SANDPIT PLACE
Our new streets sit within an existing estate on a site which has up to now had a wall around it.
Our project is arranged in a ladder of streets which provide handy cut through for people.....to the bus stop, corner shop and out to the main road. The new streets we have made link to existing streets and public routes. That way we hope it might help it to feel like part of the neighbourhood.... that people living close by feel connected with it and newcomers might settle in more readily.
We like terraced houses because of the way that they make an edge to the street. At sandpit place we have given people big front gardens.....people are starting to sit out .... there are paddling pools, baby bouncer pots with flowers, bikes .....peoples stuff. They are starting to look lived in.
People in each house have loads of outside space ... front garden.... balconies and 2 rear courtyard/ roof terraces. Each house has some outside space which feels quite public and some which feels very secluded.
The project is street based terraced housing. To some extent The houses themselves borrow their layout from Victorian mews houses . Being pretty square in plan and stepping back at the rear to allow light and ventilation and private roof terraces instead of back gardens.
We think that the street is the basic building block of the city and that urban housing should be laid out in streets. Over the years we have experimented with numerous house/ housing types. mansion blocks, cottage flats, terraced housing , courtyard housing , back to backs..... this mews variant is the most recent and we think is quite a good model for medium density lower rise street based housing.