The nash partnership magazine 2014 Issue 1

Our first magazine of 2014 focuses on the

skillsets needed by a rich diversity of commissioning clients in light of the evident strengthening of the economy and the opportunities and challenges this brings for them.

Throughout the recession, we made training and developmental investments in our skills, which involve multi-skill team-working across and beyond our core skillset. We also sought to ensure our various professional teams are structured and staffed to deliver the management and flexibility we know our clients need.

Here, we highlight four major areas of investment, interest and opportunity in which our many clients are already actively involved. The magazine finishes with an update on recent site starts and completions

and our day-to-day work as a regular planning consultancy.

We are operating on a national basis, with work underway in Aberdeen, London and the furthest tip of Cornwall. In each of these cases it has been the blending of our skillsets and our ability to understand consultancy skill-mix requirements that has led to such instructions.

We found our investment in regeneration knowledge research and the agenda goals of central and local government to be very important in all of the projects we describe under the title ‘Local Economies’.

The evident housing shortage (particularly for young people) and the challenges of revitalising urban economies are all strong drivers in our current projects under the

heading ‘Urban Housing and Placemaking’.

A reflection of these pressures has been enhanced work in promoting strategic greenfield land. Local authorities, landowners, land developers, neighbourhood planning forums and parish councils all need to have professional skills at their side to help prioritise and select which sites and opportunities should be preferred or considered.

The complexity of handling change in the built environment has focused on the role of design management and lead consultancy as a way of thinking, acting and managing. These often need to run alongside the poorly defined role of ‘project management’ and are evidenced in many of

the projects we describe here.

We find bespoke projects for private clients continue to be an important test bed for new technological and energy management practice. Such projects are also an important training ground for our team skills in offering all our clients a bespoke rather than standard approach to service.

We have brought together a number of such bespoke projects by our n2 team, where design management is crucial to the task in hand.

We hope you will find this of interest and look forward to sharing the experience and understanding we have gained from the projects and issues reported here with you soon.

Introductionby Edward Nash

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In this Issue...

Local Economies 5

The importance of understanding how businesses operate before helping them to grow - from Bath to East London to Aberdeenshire.

Design Management and Lead Consultancy 10

What can clients expect from a lead consultancy or design management role? Edward Nash looks at the importance of ensuring consistency and co-ordination when multiple inputs are involved.

Urban Housing and Placemaking 12

In the light of an improving economy, confidence in house building is increasing and the agenda is changing. Read more about several Nash projects which show this wave of change.

Strategic Land 18

With housing growth set to put increased pressure on our towns and villages, Justine Leach looks at planning for the growth of places and people.

n2 19

Our n2 operation focuses on bespoke residential design to the highest quality. Daniel Lugsden and Kevin Balch explore what ‘quality’ means and how it can be measured.

On Site 22

An update on some of our recent projects and completions from across the country.

Contact UsBath Office: 23a Sydney Buildings, Bath BA2 6BZ Bristol Office: Prudential Buildings, Wine Street, Bristol BS1 2PHWebsite: www.nashpartnership.com Phone: 01225 442424email: mail@nashpartnership.comtwitter: @nashPLLP

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Kevin Balch Architect, Design DirectorAs the head of our heritage and cultural projects work, Kevin is experienced in taking on highly bespoke project briefs. He has worked on the development of larger economic regeneration schemes and also manages our n2 operation, providing bespoke residential design, management and services to private clients throughout the UK.

Bruce Clark Conservation ArchitectHead of ConservationBruce’s background is in listed building projects for institutions, private clients and local authorities. Bruce leads our conservation team and is particularly interested in the challenges of reducing the environmental impacts that come with the re-use of existing buildings.

Mel Clinton Director of Planning and RegenerationMel leads a team that works closely with our design professionals to provide a service founded on core planning capabilities. This service also combines research skills, understanding of regeneration and a focus on achieving delivery.

Justine Leach Urban Design and Landscape Director Justine enjoys working as part of a multidisciplinary team to deliver urban design, masterplanning and regeneration projects. She has worked extensively with design council CABE as a Built Environment Expert and as a member of the south west and national design review panels.

Robert Locke, Partner and Technical DirectorDrawing on more than 20 years of experience in the construction industry, Robert is responsible for developing the skills and knowledge of the practice to ensure projects meet the highest standards. Robert also offers our clients specialised services covering contractual advice, CDM co-ordination and party wall surveyor services.

Daniel Lugsden Architect, Design Director Daniel leads our leisure projects design team and brings a real passion to the creative process. He is a key member of the executive management team which develops our practice’s management systems. Daniel also manages our n2 operation, which provides bespoke residential design, management and services to private clients throughout the UK.

Edward Nash Senior PartnerOver the last 26 years, Edward has steered the development of the practice which he now leads with Robert. His sustained career in studying developmental history has influenced much of the practice’s evolving work. Edward’s wide range of experience has been behind our many projects in the regeneration sphere where understanding, analysis, project design management and delivery strategy have been essential ingredients.

Amanda Taylor Urban Design Director Amanda has a strong background in urban regeneration, masterplanning and housing, having designed schemes that range from 20 to 11,000 dwellings. Most of her team’s portfolio of work is regeneration-led, developing schemes of re-use in addition to new build.

Contributors

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Local EconomiesEnabling Businesses to Flourish

Economic activity sustains places and in

this sense is a consideration in many of our projects. However, creating a built environment to enable

established businesses to flourish and new enterprise to emerge is of particular significance. It is important to understand how businesses operate

and the broader trends that are now influencing patterns of economic activity. This includes the growing importance of personalisation and

specialisation of products and services, development of niche sectors, the effects of digital technology and more footloose patterns of business and working.

Waterway Regeneration in the Heart of Bath

The view towards the famous three-arched

Pulteney Bridge from the south is one of the most memorable images of Bath as a World Heritage City. It is flanked by the tall end of Argyle Street and, beyond, the rising terraces of the 18th and 19th century city skyline churches. On the left is the massive scale of the Edwardian Empire Hotel towering above Parade Gardens.

But below the roadway and behind the Colonnades linking Pulteney Bridge with the Empire lie huge 18th century vaults

which create the raised pavements and the more recent structure that carries that road around into Orange Grove to the south. This all comprises around 1,100m² of floorspace.

In 2012, Bath & North East Somerset Council rolled out plans to bring new energy and activities to the Guildhall and its markets. Of particular significance in this plan is the opening up of three ancient walkways which linked the city with the river.

The project involves creating two restaurants

worthy of such a prestigious site which offers exceptional views of Pulteney Bridge from water level. Many technical challenges need to be overcome: flood risk, vertical circulation, archaeology, ecology, acoustics and the intervention of significant structures into the public realm along Grand Parade itself. The scheme will have many benefits in opening up awareness of the river. The scheme will also illustrate the many layers of the history of parts of the city few knew

anything of before the Colonnades were built.

Nash Partnership was appointed for the project to act in the role of lead consultant and project architect. This involves coordinating the inputs of a large professional team and engaging with the multi-headed roles of the Council as landowner, developer and planning authority. The project has required us to anticipate much of how further phases of the wider Guildhall ambition can be addressed.

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Chinese Investment in London’s Third Business District

Last year, Boris Johnson named Advanced

Business Parks (ABP) as the developer selected to create London’s third business district after the City and Canary Wharf. The new district is to be formed on Greater London Authority land flanking the Royal Albert Dock and is immediately north of London’s City Airport.

ABP has established a model for developing commercial land on

strategic sites in China. Continental headquarters buildings for international businesses are clustered on such sites, which often involve hundreds of buildings built in just a few years. At 35 acres, the ABP site in London is substantial. However, City Airport design restrictions will limit the height of the buildings to between seven and 11 storeys.

Following our work in masterplanning and

creating the design code for ABP’s 90 million m² business park in Qingdao, Nash Partnership has been asked by the Chinese developer to assist them in the design of the opening building phase of the Royal Albert Dock scheme. The vast dock area has been largely undeveloped since its dockside buildings were cleared. The new district’s buildings will demand a boldness of design that distinguishes them as

effectively as No.1 Canary Wharf did when it was first established.

When the deal in London was announced, securing Chinese investment in this scheme was presented as a major coup. The development and its investment will help to ensure the City remains the main entry point for Asian money and high level service skills for Europe.

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Hitachi Capital plays a very important

role in the market town of Trowbridge in Wiltshire. Here, the business is a significant and growing employer with a skilled workforce. Delivering a new campus to meet the specific needs of the

business is of fundamental importance to Hitachi Capital’s future in the town and the continuing growth in employment that it plans to generate.

Nash Partnership worked very closely with the company to assess a wide range

of alternative sites, designing and securing planning permission for a new greenfield campus development on the edge of the town. The project is under construction to provide an office and associated vehicle preparation and storage

facilities. These respond to the setting and embrace the company’s design ethos of harmony to greatly enhance one of the main gateways to Trowbridge.

Distinctive Retail Environments

In his previous role, our Director of Planning and

Regeneration, Mel Clinton, led in the production of the retail strategy for Bath and the wider Bath & North East Somerset area. In recent consultancy work, we have paid close attention to understanding the approaches and investments needed for city and town centres to succeed.

Given the well-documented pressures on centres and reports

of widespread decline, distinctive and characterful retail environments are prized assets. Bath city centre retains a strong vitality through the quality of its environment and its mix of high street names and independent outlets. Within the city’s overall offer, Milsom Place is an intimate enclave of shops, restaurants and cafés set within a contemporary conversion of an historic back-land environment. It provides a distinctive,

mixed café/restaurant and niche retail offer which complements and physically connects two of Bath’s main shopping frontages on Milsom Street, and Broad Street. Nash Partnership has been providing planning, strategic and design advice to the L&R Group, including achieving planning permission for change of use from retail for the establishment of Carluccios restaurant, within the most visible

and significant of the courtyard spaces within Milsom Place. Following this success, we are continuing to provide advice to the L&R Group in respect of configuration, use and enhancement to enable Milsom Place to consolidate and develop its unique contribution to Bath city centre.

The Local Dimension of Global Business

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Lessons from the Somer Valley

Midsomer Norton is a former coal mining

town within the Somer Valley and has tended to be characterised as an industrial town of limited appeal. It does, however, have many of the ingredients for its future to be one as an attractive market town, with access to Bath and Bristol and a high quality of life offer.

These are things that can play an important role in developing and renewing the town’s economy.

Within Midsomer Norton, the Alcan factory sat in an elevated position above the town centre and dominated the surrounding residential neighbourhood. It employed over 200 people until its closure

in 2006. This closure, the bland, standardised housing surrounding the factory and the location of such a large industrial use in the heart of a residential neighbourhood were symptomatic of the challenges facing the town. Planning policy, however, was primarily focused on one of these factors, through protection of the site entirely for employment use.

This planning designation was not deliverable and even had it been, it would have failed to enable the site to make its best contribution to the future of the town and its community.

In developing proposals for the site, it was

important to understand the town’s evolution, analyse the challenges and opportunities before it and identify what its future can be. This was achieved through a combination of research and extensive engagement with a wide range of stakeholders.

Providing a new housing offer together with workspace targeted at the needs of emergent new economy businesses was identified through this work. It was seen as an important component in a strategy for development of the local economy and building on the town’s undervalued quality of life potential.

From a starting point of strong planning policy

resistance, a unanimous Planning Committee approval was secured for a mix of new homes, live/work units, a combined community facility and small office units, open space, pedestrian and cycle link to the town and an off-site workhub. Construction is now well underway and the uplift in quality and status that the project brings is evident.

Our work in the Somer Valley tells us that the planning system can too easily reinforce under-performance, but when applied in a dynamic manner with a regenerative mind set, new perspectives and potential can be opened up.

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Associate Daniel Lugsden has found the

flight from Bristol Airport to Aberdeen essential to his work in advising on a new luxury hotel and spa at the 6,500-acre Aberdeenshire Ballogie Estate.

Daniel’s appointment recognises his experience in helping leisure operators develop designs around the brand creation work

of branding consultants. His involvement is leading rapidly to the submission of a planning application.

Many of the practice’s recent projects have involved working in both manufacturing and leisure services delivery. This work has seen us assisting business leaders who need to commission new built environment infrastructure

with a particular focus on serving the operational needs of a carefully researched brand-defined business. We have found many of the conceptual disciplines used by the branding industry to be useful to our own design concept work.

The Ballogie Estate commission is typical of the broadly based

design management consultancy we now undertake. This type of consultancy uses and combines our own skillsets in design, landscape, planning and regeneration and blends with a wide diversity of other specialist contributions in a ‘team design’ approach.

Developing Designs Around a Brand

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The areas of professional

skill needed for built environment projects change as the planning process or best practice management make new demands.

Although Nash Partnership now embraces architecture, planning, urban/landscape design, economic regeneration and urban geography, the design management skillset that architecture was once seen to embrace has always been part of our Practice commissions.

When architecture as a professional discipline first emerged, little practical distinction was made between the roles of designer and builder or developer. Since then, the delivery of built environment consultancy

has broadened out greatly and now such projects require many kinds of specialist inputs in engineering, environmental services, quantity surveying and project management.

Each of these is supported by even more specialist disciplines to demonstrate to local planning authorities that developmental change will not bring harm to interests of acknowledged importance, such as ecology, archaeology, air quality, water quality etc.

The separating out of all these skillsets has increasingly pointed to the need for the role of lead consultant or design manager.

A design-aware coordinator needs to manage the inputs of other

consultants and be able to ensure consistency of understanding throughout the project. They also need to ensure that consistency in the design ambition runs through an overall design project pathway to deliver the design ambitions for the user/client. This is the role that Nash Partnership has played in our most significant projects, including the Kingston Mill regeneration in Bradford-on-Avon and our current work for Bath & North East Somerset Council in creating a new pattern of use for undercrofts next to the Grade I listed Pulteney Bridge.

This commission is the first phase of the Council’s ambitions to give the 18th century Guildhall block a pattern of active economic, social and cultural re-use

worthy of this location in the World Heritage City. Its re-use requires design work to be closely interrogated against issues like flood, archaeology, ecology, highway activities and many established patterns of use.

Design management/lead consultancy requires a different set of skills to the now common discipline of project management.

Project management is defined as ‘managing the delivery of the project goal’, whereas design management or lead consultancy has to address the coordination and ongoing refinement of a design process. This involves many inputs into a set of design goals defined by both a user client and their project management support.

Design Management and Lead Consultancy

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A New Urban Role for Edge-of-Centre Development Sites

Before the 2008 recession, much work

was done to bring new uses and new development to our town and city centres. Most of this change was important to stem the growth of edge-of-urban development and make these urban centres work again - economically, socially and culturally.

However, the economy is now building once more. The suburban dream that has driven so much greenfield development for decades is losing its attraction

in the face of traffic congestion, energy costs and poor suburban amenities. This means we are seeing a new role emerging for edge-of-centre redevelopment.

Such sites are now seen as attractive locations to create new types of housing and mixed use activity. They can give residents and workers good access to main public transport infrastructure and new amenities and the social and cultural offering is revitalised.

Our regeneration team, led by Regeneration Planner Mel Clinton and Geographer/Researcher Leigh Dennis, is throwing a spotlight on the value growth opportunities that such development sites will bring to those who invest in them. They are also creating the research-based economic evidence to bring about the necessary confidence to do so.

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Urban Housing and PlacemakingIn the recessionary

years, pressure for new house building and the working out of central government’s new planning regime have seen work in promoting urban and village expansion and real calls for development within the green belt. However, evidence

of greater confidence in house building and reactionary pressures will put the spotlight once more on brownfield developments which proved impossible in the recent years. These include developments formerly unviable because of high values, high

decontamination costs and uncertainties about who the resident market should be.

There is a different agenda now. For instance, more developers are prepared to offer creatively designed edge-of-centre family housing. There is also evidence

of a much more flexible approach to conversion, shared ownership and collaborative projects to create the housing models sought by younger generations of residents.

In these pages we outline several such projects as part of our current workload.

Living by the River

Part of the economic regeneration strategy

of Bath arises from recognising its advantages as a compact and characterful city. These benefits for new business locations will become enhanced as new areas of housing are created as an aspect of mixed use development along its long undervalued river corridor.

Many employers in the city are challenged in their expansion plans by a lack of affordable housing in both open market and rented sectors. To sustain business growth, creating a diversity

of new housing offers suitable for graduates and small households will be essential.

We have been working with several landowners and developers to bring new economic activity and living to important sites on the river. In these schemes, recognising the way the river’s banks can join with new landscape opportunities and existing green space is an important design thread. New public access and river-based activity will be stimulated by such design.

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New Housing in the Malverns

Ensleigh: A New Residential District for Bath

We have been working for developers Blue

Cedar Homes to create a re-use model for the former site of the Malvern Water Bottling Plant. This site is particularly attractive, lying below the western slopes of the Malvern Hills with many central trees. Although initially allocated by the Local Planning Authority as a protected employment site, consultations within Colwall’s village have brought support for putting a central location to a mixture of land uses to meet a number of village needs.

The planning application scheme includes a 46-bed nursing home and a

new village shop. It also incorporates affordable housing, a range of small household housing and apartments for local starter home demand and a group of specialist designed houses for older people. The design has been prepared with care to bring the overall architectural consistency

to such a diversity of uses and bring such an attractive but now closed site into the public realm for the first time. This typifies the management role Nash Partnership now plays in projects, which require the integration of specialist consultancy inputs. These include archaeology,

ecology, acoustics, traffic, flood management, underground services and utilities, arboriculture and affordable housing. Our management role ensures all such consultancy inputs are satisfactorily addressed as the design evolves and matures.

The World Heritage City of Bath is tightly

circumscribed by statutory green belt land and the prospect of meeting housing need by redrawing green belt boundaries has been a significant political topic for the city for many years. However, the release of three substantial former Ministry of Defence employment sites close to the city’s fringes has created the opportunity to build around 1,000 houses within the existing city limits.

Nash Partnership was appointed in 2013 to masterplan and design the redevelopment of the prominent and sensitively

located former Ensleigh MoD enclave. We are working with developers Linden Homes Western and Bloor Homes to develop proposals for new

dwellings on this site. As a flat site with few trees, our challenge is to create a new district worthy of a prestigious Lansdown address. The scheme

has to accommodate the phased release of the site by the MoD over a six-year period. It also needs to retain the expectation that other plateau land

to the north, held out of green belt, could in time come into development and substantially change the setting of the famous Beckford Tower.

As a relatively isolated site, it will be important to make the development feel self-sustaining and able to generate a community identity. It is also crucial to keep in mind that the area will come into public accessibility for the first time after 70 years of military use. These considerations are generating strategies to create attractive, pedestrian-friendly streets and public spaces, at the heart of which will be off-street car parking, generous front garden space and well-located solutions for waste and recycling.

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Paintworks - Phase 4

We have been continuing our

work on the well-known new economy workspace development which is now at the heart of Bristol’s Enterprise Zone. Located between phase 2 and the

current phase 3, which has a strong housing bias, Paintworks’ owners Verve are exploring what form of regeneration should take place in this sector of the site. The scheme will carefully blend starter

apartment homes and live/work opportunities with a variety of easily adaptable workspace and social space. This will place several storeys of deck-accessed accommodation around the retention of

one of the site’s existing industrial buildings. In the process, this will create attractive and varied public spaces containing street-level activities that will add to the buzz of Paintworks as a whole.

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New Models of Housing Delivery

‘Custom-build’ seems to be the term of the

moment. While it doesn’t describe all the models it seems to have become the shorthand for alternative approaches to providing new homes.

Custom-build housing, including self-build, has tended to be viewed as something of a fringe activity in the UK, although it produces 8-10% of all housing completions per year. In other European countries, such as Germany, France, the Netherlands and Sweden, the proportion is between 30% and 60%.

Now, there is a desire, reaching from local communities and local authorities, up to national government level, for scaling up UK custom-build delivery. The government has, for instance, set up a new fund of £30m to support custom-build initiatives. It is not a huge sum, especially compared to say, the Help to Buy Scheme, but it does signal the growing significance of this model.

Furthermore, from February 2014 an exemption from Community Infrastructure Levy charges has been available to anyone who builds or commissions their own

home for their own occupation as their sole or main residence, as well as single dwelling self-built communal development.This is likely to act as a spur for further activity in this sector and for

landowners, RSLs and developers to consider new models of delivery to take advantage of the finacial benefit.

In Europe, local authorities tend to play an active role in assembling sites, establishing broad masterplan frameworks and providing infrastructure, with up-front investment then recovered through subsequent plot sales. In the UK this model is less applicable, due to local authority borrowing restrictions. Other organisations are therefore needed to fulfil this role and this brings developers and registered housing providers more firmly into the picture. Community land trusts are another potential route, although they will need to raise

the money for up-front investment.

Up-front investment and supporting financial products are fundamental to facilitating up-scaling of the custom-build sector. The connection between investment funds, the particular opportunities of specific localities and new delivery models is of key importance for future housing supply and the wider built environment sector. This has been a central feature of our regeneration work at Nash Partnership and we have recently been putting a particular focus

on discussions with major pension and investment funds to explore the opportunities for supporting new development and delivery models.

Not surprisingly, another important issue is that of planning control. Put simply, custom-build is about flexibility and variety. However, the UK planning system seeks control and certainty and this is quite an issue for delivering custom-build housing schemes at a significant

scale. At Nash Partnership we are exploring the potential for planning policy and development management tools to create flexible frameworks needed to facilitate custom-build housing at a significant scale of delivery. These include using the neighbourhood planning and community right to build provisions under the Localism Act, linked to design codes.

Also, while diversity and flexibility are key principles, they could support delivery at a larger scale. We are also exploring the potential for design principles and concepts to establish a variety of ‘base templates’ that can provide a foundation for both efficiency and diversity in the provision of new homes through custom-build models.

The challenge now is to deliver some exemplars at a larger scale to really pick up the momentum. A decision by Cherwell Council in north

Oxfordshire to purchase MoD land near Bicester for around 1,000 custom-build homes is a mark of the growing significance of this model, alongside the established development models, in helping to meet our pressing need for new homes.

Custom-build housing, including self-build, has tended

to be viewed as something of a fringe activity in the UK.

The challenge now is to deliver some exemplars at a larger scale to really pick up the momentum.

Up-front investment and supporting financial products are fundamental to facilitating up-

scaling of the custom-build sector.

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Planning and Principles for a New Place in Worcestershire

New Uses in the High Street

Acting for national house builders Bloor

Homes, we have been working to promote urban expansion on the south eastern edge of the city of Worcester. Our proposals here have secured full planning permission for the scheme of 150 new dwellings.

This was a site of previously troubled planning history. Crucial to the successful planning outcome has been building the design on a set of strong principles. These principles will bring it identity and will also dictate its overall design landscape and green infrastructure, approach to built form and material details.

So often, housing ends up as just being housing. It might respond to the urban design fashions of the day or look more like a village than it would have done if designed in the 1980s, adopt ‘urban block principles’ or abandon any idea of car parking courtyards. However, applying such guidelines without giving it a real sense of its own spirit does nothing to make it into a place where people really want to live.

At Uffnell’s Farm, we drew all of these principles from the study of distinguishing elements of many of the surrounding villages to give it spirit. We also identified a set of principles more individual

than applying the standard rule book of ‘good urban design’. In low density rural villages, the way buildings relate to the street is very different than in suburbia: garden boundaries are

much more evident, vistas much longer etc.

Another important benefit with this scheme has been to help the developer establish a ‘place concept

model’ from the start. As the scheme progresses through construction and sale, all further stages of occupation can be tested against this model. Such tools are important to

larger scale developers whose quality and programme management systems invariably risk bringing uniformity where diversity is better.

We know that our high streets are

changing rapidly, but are they the right place for solving our housing shortage? The government response to the Portas Review recommended “encouraging more people to live in their town centres and maintain them as vibrant places”. It consulted on plans to make it easier for shop owners to convert their properties into homes. Planning Minister Nick Boles got front page coverage for wanting new

homes for pensioners in town centres to help to solve the crisis of Britain’s growing population and to help prevent the death of local high streets. The Georgian town of Cockermouth in Cumbria was one of the first to pioneer a Neighbourhood Development Order which it is using to allow the conversion of the upper floors of commercial properties on two town centre streets.

It is absolutely right that the government

thinks about the changing nature of our town centres and how this can contribute towards a wider programme to relieve the chronic undersupply of homes. From the outstanding success of our schemes in Bradford-on-Avon and Bath, we understand the benefits they bring to the local economy and how they add vibrancy to the local area. The re-use and regeneration of buildings in historic town centres and conversion to residential

use are issues close to our heart at Nash. We have also been investigating how custom-build groups might access town centre buildings for conversion to affordable dwellings. In the office, we have been holding a series of think tank sessions using the creative capital of our young designers to consider the design and planning implications that might be involved.

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Aspirational Housing for Bristol

Despite its economic success, Bristol’s

development as a major city has proved poorly structured, partly through the fragmentation of its governance across a large number of local authorities. As a result, it has long had the reputation of offering housing that is overly uniform and schools being below average in their quality. Both factors have led to many workers in Bristol choosing to live well beyond the city’s boundaries.

As with many developed towns and cities, the role of governance in making planning decisions is a major problem here. Within the developed city, theoretical opportunities for brownfield redevelopment or spatial infill appear to be able to address housing number need. However, all around the hinterland, in adjacent authorities and also the green belt site, opportunities come under

speculative pressure. The constituencies within the city oppose green belt development as a political reality but the surrounding local authorities also find it difficult to make a case for greenfield development as the planning and development needs of the city are not their concern. Central government has

placed on them a ‘duty to cooperate’, but balancing these challenges is proving far from easy.

We believe such issues need to be evaluated far less in terms of housing numbers and more in terms of the quality of housing and the lifestyle offers afforded. The first question

should not be ‘should and can development be within city limits or beyond?’ but more ‘does this place - this economic centre - have the diversity of housing needed by a healthy economy and if not, where should it be located?’

If an urban centre does not provide the kinds of housing potential or

existing residents aspire to and they choose to live some distance from their workplace, other aspects of urban health suffer. Public and private transport is challenging, the city’s social and cultural life are poorer and many edge-of-centre and suburban areas go into a slow decline,

which affects the quality of schools.

We are currently promoting the development of a site on Bristol’s western fringe which has been conceived to offer aspirational housing to people keen to make their working lives in Bristol. It will be low density and incorporate many lessons for characterful urban village living, offering residents attractive perimeter open space and allotments, with good links with surrounding footpaths and access to public transport. Our particular concern is to ensure it will support the growth and development of many large trees, frequently lost in highway management considerations. Now, so often, small urban gardens make modern, even suburban development something of a desert for trees.

‘Does this place - this economic centre - have the diversity of housing needed by a healthy economy and if not, where

should it be located?’

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Strategic LandLocally Defined Approaches to Housing Land Availability

Towns and villages have historically evolved

in response to a variety of pressures. They move through a cycle of change in much the same way as the natural environment, which is in a constant state of flux, developing and changing through the seasons. This metaphor with nature and the garden is a useful one: as a practice, we recognise new development as a dynamic process with new growth flourishing as part of a period of spring renewal.

The predicted estimates for housing growth put increased pressure on our towns and villages to embrace sustainable development as positive growth. We believe there is more to planning for the growth of places and people than considering the narrow focus of ‘deliverability’ and the technical approach to evaluating the suitability of sites required by a Strategic Housing Land

Availability Assessment (SHLAA) process.

Our recent work in the village of Beckington in Somerset has needed to consider these issues in analysing the options available for delivering housing growth on a number of sites outside of the established settlement boundary. The community recognised the need to embrace growth in their village to support the economy and local services, but it couldn’t be

at any cost. It needed to be in the right place to add to its special character and sustainability.

We embrace the approach that is required by the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to establishing

policies that are “based on stated objectives for the future of the area and an understanding and evaluation of its defining characteristics”.

The core planning principles of the NPPF also reinforce the need for planning to be a creative exercise to enhance and improve places as well as take account of the different roles and character of different areas.

The first step of our approach is to understand the key characteristics of a place in terms of character and identity, spatial pattern, and sustainability. We follow this with identifying the opportunities for change before setting out a proposition for evolutionary growth to sustain and enhance the essence of place. It is then that potential development sites can be assessed in terms of contributing to that future.

We understand the value of places and are known for our sensitive and creative approach to regeneration and planning for growth. We don’t exclude other issues such as employment and economics, culture and environment, all of which contribute to the complete picture of sustainability. We are committed to approaches that deliver great places for people to live in.

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Like many architects, the early years of Edward Nash

Architects involved a great many small scale domestic alterations which formed the mainstay of our work. Over the years, the projects have become larger but we never abandoned the very special bespoke design opportunities presented by designing a one-off house or listed building alterations. Our n2 brand showcases these specific projects without the distractions of the other aspects of what we do.

These projects give us the opportunity to explore the special relationship between a specific design and its context in a way that is quite different from the larger projects. It also provides excellent experience for our younger architects who get first-hand experience of working closely with a project

architect at every stage of the design process.

For many clients, we simplify the decision process and just ‘make it happen’. For others, design is critical and for many, environmentally responsible designs are the key. But overall, we aim to make the process engaging and enjoyable for everyone involved.

Some clients come to us by personal recommendation via our involvement with one of their commercial interests. However, many come to us without any prior experience of building a house and they are looking for an architect who can lead them through the process and manage the many pitfalls which might otherwise spoil a once in a lifetime self-build project.

Many of our favourite projects are those in which the client is actively interested in the design

process and the selection of materials and detailing. At this level we are able to introduce to the team the necessary engineers, specialists, interior designers and contractors who all have a common goal of the best possible design solutions that can be implemented to the highest quality.

But what do we mean by ‘quality’ and can it be defined? Perhaps more importantly, how is it delivered and measured? For us, a big part of the ‘quality’ question is getting to know the client and the site.

Clients may define what quality is for them based on their needs and preferences. Quality is

therefore the perception that the client has, and it is influenced by their current knowledge/understanding and experience; it therefore changes over time.

Importantly, a ‘quality product’ is not the same as an ‘expensive product’, as this distinction is based on our value judgements. But poor quality and an expensive product (or service) rarely go hand in hand.

We have a number of new and exciting projects currently moving through the design studio and will be updating the n2 project portfolio as these projects progress and will maintain a select mix of the best projects online.

Few locations have the planning sensitivity of our

work in the World Heritage City of Bath. This rang particularly true when we secured planning permission to replace a bungalow with a three-storey dwelling in the gap between the famous Lansdown and Somerset Crescents.

The site was particularly challenging for several reasons. Not only was the area largely wooded with existing evidence of Roman burials, it was also an important part of the grounds of William Beckford’s Lansdown Crescent home. The site was also set in the shadow of an ancient protected tree and traversed by a large mains sewer.

But, deep in its wooded dell, it enjoys generous gardens. We designed the house in the manner of a Palladian bridge to span the steep gully. We also added an Italian tower for a touch of romanticism in an area rich in views. It has been gratifying to see the house brought to completion in accordance with the permitted design.

Designing for Heritage-Sensitive Sites: Somerset Lane

Contact n2

Email: kbalch@n2design.co.uk or dlugsden@n2design.co.uk

Phone: 01225 442424Website: www.n2design.co.ukTwitter: @n2bespokedesign

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Our work at the Grade II listed Holystreet Manor

is nearing completion and has fully exercised our team’s communication skills.

Holystreet Manor is set within the Dartmoor National Park and is steeped in history, being one of only 16 farms in the area listed in the

Doomsday survey. We were commissioned to help rationalise the internal layout of the manor building, which had seen many evolutions of use over the past one hundred years.

Given the manor’s status as a listed building, the project presented us with some physical, policy and political constraints.

However, we also saw great potential for the building, as did our client, and recognised the significant opportunities to make improvements. These included adding new extensions to maximise the potential of the manor’s unique location.

One of our practice’s strengths is envisioning the finished building and

engaging others to do the same, which really came to the fore on this project. We were pushing the limits of this listed building and its grounds. Our skills in working with and communicating the client’s vision and expectations were vital in helping everyone involved to understand the opportunities presented

Holystreet Manor

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by this historic building. By engaging local stakeholders at an early stage, we helped to steer this project through the statutory process and enabled the project to be seen as more than just another proposal to alter a listed building. There were some brave moves proposed to the building,

and even though our research gave reason and justification to those changes, it was still vital to ensure that everyone was excited by and engaged with what the end result could be.

Communication of the vision and maintaining a level of excitement and interest is always of great

benefit to a project across all stages, from feasibility to planning and through to construction. The more complex and testing the project, therefore, the more communication is key to ensuring the complexities are negotiated, resolved and rewarded.

A heart-warming feeling of satisfaction is the result,

not just for us but also for our client. There is a wonderful feeling of space and movement around the building, with special ‘moments’ in all sorts of areas for our client and their guests to enjoy.

� Internal rationalisation of the plan, including linking the principal rooms together efficiently, giving the main stair more presence in the plan, and opening up light, views and vistas to what were long corridors

� Creating a central focus point to the plan from what was an unused space. We did this by glazing an inner two-storey courtyard to link various key spaces both visually and physically

� Creating a bridge through the inner courtyard from the master bedroom and guest suite to the new pool house embedded in the side gardens

� A new pool house buried in the sloping side gardens

� A new reed-filtered heated pool (heated via the electricity generated by the on-site water wheel on the River Teign)

� A new oak garden room, giving a well-needed sun space to the southern aspect

� A new tennis court and protective ornate fencing

� A new kitchen garden with ornate greenhouse linking various landscape features together around the site

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Hitachi Capital Commercial Vehicle Solutions

On Site

Our work at the new £7m, state-of-the-art office in Trowbridge is nearly complete. The 1,730m² site has office space for up to 200 people and showcases a light and airy open plan office space with plenty of natural light. We provided design and planning services and have worked closely with our client and Midas Construction to deliver the finished development.

The development’s energy efficient design employs a wealth of green initiatives including solar panels, electric car charging points and energy efficient lighting. High quality insulation and advanced heating technology will also contribute to a reduced carbon footprint.

Sydney Lawn, Bathwick

We secured planning permission in Bathwick for new apartments at Sydney Gardens and in the context of several Grade I listed buildings.

The planning permission was technically challenging, with issues to address in being so close to a railway cutting and affecting trees and historic boundaries.

It is one of many schemes we have brought forward in a sensitive part of the World Heritage City, but residential values have supported many well-detailed and well-built developments here. Construction by Ashford Homes is due to complete this year.

Mill Lane, Bradford-on-AvonThe construction of six new dwellings is now complete at a former car park site in the heart of Bradford-on-Avon’s conservation area. Development of the site, which formed part of the planning unit of our Kingston

Mill development, was deemed to be beneficial to the area’s character.

The project was completed by purchasing developer Ashford Homes, who have delivered the design to a very high standard.

Chartered Institution HQ, Central LondonThe complex conversion project of Saffron Hill in London is likely to complete soon. The project has involved designing and coordinating a technically challenging new HQ for the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management.

Our client’s objective was to relocate their current staff, allow for expansion and introduce penthouse apartments. Due to site constraints, the work involved adding two new storeys of apartments and excavating the basement.

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Factory redesign for renowned gun makerOur work for an internationally renowned gun and rifle maker has started on site. The redesign of its

factory includes a new underground test firing range, workshops, retail storage and a working and visitor environment.

Company HQ, BristolConstruction work has started on a new Bedminster HQ for specialist joinery contractor Bray and Slaughter. The company has occupied the site since 1900 and we are reconfiguring the space for them to enable a more efficient usage and to support their future aspirations as an already well-established

contractor. The redevelopment project involves demolishing an old office building and converting a joinery mill, turning 415m² of light industrial use into a vibrant office space which responds to current and future business need. The site’s redevelopment is likely to be complete in mid-June.

Bath Riverside Low Energy CentreThe conversion of a redundant Wessex Water pumping station in Bath is in final commissioning. The building has been converted into an energy centre to provide low/zero carbon energy for heating and hot water for the greater part of the Bath Riverside. This key element of the £450m regeneration of Bath Riverside has now been completed in line with the Local Authority’s policy to support sustainable development and ensure the whole site of c.2,000 homes achieves

sustainable homes code level 4.

We developed the scheme in detail with the end users to ensure that the complex services engineering requirements could be met on a very tight site with a multiplicity of below-ground services. The building is due to become operational in spring 2014, enabling developers Crest Nicholson Regeneration to meet key stage planning obligations for the surrounding housing development.

Former St John’s School, Bristol Downs We are working on the construction phase of the conversion of the former St John’s School building into five houses. The project will also see two new mews houses built on the site in Upper Belgrave Road. Several extensions and outbuildings which

are not part of the original 1850s building will be demolished as part of the project. Our work includes a working drawings package, condition discharge, site assistance and quality control monitoring for the client.

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Other NewsSt Pauls project recognised at National AwardsOur work on the regeneration of St Paul’s in Cheltenham was ‘highly commended’ in the ‘Best Regeneration Project’ category at the Housebuilder Awards in London. The awards recognise excellence in all aspects of the industry and demonstrate quality in terms of design, build and service to the customer.

We also brought home a ‘highly commended’

from the National Housing Awards, also in the ‘Best Regeneration Project’ category. Along with our work at Kingston Mills, the project was also a finalist at the national Placemaking Awards. It has also won in the ‘new homes’ category of the Cheltenham Civic Awards, sponsored by Cheltenham Borough Council.

‘Highly Commended’ at Building and Design Awards

Work done by Nash Partnership has been ‘highly commended’ by Bath & North East Somerset Council at the Building and Design Quality Awards.

Our work to listed buildings at the former Temple Primary School in Keynsham was highly commended by

the Council in the ‘Design Quality’ category.

The B&NES Building and Design Awards recognise developers and local builders working in the area. The scheme highlights high standards of workmanship, project management and excellence in the design of buildings.

New design committee role for Justine Leach Urban Design and Landscape Design Director Justine Leach has been invited to join the Taunton NHS Design Committee. As part of the plan to build new wards for surgical inpatients at Musgrove Park Hospital, the Jubilee Building has recently opened.

Justine’s role on the NHS Design Committee is in

addition to her role as a panel member for the South West Regional Design Review panel. She has recently been reviewing a scheme which is part of the £75 million masterplan for Sutton Harbour, to transform it into a national destination.

Development plans approved for significant site in Trowbridge

Nash Partnership client Optimisation Developments and Prorsus has been granted approval on appeal for the development of a derelict site in Trowbridge.

Plans to develop the 4.3-hectare site at the former Bowyers factory in Trowbridge were rejected in 2012 but have since been approved after a public hearing at Trowbridge Civic Centre. The new scheme will include a multi-screen cinema, a supermarket, restaurants and a pub. The development will help

to regenerate this part of Trowbridge while saving an important group of 19th century buildings and 20th century mills.

We provided specialist advice including heritage statements and an analysis of listed buildings as part of the planning and listed buildings application. We also provided conservation planning advice on the alteration of existing buildings and an analysis of the heritage issues facing the site and the wider town.

Bath Office: 23a Sydney Buildings, Bath BA2 6BZ

Bristol Office: Prudential Buildings, Wine Street, Bristol BS1 2PH

Website: www.nashpartnership.com

Phone: 01225 442424

email: mail@nashpartnership.com

twitter: @nashPLLP