stephen proctor of proctor and matthews: abode… · stephen proctor, proctor and matthews: abode,...

STEPHEN PROCTOR OF PROCTOR AND MATTHEWS: ABODE, NEW HALL, HARLOW, AN URBAN EXTENSION WITH STRONG IDENTITYThe Road Ahead, Velux training centre, 4 December 2002

© Design for Homes 2003

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head conference, Velux centre, Decem

ber 4 2002

The Road Ahead, Velux training centre, 4 December 2002

STEPHEN PROCTOR

What we are all discussing is turning ‘spaces into places’. I would like to talk about one particular development at New Hall, Harlow and how, as designers, we have attempted to create a sense of place and identity.

As a practice, Proctor and Matthews is very interested in context and locality, but we are also interested in the media world: the world of Jamie Oliver - cooking as theatre or the idea of Diurmud Gavin and the designer garden. The way lifestyles change through media influence. As architects we like to look at historical precedents, and typologies but we also like to question the final outcome in terms of dwellings which will encourage and explore 21st Century lifestyles.

New Hall [1] is an initiative by the two landowners, Jon and William Moen. They have commissioned a masterplan designed by Roger Evans Associates, which as a practice we were not involved in and I do not particularly want to talk in detail about the urban design strategy.

Our client for this project is Copthorn Homes, who I believe have been very enlightened in terms of encouraging a new approach to this kind of greenfield urban development, a site typically developed with standard house types - ‘six pack’ architecture.

Our involvement came about via a competition, a design and developer competition, for one part of the first phase, to the

[1]

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north side of the central road - parcel 1B. Phase 1 for the north has outline planning permission for 440 homes and is just over 1.9 hectares, where we are producing around 82 units. Density for parcels of this scheme range from between 40 and 45 units per hectare.

Eventually this is a development with a proposal for about 2,500 new dwellings very close to Church Langley. The illustration shows Harlow New Town the development area to the east and Church Langley to the south of it [2].

[2]

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The masterplan was prepared by Roger Evans [3]. It was begun in about 1992/93 and has been a long haul in terms of negotiating with the Highways Department to create a fresh approach to highway design. The red line on the illustration identifies the parcel of land we are working on.

[3]

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We are used to working with masterplans already in existence. It is something we have done here, it is something we have done at the Greenwich Millennium Village. It is very useful to have a design code at New Hall that is not totally prescriptive but allows exploration and innovation - that sets a series of rules that we have been able to work with, rules that really determine general massing structure, where local marker buildings occur and the nature of the streets [4]. This is a lattice structure, a sort of open lattice of lanes, streets and mews areas. Illustrations are extracted from the design code. The code identifies key characteristic spaces, the village green and key junctions or road intersections.

[4]

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The competition entry [5]. We responded very quickly to the design codes, and began by developing an architectural vocabulary, that comes about as a direct result of the masterplan layout and the strategy for the roads. What I am trying to show here is a holistic approach. This is very much a team effort in terms of working with Copthorn Homes, Roger Evans and Jon and William Moen at New Hall Projects, to actually develop an aesthetic, which responds to the road network strategy. The architectural vocabulary, which resulted, is really focussed on the issues of threshold. I will talk a little bit about that later.

[5]

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Illustrated here from the code are parking spaces, very much ad-hoc/irregular layouts for car spaces [6]. This is clearly a townscape driven masterplan. Somebody earlier mentioned the work of Gordon Cullen who coined the phrase ‘townscape’. I was very lucky in my early career to work with Gordon on some of his work in London Docklands. Attitudes to the creation of space, integration of parking, the hierarchy and structure of spatial sequences embodied within the New Hall plan are clearly influenced by Gordon Cullen’s work.

The final masterplan [7]. Here we have a variety of unit types ranging from large houses onto what is known as The Chase, which has been conceived as the main ‘market’ street, to individual houses, and terraces of two to four bedroomed houses. There are small two bedroomed house clusters to the centre of Parcel 1b. I like the term “chauffeur unit” - mentioned earlier by Mel Dunbar. I have not heard that expression before, but the building in the mews areas utilise such a unit to provide good overlooking and the ‘self policing’ of space.

[7]

[6]

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The model images show the first part of parcel 1B [8], the remainder is to the north. There are little indicative drawings from the design code which give clues as to how the spaces should be constructed [9]. Again, these have been conceived with careful negotiations with the Highways Department - trees in junctions and using well designed landscape devices as traffic calming measures.

[9]

[8]

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I think as an architect working within an established masterplan we are very interested in the creation of shared spaces, shared surfaces, surfaces that really do not have car priority. Like many of the previous schemes we have seen in the last presentation, here we are including double garage provision. There are spaces for more than one car in certain locations and we are providing somewhere between 1.5 and 1.7 spaces per dwelling across the development. Through design we are attempting to lessen the impact of cars and parking and streets and lanes are not dominated by double garage doors. The mews space illustrated hopefully indicates this approach [10, 11]. The scale of these spaces is very important. They are tight urban spaces almost medieval in height and width. This leads onto the whole issue of how to create thresholds - a transition from public to private space at the back of pavement. We are constantly pushing the boundaries in terms of density of development where land is at a premium and that starts to impact on the design - on issues of how you actually enter the buildings and what the relationship is between the inside and the outside and even to the architectural detail.

[10]

[11]

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I love this image of Casper David Friedrich’s painting ‘Woman at the Window’ 1829 - the threshold of a window [13]. We have increased densities, we have therefore greater issues of privacy in urban housing. The suburban model of ‘front and rear’ gardens, which is found littering cities across England is no longer relevant for high density projects and therefore in the internal planning of dwellings it is no longer relevant to replicate the suburban ideal. The Pieter De Hooch painting [12] from the 17th Century - one of a series of studies he did looking at the depth of space - examines the issues of ‘threshold’ and the careful composition of space from private court to public street.

The illustrated scheme (again with Copthorn Homes) a development in the East End of London explores the creation of thresholds within a facade [14]. The main elevation fronts onto a very busy main artery into the east of the city. It is a very run down neighbourhood, the site where William Booth preached for the first time. The design looks to create space as a buffer,

[12] [13]

[14]

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a transition between the often aggressive public spaces and the privacy required as part of urban living. I think that this is very important in high density schemes. Inside the courtyard, to the rear of the development we have deliberately created a ‘threshold layer’ - an assemblage of access stairs and balconies which not only celebrate the entrance to each dwelling and provide a framework for human interaction, but also create a buffer, a privacy screening assemblage which allows habitable rooms to front each other across an 18m courtyard [15].

This is an alternative to the impoverished threshold in affordable housing scheme arrangements often seen across the country. There is often no sequence to the main entrance. There is a door at the back of the pavement: you have to open it with electronic devices - You are in - You have a letterbox on the inside - You close it. There is no dialogue between the public and the private realms any more. This is something we want to avoid and create architecture which encourages dialogue.

[15]

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At Greenwich (not Copthorn Homes this time, but the parent company, Countryside with Taylor Woodrow in partnership - Greenwich Millennium Village Ltd). This looks again at the back of pavement condition [16, 17]. Ralph Erskine, the great protagonist of the social architecture movement in affordable housing, has created a townscape driven masterplan, but with streets that are only 12 metres wide - 12 metres between habitable rooms. Overlaid onto this we have a desire to get more light into buildings. We do not want to build small window openings any more. We can produce large sheets of glass. Diurmud Gavin and his gardens which throws open the relationship between the inside and outside living spaces. We are having to work very hard to create thresholds that work. Each dwelling has its own little entrance court with home delivery drop offs and utility spaces.

Thresholds into communal areas are also considered [17, 19]. The courtyards at Greenwich have a communal space at the centre of the perimeter blocks [18]. So it is important to create those thresholds here as well - the thresholds from the private garden space into the communal landscaped courts.

[16]

[17]

[18] [19]

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The issue discussed of threshold have been brought into the architectural vocabulary at New Hall, Harlow. Each entrance is marked by a gabion wall, a series of steel cages with local stone randomly filled in each cage [20, 21]. There is a texture and quality to the use of materials. Buildings fronting ‘The Chase’ encourage a movement sequence up to ‘piano nobile’ living level. This enables other things to happen at the ground floor, flexible space, space for home working, space for offices that can have their own access from the street. We have used this entrance as a repetitive element to give rhythm to the street but not monotony.

In all these street frontages you will start to see the odd garage unit, but I do not think that it is the most dominant part of the street composition [21, 22].

One of the big issues is also procurement and how we can deliver this kind of variety in townscape driven schemes. We have talked about winding roads and attempting to deliver incidence and irregularity within the streetscape. How can we do that? Prefabrication maybe a solution.

[22][20]

[21]

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At Greenwich we have developed a component driven aesthetic, where architectural elements are repeated in different ways [23]. There is a lot of talk at the moment about modularization. Modularization sometimes can lead to repetition and monotony. What we have tried to do here is to break the buildings down into small components, which can be assembled in a variety of configurations. At New Hall, you can see this kind of component approach [24, 25]. Elements are repeated around the scheme to again deliver variety at key points of incidence - ‘marker’ locations. These sketches of ‘bay’ rooms and ‘entry’ structures illustrate ‘clip-on’ components, which are utilised across the site [26].

[23]

[24]

[25] [26]

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The selection of the materials utilised, as well as the scale of spaces, deliver a ‘medieval’ feel with the kinds of street patterns that we appreciate in traditional English country towns. But we are also looking to push the architectural vocabulary one step further.

The mews court configuration illustrates the notion that in increased density developments perhaps the backs of houses should work as hard as the front. In higher density living the idea that you have traditional back-to-back gardens is perhaps not the way forward. The idea of mixing different kinds of accommodation is also a strong theme of this scheme. It is not all four bedroomed executive homes in a cul-de-sac - there is a mixture of apartments, mews houses, one/two bedroomed apartments and the larger houses. The building illustrated in the construction photograph is a four bedroomed house, looking into the mews [27].

[27]

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The variety of unit types is brought together by the masterplan (designed by Roger Evans) promoting the use of traditional materials, the creation of shared surfaces, and thoughtful integration of landscape into mews areas to calm down traffic movement - the simple palette of bonded gravel and granite sets [28, 29].

[29]

[28]

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One issue that is of great interest to us as an architectural practice is the way in which we can design homes, which have flexibility and adaptability, that responds to the kinds of spaces or places that we discussed this morning: the ideas of, for want of a better term, home zones, shared surfaces, surfaces, which are safe for children to play on but also surfaces which encourage home working and the integration of studio workshops. We should be developing a vocabulary that works over time, a vocabulary of spaces that can be adapted for lifetime usage.

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I think one of the issues today, which was most important, was this whole issue about parking. Should parking be a national standard? Or should it respond to the kind and location of development? If we were to anticipate a decline in the use of cars it is probably going to be a slow process, but it is really up to us as designers to create spaces which can be adapted over time [30]. Perhaps garages become workshops or additional living space. I think that careful design is the key to this. We are not going to change the public’s perception overnight. Consumers will not revert to one car because of a Government dictat. We are not developing transport infrastructure in the same timescale - not putting in efficient bus services - not establishing efficient local transport methods. However, if we can be thoughtful about space design and the arrangements inside the homes can adapt to changing circumstances, then I think housing can begin to anticipate and perhaps encourage a decline in car use.

[30]

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Change in use of building spaces over the lifetime of a home is explored in the New Hall project. ‘Flexible living’ units are being constructed on ‘The Chase’ - the main street frontage - where home working, small office and studio use is encouraged at ground level. The diagrams illustrate this [31, 32, 33].

[32]

[31] [33]

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In addition, across the development, devices such as sliding walls (an approach adopted at the Greenwich Millennium Village apartments) encourage and assist with the flexible use of living/sleeping areas changing ‘loft style’ open plan living to traditional cellular configurations as circumstances and life patterns change. The perspective views and photographs of the different unit types, (mews apartments, town houses, terrace houses and apartments, this page and next), hopefully illustrate this approach.

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Finally, (as I suggested at the beginning of these observations), as architects we are attempting to turn ‘spaces into places’ - to create a sense of identity and to engage with a notion of the genus loci. Spatial configurations; encourage a sense of enclosure, protection and security but similarly the careful choice of materials, colours and textures bring a ‘sense of belonging’ and identity to developments. At New Hall, Roger Evans worked closely with the artist Tom Porter to provide a materials and colour palette for the whole development [34]. This was based on the sampling techniques of the colour theorist, Philippe Lenclos, and by careful examination of vernacular buildings, geological/mineral profiles, and landscape have provided a guide to the selection of materials, textures and colours.

[34]

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For parcel 1B we overlaid this approach onto our own response to agricultural/vernacular architecture - a vocabulary which we have explored on other recent rural projects. The use of traditional materials, brick, stained shiplap boarding stucco, lead work and even thatch has been employed at New Hall, but as in all our work, these are assembled in a contemporary way - bridging the notions of craftsmanship, regional identity and belonging with a desire for light, airy, open spaces - a spirit of 21st Century living.

stephen proctor of proctor and matthews: abode… · stephen proctor, proctor and matthews: abode,...

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