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New things happen: a guide to the future Thames Gateway is unique in its attempt to identify the character of the largest growth area in the South East. Through a year-long research study, characteristics of places throughout the Gateway were examined in detail. Its findings will inform planning policies, design decisions, and investment strategies for the area.
Commissioned by Communities and Local Government (CLG) to inform the Thames Gateway Interim Plan: Policy Framework (Nov 2006), and led by CABE, the study mapped the landscape and urban character of the area. In addition, it was informed by consultation with professionals engaged in changing the sub- region, workshops in Kent, Essex and London, and interviews with people interested in the Gateway’s future.
These ideas are now being implemented by CABE through a range of projects ensuring that CLG’s commitments to raising design quality as set out in the Interim Plan are delivered.
CLG’s three commitments are:
• Thames Gateway Design Pact – the Pact will be a formal commitment that sets out exactly what actions will be taken by government, local delivery vehicles, local authorities and others engaged in delivery to ensure that all new development is of high quality and enhances the character of the area.
• Housing Audits – to check on progress and provide an independent view of quality, CABE will do repeat housing audits using the Building for Life criteria. The aspiration is that in 2010, no scheme will be assessed as ‘poor’ and at least 50% of schemes should be ‘good’ or ‘very good’. By 2015, 100% should be rated ‘good’ or ‘very good’. • Thames Gateway Parklands – the findings will also feed
into the Parklands Strategy, a key spatial framework for delivering the vision for Thames Gateway.
The masterplan for Newhall, a new neighbourhood for 6,000 people in Harlow, responds to specific characteristics and features of the site, demonstrating that the intrinsic differences of every site can inform new development and create distinctive places. Existing features such as woodlands, hedgerows, trees and species-rich grassland are retained and existing drainage courses have been made part of a comprehensive SUDS scheme. The hierarchical street layout is based on a lattice structure, stretched to suit the topography and where possible, streets run alongside existing vegetation to ensure that this can be retained within the public realm.
The masterplan demonstrates in particular how high-quality contemporary architecture located within a site that responds to its context can create an identity for the neighbourhood. To
achieve this, the Newhall Design Code stipulates a colour and materials palette to be used to create contemporary architecture. This is based on the belief that every settlement can be distinct by virtue of its mineral setting. A detailed study of the materials and colours used in local traditional architecture in the area informed four palettes which are used to describe facades, roofs, paintwork and floorscape. Quality materials include hand- made bricks, Welsh slates, and granite setts and kerbs for street details.
Newhall demonstrates that the intrinsic differences of every site can inform development proposals to create distinct places that have a character and identity of their own. It also illustrates that you don’t need fake elements and pastiche to make a place identifiable; high-quality contemporary architecture located within a site that responds to its context can create highly successful identifiable places.
SOWING THE SEED 1.4
1.4.2 Building and identity
Reinterpretation and invention 017
There are often good reasons why local building forms have developed in a particular way. They might, for example, be concerned with modifying the microclimate or making use of locally available materials. Many towns have a colour signature which derives from their mineral setting. Buildings which draw on these origins and interpret them, where appropriate, in ways which respond to contemporary needs are likely to be more successful than an uncritical reproduction of a local vernacular.
Attention to detail
Attention to detail is a key to the successful design of both buildings and places. There are details at all levels of scale, from the pattern of centres in a city region to the texture of building materials.
Some basic questions should be asked of any development proposal, whether it is for a town centre, an urban extension, or an individual street or building:
• What role will it play within larger physical, social and economic structures?
• What will be its overall presence, in terms of form, shape and size?
• How are its component parts designed and arranged, and how will it work internally?
1.4.3 Town centres
Urban form, activity and character
The character and identity of a town centre will be rooted in its urban structure, and its patterns of movement and activity. That character will be expressed through the form of urban blocks, and the scale and size of the buildings that compose them. Inappropriate scales, such as large retail buildings or shopping centres, often occupying an entire block or more, can threaten the character and identity of an existing town centre.
Shopping streets and the big box 018
Creating shopping streets rather than shopping centres can be a key to making a place with character. Here are some ways of achieving it:
• Develop smaller urban blocks. • Make use of changes in ground level. • Create outward-facing frontages.