THANK goodness, marketing isn't everything. A forthcoming bit of Hulme, by Rosedale Property Developments, has been saddled with a Spanish theme, which meant Flamenco dancers and tapas at the marketing launch.

This mixed development of two and three bedroom houses and apartments by architects MBLC has the potential to be amongst the best new build in Hulme so far. God knows, not much that has been built to date is exactly straining the envelope. Homes for Change is an exception. George Mills of MBLC had a big part in driving their first phase, for the residents and the Guinness Trust. Another exception is Princeton 22, three-storey town houses on Greenheys Lane, opposite St Mary's and Loreto College. George Mills is the architect, Rosedale the developer, and these are very much the template for Casa Urbano.

Princeton 22 are houses on three floors. The top floors are roof-lit, with vertical windows bringing in north light along the whole width of the room. Living on the top floor, sleeping on the lower; these houses have European forebears, and George Mills and Rosedale can claim to be bringing something different to the Manchester market. Mills and MBLC have been subtly reintroducing one or two maligned building types back into the mainstream. Here, the townhouse. Across Hulme on Upper Lloyd Street, they have reworked deck-access for Bellway Homes. MBLC looks to Europe, and carefully adapts some out-of-fashion building types by careful choice of materials and attention to detail.

Too much of new Hulme is Toytown. Volume house builders are not prepared to lead the market. They will give people what they think they want and, to be fair, far the largest sector of the market want brick-built houses on two floors with pitched roofs, porches and gardens. Rosedale are prepared to be a bit different here. The MBLC scheme gets more people (64 dwellings per acre) onto the site than you would expect in more conventional housing. Building up density is one of the things that the Urban Task Force has encouraged.

Over the next three or four years expect the gaps in Hulme to be filled in. The same will happen in a fairly tight circle outside the inner relief road, in Salford, Trafford, Whalley Range and Ancoats. Expect design standards to rise. Buildings will be more secure, and more ecological. Relatively small-scale developments, by developers with fresh ideas, particularly in the areas of low-energy and ecologically sustainable design will start to enter the market at competitive prices. These will be the house-building equivalent of early organic food shops. Within five years some of us will be as familiar with thermal insulation co-efficients as we are with nutritional values and calorie counts.

Casa Urbano is not about ecological housing to any great degree, but it is helping to open a door. Further out of town, on Barlow Moor Road, Irwell Valley Housing Association, Urban Splash and architects Stephenson-Bell produced Chorlton Park, a successful scheme built to high thermal standards, and residents report tiny heating bills. Since part of the move away from the far suburbs back towards city centres is a reflection on reducing car use, any number of sustainability issues will chime in. The building types that Rosedale and MBLC have planned for Hulme High Street will lend themselves to ever more exacting ecological standards down the line.

Despite the irritating marketing fandango, Casa Urbano will be successful, especially since prices for a two-bedroom apartment start at '80,000 for early birds. MBLC are showing the way in high density low-rise mixed development. Not long from now homeowners will be looking for cheaper fuel bills and more exacting ecological standards from the homes they are prepared to buy. I suspect that MBLC will be right there with them, and so will Rosedale, if they are brave enough to continue to be pioneers.

The marketing suite is on 0161 232 8777.