The site is located on a traditional residential street sandwiched between imposing, two storey Edwardian semi-detached houses and a smaller scale children’s day nursery. To the rear are extensive playing fields and mature trees forming the boundary to a sixth form college.
The site had never previously been developed and has only been used briefly as allotments, so the building plugs the visual gap in the street scene.
Extensive local consultations were undertaken with the local authority planning department and representatives of local residential groups which resulted in the development having the appearance to the street of a pair of semi-detached houses, with a scale and form appearing as a continuation of the existing houses, including bay windows with projecting gables. The accommodation mix of one five-bedroom house and three, two-bedroom flats was dictated by Planning Policy requirements.
The building sits close to the residential neighbour but further way from the nursery to accommodate a vehicular access to the parking area to the rear of the site as there was no on street parking permissible for the development.
The building is three storeys tall with the upper storey contained within the roof space. The roadside frontage follows the building line of the adjacent houses, with bay windows and gable roofs continuing the strong existing rhythm of the street scene.
The rear of the top floor incorporates a recessed balcony set within the roof and bifold doors which open up to create a continuation of the living space to the flats and bedroom to the house.
The materials are primarily brick with render to the bays and zinc to the roof. Detailing is simple, with recessed and projecting brickwork incorporated to create areas of highlight and shadow.