminium system with a green finish to emulate aged copper, which 'floats' on the top storey's cream-coloured Eternit wall cladding.

The cream cladding contrasts with a rich red wine-coloured Ibstock brick, with its unusual black mortar, broken up by large horizontal and vertical bands of Rationel windows. Dark brickwork is popular in the Netherlands, points out Haddon. "The proportion of window to wall is so high that brickwork is effectively a framework. That allows more flexibility with colour as dark colours don't look oppressive."

The external brickwork conceals a reinforced concrete structure in the crescent and traditional masonry-built structures with timber floors in the mews. If the scheme had been built in its country of origin concrete tunnelform or precast panel construction would have been prime options for the mews. The UK method has proved difficult to build and precast concrete nib sections have had to be constructed in the living areas of some houses, but ING rejected Dutch technology in its early appraisals. "We didn't want to use a method that had not been used in the UK," says Davies.

The houses may not use Dutch build technology, but Davies says: "In design and concept there is nothing that we have really had to compromise on. We are providing much higher standards of living through the Dutch design." Space standards are set at the Dutch norm of 25% more than the UK average, with a much higher proportion of living space. One-bed apartments have 70 m2, two-bed apartments 85-110 m2, three/four-bed townhouses from 130-150 m2. Quality of space applies vertically as well as horizontally, with lounges having floor to ceiling heights ranging from 8 ft to 16 ft, depending on position on the sloping site.

In plan the houses are "partly Dutch, but also influenced by Span housing," according to Haddon. Dutch-style open plan living areas have been created in the houses. Apartments include duplex layouts, arranged around the crescent in scissor-like formation, and accessed by a glazed corridor that runs along alternate floors of the inside of the curve.

Most homes have an NHER rating of a maximum 10, achieved through a combination of low-E glazing, orientation of the homes, insulation and boilers. Kitchens and bathrooms are to the tastes of UK homebuyers, rather than the more basic expectations of the Dutch market.

UK buyer response has been positive. "New houses are more or less the same, but people like the fact that these are different," says Marilyn Jackson, partner with Densons, the estate agent handling sales. "We are giving the purchaser so many positives," says Davies. He does not discount ING developing more homes for sale. "We would prefer to build for rent, but if the next scheme is big, we would."