FOXDOWN, OVERTON
Sustainable Mixed Housing
Basingstoke, Hampshire
client
David Wilson Homes
This project was won in an open design-led competition and was selected as the most sustainable design proposal.
The scheme is for a mixed tenure housing development with a range of sizes of houses and flats totalling 75 homes on a 2.4 Ha site area.
We worked closely with the local community at the pre-planning stage and they contributed both local knowledge and design process involvement.
The site was a south facing hill side and offered an ideal opportunity for passive solar building orientation.
The scheme seeks to integrate the individual home within a clear urban design spatial framework by means of terraces and linked houses. A new semi circular public space was created accessed by a pedestrian route linking to the existing housing area to the north and the rail station beyond, the space provides a community focus for the scheme and has southerly views over the surrounding landscape.
The houses are designed with their main living spaces facing the southerly view and have unheated solar spaces outside the environmental envelope for year round family use.
Construction is in prefabricated timber frame clad in a combination of untreated cedar and coloured render.
The existing ecology of the site was identified and protected and the soft landscape design reinforced the natural surroundings through the planting of indigenous chalk downland plant species.
Environmental Features:
