The typical Georgian square creates a central vista looking onto gardens from residences to mimic a country estate. It creates open connections for people to meet and socialise. When first built, the typical Georgian house was designed to accommodate one family plus servants, cooks and stable hands.

However the place of the traditional Georgian square in the twenty first century has become impractical and unaccommodating. It is now filled with streets unable to cope with growing traffic, congestion and pollution. Former family abodes have become a multitude of apartments, heavily increasing the population density within the square. All of this creates isolation, the antithesis of a traditional Georgian square.

What if:
„h You raise the public square above street level, pushing all the noise and congestion below the square, recreating the Georgian concept of open vistas looking on to beautiful open green areas elevated by two storeys?
„h The areas under the raised square are filled with markets, shops and affordable living spaces to answer London¡¦s housing shortfall?
„h People were able to stay in the same square as they watched their families grow? The square would provide a mix of residential accommodation and ancillary amenity spaces. As families develop naturally people could move to larger accommodation more suited to their families¡¦ needs while staying in their local communities.

The Elevated Square provides a rich variety of living and amenity space, while maintaining strong family and community bonds by accommodating people within the same square, promoting lifelong personal and social connections.

Design and technologies

„h Daylight: A significant percentage of the front facade of the scheme is glazed, maximising the natural light that can enter the building and reducing the need for artificial lighting. The main living areas are elevated above street level to avoid shading by neighbouring buildings. The living areas also incorporate large double height spaces, which flood natural light deep within the plan.
„h Ventilation: The building has been designed with all the living and sleeping areas serviced from one central service zone. This zone houses all the bathrooms and kitchen areas arranged around a service riser running the entire height of the building. More importantly, the service zone also houses an open staircase with a retractable glass rooflight at the top. This open zone allows for natural stack ventilation in the summer - residents simply open the rooflight and windows in the occupied rooms to allow air to flow, expelling hot air and drawing in cool air.
„h Rainwater harvesting: The roof pitches toward the centre of the building where it meets the service riser connecting the roof to the plant room. Rainwater can be stored for later use in the storage tanks on the ground floor. The windows are also pushed back into the facade with a gutter detail so that they collect all water running off the face of the building.
„h Super-insulation: The FutureForm modular building system incorporates large amounts of insulation achieving a U-value of 0.21W/m2K.
„h Airtightness: As the system is fully prefabricated the buildings will achieve a very good level of airtightness.
„h Heat recovery: Mechanical ventilation heat recovery units are located in the plant room on the ground floor. These use the service riser running the full height of the building and benefit from the use of easily accessible floor service voids as part of the Future Form system.
„h Grey water: All the bathrooms are located next to the service riser making it very easy to collect and treat grey water in the plant room on the ground floor.
„h Food: All the houses benefit from a private kitchen garden on the third floor, making it possible for occupiers to grow their own vegetables.
„h Solar: The large expanse of open rooftop will provide 35sq m of solar thermal and photovoltaic cells.

Construction

The building is divided into 12 different sections. The main spine of the building holds the staircase and the service zone; this measures 2.5m by 5m by 3m. The rest of the building is made of FutureForm modules measuring 5m by 4m by 3m and these house no wet mechanical and electrical services.

The modules all fit on the back of a lorry and can be easily transported to site.

All the modules have a 150mm floor and ceiling zone allowing them to be lifted and bolted on top of one another.

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