PROJECT REPORT: RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
area around the site, for example. David says that having just one long access road for all of the houses proved to be one of the most significant challenges for the build process, it being necessary to provide water, foul, surface and electrical works via the path, as well as use it to ferry materials in.
“It took a hell of a lot of logistics – we had a crane, scaffolding going out in four different sections of each house, and to get the materials in was a real headache.” Remembering the challenge, he says, “It took a lot of time and effort.” This was one area where the build method helped significantly – all the homes were designed and constructed offsite as closed timber panel systems. “The fabric was up a lot sooner,” says David, “which reduced the number of vehicles, and we also had a watertight structure sooner than we otherwise would, so it was definitely worth doing.”
A ‘light touch’
The six homes sited within the retained walls are designed to visually ‘float’ within them, their brickwork being a key feature of the composition. They are clad in a dark grey corrugated metal, referencing both utilitarian industrial sheds and Royal Navy battleships. The homes are open-fronted, with glazed walls set back from forward cantilevering fronts, which counterpoints the form of the transverse walls. The other homes include two further elevated, timber-framed houses that similarly ‘float’ above a continuation of the existing historic blast walls, providing ‘bookends’ to the others, and clad in a lighter grey cladding. A final brick ‘gatehouse’ will complete the set of buildings, helping to provide “a sense of arrival.” From the outside, the homes don’t look
like ‘typical’ offsite timber frame buildings, but as David puts it, “what’s typical?” He continues: “You can build anything with an offsite system, but just like any build method, never try to force a square peg into a round hole. If you force something you’ll always challenge its capabilities; work with it, and you’ll get the very best out of it.”
Show home
David leads me inside one of the only remaining unoccupied units at the time of my visit; the furthest home along the line of walled properties. Extending underneath the cantilevered front half of the first and second floors is a concrete entrance way leading to the front door, with standing for
ADF MARCH 2020 up to two cars.
The entrance hall has large storage space on either side, and stairs leading up. David opens a small cupboard door to reveal an Ecodan air source heat pump, which provides all the heating for the hot water and radiators in the house. “Because there’s no gas on the site,” he
says, “we had to go with the most renewable energy source we could.” David says the team looked at “a number of different things” before settling on the final product, which is a 3 kW in, 9 kW out system. “They are excellent bits of kit,” he adds.
Expansive glass
Off the first floor landing are doors to a utility room, and to an open plan living/dining room and kitchen. Glazing covers the entire frontage of this level, leading out onto a terrace with views over the harbour. “All the seafront properties over on the other side [David points across the inlet] look straight out onto the sea — which is great — but here, you’ve got so much more to actually look at; it’s a lovely thing to wake up to.”
The glazing of course adds a huge level of daylighting and solar gain too, in what are “very efficient buildings, which don’t need much heating.” Some residents have even put a reflective film up on the glass here because the heat gets too much: “It’s all about balance. You’ve got to give people the
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK FLOOD RESILIENT
Achieving a flood-resilient design on the low-lying site meant locating living areas on upper floors, as well as erecting a thick concrete floodwall in front of the homes, sitting behind a planted bank
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