After Britannia Mills
Since Urban Splash worked on Britannia Mills in Castlefield Manchester the developer has gone on to develop many more buildings in problem areas. It has continued to take an innovative, design-led approach to offering secure homes for people in buildings and locations that were previously vulnerable to crime.
In Salford it has worked with architects shedkm to remodel Chimney Pot Park, a series of 385 existing terraced houses from which they created 349 modern homes. Before this development the neighbourhood suffered from a number of issues, ranging from the quality of the housing stock to poor community cohesion, increasing levels of vandalism and anti-social behaviour, and low economic performance.
Although far from all problems related to the physical fabric of the terraced streets, neglect, litter, crime and other anti-social behaviour tended to be exacerbated by the open back alleys to the houses and by the deteriorating physical condition of the building stock. The properties were predominantly in private sector ownership but absentee landlords and irresponsible tenants contributed to the sense of decline: those who were able to leave gradually moved away and abandonment was a common problem. This left not only an area where there was little or no demand for the properties and without the population to support basic local facilities, but also a group of owner occupiers who were becoming increasingly vulnerable as the numbers of occupied properties reduced. Although many had looked after their properties, the deteriorating situation around them meant that drastic action was needed.
Through imaginatively reconfiguring the properties, inside and out, Urban Splash and shedkm have created a scheme that lifts not just the streets it refurbishes but also has the potential to improve the image of the immediate area.
Urban Splash and shedkm have delivered radical changes to the internal layout and design of the existing houses, open spaces and streetscape while retaining the original structure and street pattern of the area. The street frontages are the only built elements to be retained.
Behind this facade, all structure is new-build. New roofs incorporate 'chimney roof lights' which approximate the appearance of the old chimney stacks and provide a new, distinctive roofscape from both street and park level.
At the rear, new balcony structures and rear garden decks have been created, leading out from the first floor. They incorporate a glazed panel to the lightwell below, allowing light to penetrate into the rear ground floor room. The garden decks extend over secure covered parking at ground level, accessible via a gated entrance at the end of the terrace. Around 50% of parking for each block can be accommodated in these covered areas, with the remainder provided on-street. Vehicular access to the street is managed via a bollard system, offering a further level of security to the on-street parking, whilst allowing access for pedestrians and emergency and service vehicles.
From an urban design point-of-view it has married what was good about the existing housing layout to measures to address the drawbacks. The simple block structure, with houses directly fronting the street and backs facing backs in a semi-private or private environment, is a tried-and-tested way of achieving a good urban residential layout. What this scheme adds is a way to address the security issues that pertained to the rear alleys and deal with the lack of defensible space and absence of gardens.
The decision to keep cars parked on the street as part of a mixed approach to parking is a positive one for maintaining on-street activity and surveillance, based on the traditional terraced housing model. With that model in mind, it will be interesting to monitor the effect other new design features may have on use of public and private space. In reversing the vertical and horizontal arrangement of space within the property, the focus of activity within the home is shifted to the rear and away from the ground floor/street level. However, the design of the rear deck has the potential to provide an alternative social space that may prove to as vibrant (in a rather different way) from the public street. The possible negative effect of rear parking on street activity has been mitigated by the access arrangements: it is not possible to enter properties from the rear via the parking area, and all access to properties is, therefore, via the front door on the street. Chimney Pot Park shares with many contemporary housing projects the influence of concerns over security and parking.
Community support was a vital part of the process and the project team had to work hard to overcome perceptions that low-value housing had been bought up cheaply and sold on for a profit. Local people, however, were involved in the process and were willing to accept that change was vital and that improvement required substantial intervention. Conscious steps are being taken to ensure that the new development remains integrated with the wider area. The marketing material produced by Urban Splash, for example, draws on imagery from several local 'Britain In Bloom' successes.
Total development costs were around £34m, including nearly £11m public sector investment. Of this, £7.3m is provided through the Housing Market Renewal Fund (via Salford City Council), with a further £3.5m from English Partnerships.
It is a development that Salford City Council has put a great deal of time and effort into bringing forward and it should add impetus to the regeneration of Central Salford. It should also reinforce the image of Salford as an authority willing to be ambitious about the role of design in urban renewal.
Within considerable constraints, both financial and physical, the architects and their clients have used a design-led process, taken the community along with them, and produced a very successful scheme in both urban design and commercial terms.
The adoption of a design-led strategy has informed not only the physical form of development but also the way people have been involved in it and the way it has been sold to potential residents. Urban Splash's production of attractive sales and technical literature with clear, accurate plans, sections and elevations, presented as a part of a coherent, exciting vision for the place, has helped considerably in raising public profile, marketing the scheme and making it a success. When the first 110 units went on the market, newspapers reported on the queues of hopeful homeowners that began to form 72 hours before the sale opened.
After Chimney Pot Park
One of Urban Splash’s current projects is redeveloping the Park Hill Estate in Sheffield, the first example of deck-access type flats in Britain built in 1961.
The local area has to contend with crime problems such as drug dealing, theft and prostitution and Urban Splash has to contend with the estate’s listed building status. A list of issues the proposed scheme must address include security, incivilities and natural surveillance; residential interaction; existing residents and affordable housing; physical attributes and maintenance.
Current residents’ experiences of their life at Park Hill, and their expectations of the redevelopment have been gathered in a series of semi-structured interviews in order to identify the elements responsible for the estates initial success and later decline, which could also influence the future success of the redevelopment.