The 3XA Townhouse is an exemplar contemporary sustainable urban dwelling, carefully designed to integrate the demands of urban living in the twenty first century. Principal considerations in the design of Tomorrows Townhouse are: flexibility in lifestyle and life stage requirements to create a lifetime family home
efficiency in energy performance to create an environmentally sustainable home
adaptability in layout of home and plot to create well-mannered streets and convivial neighbourhoods, engendering a strong sense of place. The house provides spacious and elegant living accommodation, employs passive environmental design principles and the FutureForm building system, and complies with level 5 of the Code for Sustainable Homes (subject to criteria specific to site conditions including ecology and orientation). This design strategy reflects both an urban scale and the scale of the individual house. Organisation of individual dwellings Active frontage to the street at all four levels to enable informal surveillance, with a piano nobile for principal living accommodation at first floor
Habitable room at ground level to ensure activity and animation toward the street
Principal entrance used by all, regardless of arrival by car, bike or on foot. The integrated garage provides covered vehicle parking but does not dominate the street elevation or change the entry sequence to the house
Key social spaces connect to both street frontage and rear garden, with a strong relationship to the outdoor rooms.
Elevated outdoor terrace and protected rear or side garden
Physical boundary to the street, with the property demarcated by hedge, wall or railing
Organisation enables flexible use of rooms depending on individual household requirements. This may be through selected customised options prior to new-build construction or through retrofitting within designed parameters
Ground floor flexibility within a consistent modular layout of adaptable sub-partitions can accommodate breakfast kitchen, home office and garden room, guest/au pair room and bathroom. First floor flexibility allows for kitchen diner and formal reception room at piano nobile, or home office and reception rooms, or platform accessible bedroom and Lifetime Homes compliant bathroom
Compliance with Lifetime Homes guidance, enabling family members to retain independent living through simple adaptations to the existing spatial layout.
Daylit rooms throughout, unless used primarily as storage space
Good space provision for storage. Recycling and bin arrangements designed in to minimise unnecessary intrusion inside and outside the dwelling
Gross internal area of 205sq m; ground floor footprint of 63sq m, accommodating 6-8 people. Urban layout, form and articulation Internal organisation of the dwelling corresponds to both terrace block and semi-detached villa configuration. Pairs of dwellings can be handed, offering variation in massing and roof form
Degrees of formality within the streetscape are achieved and principal streets, urban squares, corner plots and cross streets all evolve from the basic housetype
Internal room organisation enables the flexible position of fenestration and ensures natural policing of the neighbourhood as active frontages turn to address site specific conditions of corner, side street and pedestrian lane
Consistency of scale and rhythm is maintained through the repeated formal elements of ground storey masonry plinth, first floor projecting bay window and the use of vertically-proportioned window openings. Materials choices can respond to regional variations
Car parking is designed in to limit the visual impact of vehicles. Street parking is designated and relates to the rhythm of tree planting; off street parking is contained to prevent disruption to the physical continuity of front boundaries
Pedestrian permeability is prioritised throughout, balanced against a clear delineation between public, semi-public and private spaces
Roofscape responds to site, orientation and sun path
Average density of between 25 and 30 dwellings per hectare. Technology and environmental performance Use of modular construction employing FutureForm building system with each floor designed to transportable module sizes and subdivisions coordinated with the internal layout requirements. Modules incorporate site specific variations (eg, roofscape and orientation). Rooms are delivered to site fully finished, except the double height volume which requires elements of site completion
Micro-technology incorporated within the dwelling, subject to specific site conditions (including photovoltaic roof panels, solar water heating panels, air source/ground source heat pump, heat reclamation to the limited areas requiring extract ventilation, grey water harvesting and simple technology such as a garden water butt)
Passive design principles are employed throughout with intuitive user operation maintained for simplicity. Windows open for ventilation, stack effect ventilation operates within double height and stair well volumes. Passive solar heating may be employed subject to orientation
Code for Sustainable Homes pre-assessment level 5 of 84 points reached (with limited available information about site conditions)
Individual room-controlled underfloor or radiant panel heating
Simple servicing strategy with two distinct duct zones for primary services (including sprinkler system), allowing functional flexibility and adaptation over time
ICT infrastructure distributed throughout the house to enable home-working and home entertainment
Low maintenance schedule.
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