Housebuilding group untypical, which builds under the brands Hopkins Homes and Tilia Homes, has committed to entering every forthcoming site into the Building for a Healthy Life (BHL) assessment process from the planning stage.
The pledge comes as untypical was awarded the BHL Commendation for the first time for its Church View development in Suffolk, which is being delivered by Hopkins Homes.
Building for a Healthy Life, endorsed by Homes England, is England’s most widely used design tool for evaluating new residential development. To achieve a BHL Commendation, a scheme must score green lights against at least nine of the 12 considerations with no red lights.
Church View earned a green light against every one of the 12 BHL criteria assessed.
The 115-home development in Bramford was assessed by Design South East, an accredited Design Network organisation, following a site visit in March 2026. The assessment recorded strengths across integrated neighbourhoods, distinctive placemaking, healthy streets, green and blue infrastructure, and accessibility.
Graeme Smith, Group Innovation & Design Director at untypical, said:
“Building for a Healthy Life is one of the most rigorous independent measures of design quality available to the housebuilding sector. Committing every site to this standard is not a marketing exercise – it is a statement about the kind of housebuilder we intend to be.”
The Church View assessment highlighted design strengths including edge-to-edge pedestrian connectivity, a clear internal street hierarchy, sensitive transitions between existing and new development, and high-quality public open space incorporating a play area and sustainable drainage. Assessors noted the brick and render palette with clay tile roofs as appropriate to the village-scale context, and the development’s wildlife features – including bat boxes, swift bricks and hedgehog highways – as a further indicator of the care taken in its design.
Every home includes an air source heat pump, underfloor heating to the ground floor, and an EPC rating of B or higher as standard.
Nova Place in Shropshire and Hawkesbury Lakes in Coventry have also received accreditation with further current sites in the assessment pipeline. All future sites will be assessed during planning stages.