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The Triangle, sustainable community plans submitted

Triangle central area

Hab Oakus has just submitted its planning application for The Triangle, a 42-unit sustainable community on a brownfield infill site to the north of Swindon town centre.

Hab Oakus is a joint venture between Kevin McCloud’s development company, Hab, and the housing group GreenSquare. Subject to planning approval, the Triangle is due to start on site by the end of the year with completion by December 2010.

The project, by Glenn Howells Architects working with landscape architect Studio Engleback and environmental engineer Max Fordham, seeks to create a contemporary interpretation of Swindon’s mid-Victorian railway cottages – flexible, affordable, and efficient to build and run.

The scheme consists of two and two-and-a-half storey terraces containing two-, three-, and four-bedroom homes around a central village green. The east and west terraces are both terminated by three-storey corner blocks, each containing three apartments, providing focal points as you enter and leave the site.

Triangle plan

The architectural expression is deliberately low-key, deriving its character from perfect proportions, carefully-defined details, and high-quality execution; a well-ordered backdrop allowing the extensive landscaping and greenery to define the character of the site. The roofline is punctuated by chimney-like ventilation cowls. A subtle colour palette, drawn from Swindon’s urban fabric, adds a sense of depth to the facades. Gabion walls to the front of the dwellings minimise the visual impact of car parking, conceal meter cupboards, recycling and bins, and provide nooks and crannies to encourage wildlife.

Dwellings have been designed to meet Level 4 in the Code for Sustainable Homes, and are ‘future-proofed’ with the fixings, connections, and space to allow easy retro-fitting of solar thermal and PV panels at a later date.

As well as private rear gardens, the scheme provides a range of public and semi-public spaces to encourage recreational use, hobby gardening, and strong social interaction between neighbours. The central green includes a wet meadow, which forms part of the sustainable drainage strategy, and a wildlife garden, as well as an area for community activities and informal children’s play. The kitchen garden in the north-east corner of the site will be planted with fruit trees with raised beds and soft hedging, while the southern kitchen garden will house poly-tunnels in order to extend the season and range of crops grown.

The public realm has been designed to be inviting to cyclists and pedestrians and to encourage community enjoyment of external space. Circulation space is designed along Home Zone principles, creating an inclusive environment that links, rather than separates, different elements of the scheme. Pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists share a single tree-lined entrance road leading from Northern Road. Existing trees are to be protected where possible and will be supplemented by locally-occurring native species trees and shrubs. The landscape strategy throughout the scheme maximises the opportunities for food production with kitchen gardens, vegetable patches, allotments, planters, fruit trees, and blackberry bushes.

Entrance view

The project is being delivered as part of a wider strategy to introduce One Planet Living principles developed by WWF and BioRegional to Swindon, and is accompanied by a raft of broader community initiatives including a neighbourhood car club, subsidized bus passes and bicycles, and the provision of real-time public transport information services in every home.

For more information on Hab Oakus, please contact sahra@haboakus.co.uk.

Click here for the Hab Oakus website.

 

Professional team
Client: Hab Oakus
Architects/Lead Consultants: Glenn Howells Architects
Landscape Consultant: Studio Engleback
Environmental Engineer: Max Fordham
Cost Consultant: DBK
Engineer: Curtins Consulting

 

 

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