Client: River Valley Developments

Location: Midlands

Role: Design and Project Architects

Project Type: Mixed-use residential and marina

Construction Value: Confidential

Description: Pre-Planning stage.
This development is comprised of a 150 berth marina which meanders its way through the entire development, circa 120 houses ranging from 3 bed to 5 bed units, circa 60 large apartments, commercial, retail and community facilities, boat showroom/workshop, guesthouse, retirement home and village and an equestrian center.

Concept

A number of strong ideas pervade the overall masterplanning and have been carefully drawn together to unify this development.

• Create centres that reach out towards river, canal and village and also draw in the natural surroundings.
• Create a circular canal that encloses a strong centre and connects a number of canal basins that form sub-centres. Use these water and linear routes to connect the centre to the sub-centres, to the river, to the existing canal, and to the village and surrounding countryside
• Create layouts that reflect natural shapes and geographic features
• In line with the proposed canals and marinas, create a diverse and finely grained design that reflects the positive character, sense of place and variety that is found in medieval walled and moated towns.

Design principles - “create a community not a housing estate“

1. Through careful Urban Design, create a strong dominant centre with a series of adjacent centres with open spaces within the site that create foci, sense of place and help draw the houses together. Make these centres "Home zones" which are safe and enjoyable for children to play, pedestrians and cyclists.

2. Avoid suburban style or ribbon development, which is inappropriate to this context. Instead, extend the village form of clustered houses with mixed uses around legible open spaces, with a strong emphasis on pedestrian movement, varied heights / materials / ground finishes / forms and diverse boundary treatments (i.e. walls, railings, hedges etc.).

3. Create strong connectivity and permeability through the provision of various vehicular, walking and cycling routes thread through the marina design and connect it to the local village, river, canal and surrounding areas.

4. Use varied forms inspired by local vernacular traditions and materials to create a staggered roofscape which will soften the visual impact and reflect traditional and organic settlement patterns (i.e. village, clachan, farmyard..etc. ).

5. Create a low-energy, low-carbon community through good orientation and high levels of insulation and minimum air infiltration. Provide clean, alternative energy supply such as geothermal, wood pellet and solar systems. It is envisaged that the dwellings would achieve a Building Energy Rating (BER) between a B1 and an A2.

6. Minimise the negative impact on natural drainage systems through the use of SUDS (sustainable urban drainage systems) and the provision of water ponds. These will also act as natural habitats and in turn minimise the impact on the site's biodiversity.

7. Provide varied house types with the possibility of creating live / work units, home office / dentist or doctor’s surgery, along with retail, commercial and community facilities. This will generate a more diverse community with the possibility of attracting / retaining a broader sector of society especially younger families.

8. Create public walkways to form part of the walking route from the village (with viewing points, seating and information panels). These walkways also help embed the new development by directly connecting it with the existing village.