CONTENTS DIARY OF EVENTS - The Urban Design Group

its more recent renaissance enabled largely by new technology.
He admitted that planning had until recently discouraged the
concept through zoning policies but illustrated his talk with
examples of English Partnerships’ proposals to integrate mixeduse
into developments in Milton Keynes. He explored the issues
that this raises, such as how best to reconcile the ‘looseness of
fit’ and flexibility necessitated by mixed-use development with
the requirement for higher densities and smaller units, and the
difficulty of maintaining the balance of live and work spaces,
when economic forces may push one to dominate was one of
many practical issues.
Gerald Hitman’s Brockhall Village Ltd is a rural property
company concentrating on rural live-work schemes. The
intention is to cater for the owner/managers of small and
medium businesses who wish to employ a handful of staff
in separate B1 accommodation within the curtilage of their
home. The concept is designed particularly to suit brownfield
employment sites in open countryside which have failed to
attract conventional redevelopment.
The company takes its name from its first development in
the Ribble Valley, Lancashire, which involved redevelopment
of the former Brockhall Hospital (200 acres with 1 million
square feet of redundant buildings) as a new village. This
now includes 345 homes, a nursery, a sports science clinic,
Blackburn Rovers training facility, a hotel and a conference
centre. These employment uses generate about 100 jobs.
Nothing unusual there. Interestingly, although none of the
existing homes was specifically designed to accommodate liveworking
arrangements, 41 per cent of the economically active
population work partly or entirely from home. As Hitman
delights in claiming, “Rural housing can produce more jobs per
acre than rural employment sites.” Inspired by the demand for
home–working, Hickman proposes a final phase of the village
comprising 24 apartments for sale, 14 live-work units for self
build, a small village hall, swimming pool and gymnasium club
and open space. However, Ribble Valley District Council refused
consent for this just the night before the seminar, despite an
officer recommendation for approval.
The company’s most recent project is a 16 acre derelict
brickworks site at the foot of Napton on the Hill in Stratford
Upon Avon district. Here the proposal is to build 44 family
homes, each with an office or studio at the bottom of the garden
suitable for about four or five people to work in, serviced by a
separate commercial access. This will include 12 affordable livework
apartments for letting by a housing association to young
local people with viable business plans, three holiday chalets and
a lay-by for three narrow boats and restoration of a historic canal
quay. This development will enable the company’s concept to be
developed further. The employment cluster will be served by a
central facility for meetings, exhibitions, video-conferencing and
simple networking and run by a cluster co-ordinator. The layout
proposed for this site has the building typology rather rigidly
applied and the range of dwelling types is largely restricted
to four and five bed detached units. A planning application
was submitted in May 2004 and the company hopes to receive
approval imminently.
Charles Brocklehurst, Director of Knowstone Creative
Developers, focused on the example of a redundant sawmill at
the Great Hampden Estate within the Green Belt and Chilterns
AONB. Seven thousand square feet of buildings and an acre of
open storage had lain derelict for a decade since the sawmill’s
closure. Given the tendency for villages in the area to become
expensive dormitories whilst the rural economy declines,
Brocklehurst saw this as an ideal opportunity to promote three
live-work units together with six workshops of 500 square
metres. A roundwood construction system is proposed, using
locally sourced young trees (effectively forest thinnings) that
would otherwise only be used for pulp, if at all. Pioneered by
There are artists, video makers,
silversmiths and chiropractors,
just longing to be able to combine
working and living arrangements
under one roof
Opposite page and above A modern-day longhouse proposed for the Great
Hampden Estate using young trees, otherwise used for live-work development
Charles Gulland’s All Round Building
Company, the whole tree is de-barked
and bent, either as green timber or
seasoned and steamed, to form wishbone
arched trusses. These are then stacked
to create a whalebone structure, much
like the hull of an upturned boat and
the structure is set 18 inches above
ground on timber piles. The result is
a modern-day longhouse, not unlike a
cruck-framed barn. At Great Hampden
the Brocklehurst, Gulland collaboration
is resulting in larger units to incorporate
mezzanine floors as well as two storey
units by extending the timber piles
to form columns and elevating the
whalebone structure to first floor level.
Whether the green credentials of the
scheme, which includes locally sourced
materials, district heating fuelled by
woodchip, water recycling, car ownership
limits and a photo voltaic generated
electric powered pool car, is sufficient
justification for the local planning
authority to set aside Green Belt and
AONB policies remains to be seen.
CONCLUSIONS
A number of themes emerged from the
discussion on which there was general
consensus. Home-working, working
from the spare bedroom, study or kitchen
table, enables people, and those with
caring responsibilities in particular, to
live economically productive lives in
a sustainable, flexible and convenient
manner. However, this arrangement poses
limitations, not only in terms of intrusion
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 27
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