This design is based on London’s terraced street, an urban that contributes to social continuity and sustainability by providing quality, flexibility and sense of permanence.

Key features that allow communities to flourish are:

• street facing individual front doors and windows creating an outside room
• frontage lines with defensible space following existing street patterns
• flexibility, made possible with a rear mews street of smaller scale
• mix of house sizes and tenure with similar urban form and appearance
• scale of four-storey street elevation matches adjacent houses with a mono-pitch roof slope to the garden.

The architect’s proposal adapts a nineteenth century typology to the demands of climate change, technology and housing need to achieve:

• family houses with predominantly south, west or east facing living spaces
• single aspect mews with L-shaped courtyards for privacy
• secure private gardens with south orientation allowing large rear windows
• roofs with south facing slope to benefit from solar energy
• green roof for habitat and surface water attenuation.

The proposed layout achieves an optimum balance of these factors as a twenty-first century solution to the terrace.

Balance of brief and emerging design guidance

The architect proposes family size houses created in street terraces that can achieve a balance of urban design, economy of construction, environmental performance and land use factors.

The street and mews approach with careful balance of terrace width and depth creates a varied range of family house sizes with the majority being three-bedroom five person homes, including wheelchair accessible housing and units meeting the Lifetime Homes standard.

Private gardens and children’s play space with secure access and surveillance
are provided to all dwellings, in accordance with the Islington Planning Standards Guidelines

The width of frontage is critical to increasing options contributing to liveability, such as entrance hallway, garden access, and naturally daylit and ventilated bathrooms. The proposed layout achieves Lifetime Homes standard with a wider internal entrance area, entrance level living space, WC and shower, potential stair lift and bedroom hoist.

The layout benefits for sustainability are: a thermally efficient terrace form, maximum dual aspect houses, no north facing single aspect rooms, providing all habitable rooms with natural ventilation, and living rooms with access to south facing private open space.

Inclusive design, diversity and equality

Mixed tenure and social integration can be achieved with a terrace street through:

• similarity of appearance between buildings with different tenures
• sufficient space and flexibility to allow occupiers to adapt to life changes while remaining in the dwelling.

Security is of importance in providing community cohesion. The street provides a clear distinction between private and communal space. Frontages with individual entrances overlooking the communal space provide natural surveillance. Front bay windows will be provided to increase the pattern of observation for security of the frontages.

Optimised size and shape of the terrace house footprint will help achieve inclusivity, allowing flexibility for future change, quality of life for occupants, blurring of class distinctions, and the accommodation of the needs of children and ageing populations.

Rear gardens will provide a minimum 15sq m of private garden as a usable extension of the internal space, accessible only from within the dwelling for security.

Cycle storage in a secure enclosed space with waste recycling containers will be integrated in the design of front gardens and provide a buffer of defensible space.

Artists’ involvement in the design of architectural details will create a memorable public realm and will engage the local community in the design process.

Environmental design

The scheme is designed to level 5 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, featuring:

• a compact plan with a highly insulated and air sealed envelope to reduce heating requirement
• all rooms to have adequate windows for daylight to reduce energy required for lighting
• all rooms to have opening windows for natural ventilation to reduce overheating and energy wastage
• large windows to increase useful passive solar gains
• glazing will include shading and insulation, which can be varied to suit the climate and season to reduce both overheating and heat loss
• stack effect passive ventilation allows heat to be recovered and recycled, particularly in spring and autumn
• passive heat storage and recycling in the thermal mass
• roof mounted photovoltaic and solar thermal heating provide potential for self sufficiency in renewable energy.
• geothermal heating underground source.

Building materials come from renewable and sustainable sources, and include:

• Future Form light gauge steel structural frame construction with organic insulation
• non-sulphur plaster construction for walls
• organic paints, natural timber and clay tile floor coverings.

Reduced rainwater run-off will conserve and recycle water, with:

• rainwater from roofs is stored for recycling for landscape irrigation
• efficient taps and appliances minimise water consumption
• green roofs to retain rain water run-off and create habitat.

Waste recycling includes:

• separated storage for waste product recycling to reduce waste
• composting for organic waste with methane extraction.

Green transport includes

• Secure cycle storage within house plots
• Recharging points for electric cars
• Communal parking and recharging facility in layout for car pool.

© British Homes Awards |  Site design: LW design