New housing concepts

Heyford Park, Oxfordshire

images courtesy of studio|REAL

The former US airbase at Upper Heyford was closed in the 1990s following the end of the Cold War: it had been a strategic European station within range of the Soviet bloc. Many features have very significant historical value, representing a still well preserved example of a military establishment during that period, with every facility from bomb-proof hangars to American family housing and servicemen’s living and social accommodation.  Elements of the early “Trenchard” radial layout developed for the RAF in the 1920s also remain.

The urban design team, directed by Rob West, considered a range of options to develop a residential neighbourhood from the existing military settlement, including business premises, shops and a primary school.  The masterplan had to respond not only to the requirements of the existing historic layout and buildings, but also to a sensitive landscape setting.  Rural settlements typically evolve with tight development in the centre along a village street, with lateral lanes leading off it as far as the landscape edge.  Landscape often penetrates the village in the form of paddocks and gardens, and larger plots around the village edge have green boundaries that integrate with the surrounding field pattern.  Working with the District Council a design was developed to this traditional pattern rather than the more common masterplanning format of hard new edges fronting open countryside.