The architect Richard Rogers faces a £5m legal claim over problems at an award-winning 122-home estate near Milton Keynes that was designed by his firm.
Water seepage through cladding panels and windows on the prefabricated terraced housing has been cited by residents at Oxley Woods as causing problems.
Now the building firm, Taylor Wimpey, has issued a high court claim against Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners and the specialist contractors on the project, Wood Newton Developments and Coxbench Manufacturing.
The claim alleges “breach of contract and/or breach of duty of care and/or negligence and/or breach of statutory duty in relation to the design and construction of the development”.
Rogers’s architectural partnership, which designed the Millennium Dome and the National Assembly of Wales, intended to defend the claim vigorously, a spokesperson for the practice told the Architects’ Journal.
The brightly clad, angular terraces, which have earned Oxley Woods the nickname Legoland, won the 2008 Manser medal for the best new house or housing.
The judges applauded it as “mass factory-produced housing, erected in three days, incorporating top technology, top energy performance, varied house designs, a choice of cladding materials and a wide variety of estate layouts”. They said: “It is radical, innovative and an outstanding step away from the traditional mud and mess of the domestic building site.”
A Taylor Wimpey spokesperson said: “It is our view that the issues have been caused by a combination of various design features unique to this scheme and the poor performance of contractors in the design and construction process.”
John Green, director of Coxbench, said: “We will defend ourselves against this claim. We were not responsible for any design, and we installed materials that were issued directly by Taylor Wimpey.” Gary Hibbard, director of Wood Newton, declined to comment.
Insurance claims have been filed by 19 households on the estate for damage caused by water ingress around doors and windows, said the National House Building Council, which guarantees the work on new homes.
Mike Quinton, NHBC chief executive, said: “We are very concerned that residents at Oxley Woods have experienced issues with their homes. NHBC is fully committed to working with both the homeowners and Taylor Wimpey to ensure that these are resolved as quickly as possible. Our primary focus is on resolving the issues at Oxley Woods to the satisfaction of all affected residents, and we are carrying out a full programme of remediation works to achieve this.”
Writing this year in a blogpost on the Oxley Woods website, a resident named Paul said: “We, as residents, from first-time buyers to families to retirees, are in a terrible situation. We personally fear we may have lost all that we have put into our homes – the huge financial investment, but also the time, energy and love spent making these houses our homes and this estate an enviably open and welcoming community.”
