Define have acted for CALA Homes (Thames) Ltd in promoting this site through the local plan process, resulting in the site being removed from the Green Belt and allocated (as part of a wider area) for development. The site is sensitive, both in landscape terms and to the local community (who historically had access to it), and was obliged to ‘maintain a sense of visual separation between Mayford and the wider urban area’.
Our design process
Our design process (which was developed through 3 formal design reviews) created a landscape led design, inspired by the site’s escarpment linking historic heathland with meadowland. At its centre is a large new community green, framed by bespoke apartments, housing and a care home to create an active social heart for the scheme – including play, informal seating, terraces and lawns. The site’s edges promotes a bespoke typology to create car free frontages (which are used as multi-functional green corridors) and attention was paid to delivering a landscape response that responds to the site’s underlying typologies, with the landscape concept shaping the development form and character, rather than simply responding to it.
The outcome
A bespoke set of house types, apartments and a care home was stitched into the site, inspired by the more positive local examples and regional precedents, with a simple gabled form, utilising textured brickwork, grey fenestration and punched balconies throughout.
The scheme massing also evolved through a visual assessment process, to test the visibility of the proposed development at various stages as the scheme evolved, to ensure that the sense of visual separation was achieved. We look forward to seeing how existing and new residents make this landscape their own.
Project Team
Andy Williams
Maria Zouroudi
Nathan Beirne
Feba Johnson
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