If you ask anyone with a family what they desire most in a home there are usually a couple of things that are always mentioned. A garden, their own front door and a parking space.  This is  one of the reasons why our once green and pleasant land is now covered in sprawling housing estates  full of Lego box houses. It is why our roads are clogged with increasing numbers of cars as suburban living is totally car dependent.  It is also the reason why our energy use continues to rise due to the larger energy use that a detached house creates. Meanwhile our city centres are inhabited by childless couples, singles and the extremes of rich and poor. 

Borneo Sporenburg in Amsterdam is a development that demonstrates that it is possible to create high density family housing within the heart of the city rather than building over green fields. By stipulating that 30-50% of each dwelling should be void, e.g. a patio courtyard at high or low level, the masterplan eliminated the need for private gardens at front or back. It also provided extreme privacy and security for the resident families, with strong gates to the ground floor also part of the masterplan’s rules.

A further important rule of the masterplan was that parking should not be provided on-street but should be incorporated into the volume of the dwelling. This led to half-sunken garages supporting a raised ground floor, carports and sunken carparks for the large blocks, allowing the streets to become a minimum width, maximising efficiency. By eliminating the ‘semi-public’ private gardens and parking spaces the houses are brought into a very direct relation with the street, overlooking it directly and with front doors opening at one step onto the public realm. The sense of communal safety this produces is highly successful.

The most striking feature of the housing is the variety of architectural solutions for each identically sized plot. Each owner was free to choose their own architect (from a long-list drawn up by the master planners) to create their own house within the general guidelines set by the masterplan. The resulting visual vitality and expression of personal commitment to the area is one of the most successful aspects of the development.

This is a drawing of a project in the Cotswolds that we are currently working on. The site is within the ruins of a watermill located within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and in the garden of a listed Georgian manor house.

The ruin was originally a four storey corn mill and bake house, built in the mid 19th century, one of five watermills in the village of Kemerton. At the start of the Second World War there had been the possibility that it would be requisitioned to house evacuees from Birmingham. This so alarmed the gentle folk who lived in the manor that they immediately had it demolished.

Our approach has been one of preservation whilst also being clear about what is old and what is new. We aim to make safe what is left of the old watermill and carry out a full restoration of the waterwheel. A new, three bedroom house will be inserted within the ruin, with bedrooms on the ground floor and living space above.  A fully glazed gable end will look out over the tops of the old walls while on the opposite gable doves will coo within a specially built dovecote.  I’m most looking forward to smelling the first loaf of freshly baked bread made on the site of the old bake house.