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Location: The Dairy, Henlow, Henlow SG16 6JD
Built: 2003
Designer: Taylor Woodrow (developers) / Reeves Bailey (architect)
Type: suburban
Density: 29 homes per hectare
Parking ratio: 245%
A range of national house plans that interlock to give better urban design is exploited to create a housing square. The local highways insistence on visibility splays undermines other treatments within the development, which are otherwise highly practical.
This scheme of 61 two-storey dwellings is finished in either brick, render, or black stained shiplath facings with slate or plain tile roofs. It is consciously composed in a manner suggestive of a village having grown organically over a period of time, and thus reflects principles established historically by the Essex Design Guide. There are archways through a number of the blocks that lead to both shared rear parking courts with garages, and hardstanding parking areas. In the central square, parking is arranged in a simple 3 and 4 bay layby style immediately adjoining the soft landscaping. Blacktop pavements and roads are separated both by dropped and raised kerbs, depending on location within the scheme; granite sett traffic calming strips divide the estate roads.
The most distinctive elements of the parking options available are open sided, timber framed, roofed and gated sheds arranged in 1, 2, and 3 bay options. These give directly on to the residents’ garden areas, and in some cases, form a sheltered hardstanding immediately in front of a conventional garage. A further parking option in streets remote from the central square is an area of hardstanding within the deed line of the dwelling, but finished flush with the adjoining pavement.
The development comprises 3, 4 and 5 bedroom houses arranged in short terraces with landscaped square.
Plan showing location of the case study within the wider development
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Unallocated bays on the square support on plot spaces. Trees would have been better than bollards.
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Plan showing on-street parking arrangement in housing squares.
Green Light! - Good visual security for residents' vehicles. Simple but effective, and adds animation to streetscape, whilst validating sue of square as a community space. Good supplement to on-plot provision.
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Houses have drive throughs to more spaces on plot.
Green Light! - Good visual security for residents' vehicles. Simple but effective, and adds animation to streetscape, whilst validating sue of square as a community space. Good supplement to on-plot provision.
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Mature trees would probably have made some bollards unnecessary.
Green Light! - Good visual security for residents' vehicles. Simple but effective, and adds animation to streetscape, whilst validating sue of square as a community space. Good supplement to on-plot provision.
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Plan showing parking arrangement for on-plot parking, cut out or drive-through versions.
Proceed with Caution! - Required visibility splays results in elongated car port which detracts from vitality of streetscape. Shed solution means the car becomes an inevitable part of the house's garden furniture.
Green Light! - Gated shed allows visual security from street to car parking and stops it being used as a store. There is easy access to homes and this typology of parking provision is economical and efficient when used in limited numbers.
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There are not enough spaces for the visitor.
Proceed with Caution! - Required visibility splays results in elongated car port which detracts from vitality of streetscape. Shed solution means the car becomes an inevitable part of the house's garden furniture.
Green Light! - Gated shed allows visual security from street to car parking and stops it being used as a store. There is easy access to homes and this typology of parking provision is economical and efficient when used in limited numbers.
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Car port is set back a little too far for visibility splays.
Proceed with Caution! - Required visibility splays results in elongated car port which detracts from vitality of streetscape. Shed solution means the car becomes an inevitable part of the house's garden furniture.
Green Light! - Gated shed allows visual security from street to car parking and stops it being used as a store. There is easy access to homes and this typology of parking provision is economical and efficient when used in limited numbers.
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Wide bays that are easy to access and will serve as garages rather than stores.
Proceed with Caution! - Required visibility splays results in elongated car port which detracts from vitality of streetscape. Shed solution means the car becomes an inevitable part of the house's garden furniture.
Green Light! - Gated shed allows visual security from street to car parking and stops it being used as a store. There is easy access to homes and this typology of parking provision is economical and efficient when used in limited numbers.
Be the first to add a comment!
Four bays at a time with simple setts showing definition from carriageway.
Green Light! - Good visual security for residents' vehicles. Simple but effective, and adds animation to streetscape, whilst validating sue of square as a community space. Good supplement to on-plot provision.
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Pea shingle defines pavement from parking bay.
Green Light! - Good visual security for residents' vehicles. Simple but effective, and adds animation to streetscape, whilst validating sue of square as a community space. Good supplement to on-plot provision.
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Bays let light in and add to street surveillance.
Proceed with Caution! - Required visibility splays results in elongated car port which detracts from vitality of streetscape. Shed solution means the car becomes an inevitable part of the house's garden furniture.
Green Light! - Gated shed allows visual security from street to car parking and stops it being used as a store. There is easy access to homes and this typology of parking provision is economical and efficient when used in limited numbers.
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Space submitted by Sam Brown
14 October 2013