Moat Lane, Towcester

National award,
Urban Design Group 2012

image courtesy of studio|REAL

Rob West led the Studio|REAL urban design team to the 2012 Practice Award for the Moat Lane regeneration project at Towcester. 

The project was commissioned by South Northamptonshire Council to strengthen the town centre in anticipation of the major expansion of the town from some 9,000 to 16,000 people.  The study noted the strong presence of local business and the potential to expand the town centre in the Moat Lane area immediately behind the main street, Watling Street. However, the area is of enormous environmental interest, with numerous listed buildings, a scheduled ancient monument, and a listed Capability Brown landscape alongside the River Tove.

The urban design approach was to extend the historic pattern of plots and lanes behind Watling Street into the area and to preserve all the historic built fabric, finding new uses that would both adapt comfortably to existing buildings and enhance Towcester’s market town functions. Comprehensive redevelopment through demolition was avoided.  Uses include a typical town-centre mix of retail space, cafés and bars, employment, leisure and civic space, and a range of dwelling types: it was a conscious decision not to rely heavily on residential development for viability.

Implementing the masterplan involved some compulsory purchase by the Council and continuous public engagement.  The first project was the rescue of a Norman motte and bailey, Bury Mount, and its establishment with the riverside at the centre of the project.  The Council opted to downsize its offices into some of the employment space, commissioning a new civic centre which is close to completion, and the former mill is now established as a craft brewery.

image courtesy of studio|REAL

Penryn, Cornwall

A contemporary way forward for a traditional marine economy

Rob West led studio|REAL’s commission for a masterplan for the physical regeneration of the Commercial Road area alongside Penryn’s waterfront.  Many small Cornish towns have become totally dependent on tourism, but Penryn still retains a salty mix of traditional marine industries, based on boat servicing and repair, seafood preparation and processing, warehousing, etc.  Clearly tourism will grow, but the team was keen not to lose the special character that makes Penryn a more “real” place than other towns in the area.

The masterplan seeks to strengthen links from Commercial Road and the quaysides to the town centre and identified sites between well established businesses where new uses or new development could bolster the physical fabric of the town.  A critical area was Jubilee Wharf, at the gateway to Penryn from neighbouring Falmouth, where the most potential for new mixed development, building refurbishment and public space was identified.

Shortly after completion of the masterplan, development started with Zed Factory’s retail and workspace on Jubilee Wharf, which spectacularly rose to the masterplan’s challenge for the highest sustainability and architectural standards.  New development on Quay Hill now forms a notable gateway to the town as part of the Harbour Village.

image courtesy of studio|REAL

Above: scheme for 20 houses

Village housing, Tysoe, Warwickshire

New homes in a conservation village

The Tysoe project has been undertaken for a private owner, developing a one hectare site for village housing. A range of options was considered, from six large houses to a mixed range of twenty including seven affordable homes. After extensive consultation with the local community and Stratford on Avon District Council, a full planning consent for nine houses was secured in 2014. 

The scheme is close to the village centre and conservation area, and creates a highly sustainable development designed to fit with the scale and character of Middle Tysoe village.  Critical elements have been the use of traditional building forms in Hornton Stone with steep roofs and low eaves, the preservation of views to the Grade I listed church and to Edge Hill in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and new footpath links to the countryside network and to Tysoe Primary School.

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.

Planning policy allows conversion of redundant farmyard buildings to dwellings

Three houses at Lane End, Tysoe, Warwickshire

Detailed planning permission was secured from Stratford-upon-Avon District Council for three stone-built houses occupying the site of a former cattle unit. Policy now allows the re-use of existing redundant farmyard buildings for residential use of up to three dwellings and a maximum combined floor area of 450 m².  In this case the existing buildings were in very dilapidated condition and included extensive areas of steel framed structures and concrete surfaces, so that re-use of most of it was not practical.  It was therefore agreed with the Council that new buildings should follow the form of the traditional farmyard and not extend beyond the remaining buildings behind the original farmhouse.  Removing the framed structures reveals the side of a listed stone-built barn beside Home Farm, which which forms one side of a reinstated farmyard court.

Lane End House

The Lane End house was commissioned by a farming family to provide a new family home adjacent to the original farmhouse.  The design was developed working very closely with the owners using the local Hornton stone around a highly insulated framed structure and including proposals for ground source heating.