At a time when housing density is often taken to mean more flats, Gerard House shows there is another way. Here is a four-storey building achieving 70 dwellings per hectare by stacking houses.
18 August 2026
Designed by TateHindle for the Alton Estate regeneration, Gerard House contains 14 maisonettes arranged around a courtyard. These are family homes, not apartments in disguise. Each has its own front door, private outdoor space and the sense of individual address that comes with a house. Some are reached along short decks – an economical device that also recalls the external access of the point blocks of the Alton Estate.
The history matters. Gerard House formed part of the decanting process as the estate is renewed, providing three- and four-bedroom homes in response to local need. And its density is not unfamiliar to the place. The much taller Alton West blocks, set within generous grounds, achieved roughly 70 dwellings per hectare on their housing land. What Gerard House does is translate that principle into a much smaller, more intimate building.
This is perhaps the more interesting lesson from the Alton. Density was never simply about piling up units. It was about making room for different kinds of home, alongside landscape and communal space.
That feels relevant as the Government presses for more housing. The new NPPF, published this week, puts housing delivery and the more effective use of land firmly at the centre of planning. The Government’s focus on increasing the supply of affordable and social housing makes the question of how we achieve density particularly relevant.
Gerard House suggests a useful test: not how many homes can we fit on a site, but how many good homes can we make? At Fontley Way, density has been used not to diminish the idea of the house, but to make more of them possible.