How housebuilding has evolved

It’s been over eighty years since the Cruden Group was founded and our homes have been changing skylines across Scotland ever since. Although the 1940s understandably wasn’t a golden age for housebuilding, it was a fertile time for innovation and radical thinking. Many of the limitations faced in the years immediately after World War II directly or indirectly helped to change the future face of housebuilding.

Innovative solutions to chronic problems

The post-war period was a desperate one, with Britain heavily indebted and lacking in everything from manpower to materials. This was the first economic crisis all new housebuilders faced, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last. With necessity proving to be the mother of invention, non-standard construction techniques were quickly developed. These ranged from system-built high-rise towers to pre-cast concrete bungalows including prefabs and Dorrans; the latter can still be found in rural counties of Scotland, having surpassed their projected lifespan several times over. Cruden also blazed a trail for steel-framed properties clad in rendered concrete blockwork, including cottage flats, terraced and semi-detached houses.

Alongside this materials-led experimentation, traditional construction techniques hadn’t been forgotten. The use of brick was historically more common in England than in Scotland, but the ready availability and high standard of contemporary bricks gradually saw brick-faced buildings becoming ubiquitous. Sandstone had previously dominated Scottish construction, but it was becoming harder to extract from depleted mines across Ayrshire and the central belt. Today, sandstone is mainly used as a facing material in traditional streetscapes, with brick a more common choice, even if the dwellings themselves are supported by timber frames.

The social network

Another evolution in property construction relates to who these properties have been built for. Private sales have remained a key area of focus since Cruden’s inception in 1943, but in the 1960s and 1970s, we began constructing large-scale social housing developments on behalf of councils. More recently, social housing provision has been taken over by housing associations, delivering affordable homes where they’re most needed – and often replacing unsuitable older buildings in the process. Progress never ends.

While specifications and property designs vary between one estate and the next, today’s construction techniques would be instantly familiar to a 1940s time-traveller. Building a house still involves a roll call of time-served tradespeople with specific crafts. From plumbers and tilers to plasterers and electricians, these unsung heroes of the housing industry physically construct homes and fit out their interiors to a suitably high standard. Handovers are only completed following a rigorous programme of quality checks and once minor finessing has been carried out – a process known as snagging, one which we encourage new residents to engage in. Some small issues can only be unearthed by living in a newly-built home and testing it on a daily basis.

Future perfect?

Today, Cruden Homes’ (the housebuilding division of the Cruden Group) portfolio is as diverse as the architectural styles which have proliferated over recent decades. We build majestic detached villas, terraced and semi-detached houses in traffic-calmed streetscapes, and dramatic industrial-inspired low-rise apartment buildings. We construct striking blocks of flats with private outside terraces, and light-infused bungalows with double-height glazing. No two developments will ever be the same, given the sheer diversity of materials, colours, floorplans and home styles which can now be drawn from. Indeed, if one thing has evolved more than any other over the last eighty years, it’s the sheer variety of architectural styles and construction techniques all housebuilders can call upon.

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