CLIVE RAND, MASTERPLANNING PARTNER, BARTON WILLMORE ARCHITECTS:

Transcription

1 CLIVE RAND, MASTERPLANNING PARTNER, BARTON WILLMORE ARCHITECTS: EASTERN QUARRY: FORM AND CONTENT FOR A NEW URBAN VILLAGE Ashford Conference, 12 November 2003 Building for Life 2004

2 EASTERN QUARRY Clive Rand, Barton Willmore Partnership I am here to talk about Eastern Quarry, which is a scheme I have been working on for two years. I have been working with Eric Khune, an American architect, a larger-than-life character. For those people who know him they will see the slight joke in that. He is great fun to work with, a very powerful figure and he has helped us to look at things afresh. But he has also established with our client, Land Securities, very high ambitions for this new scheme. We are trying to set new standards for quality and sustainability. All this comes at quite a breathtaking pace of change. As you probably can tell, I have been in the business for quite a while. I will admit to thirty years, nearly thirty years, and it is quite clear to me that the changes in the last three have been far more significant and fundamental than over the previous thirty. The theme of my talk is not to be complacent about this. But in talking about Eastern Quarry and showing you what we are doing there is to suggest to you that the process of change is far from complete and that the progress is patchy. I want to try and quantify this. I have done this table, a very subjective table in many respects, showing how we move from suburbia, the predominant building from three to five years ago [2]. Everybody knows what suburbia looks like. It is a blight that skirts round the edge of our towns -- pleasant enough houses, but which pose many problems in terms of sustainability and are severely lacking in quality. Then we have the intermediate model. What happened in the 1990s is there were pioneering schemes like the ones at Poundbury and Fairford Leys. We made breathtaking, quite striking changes in the way we did things. But we can now look upon those now as transitional [1] [2] 2

3 schemes. They did not really get to grips with some of the problems I am going to start to talk about. What I think we are aiming for, which is on the right, is this new urbanism, a truly sustainable form of development which also can deliver quality, but I think it is also a more relevant model for the needs of the communities. Over the weekend I was reading an article. The Halifax have produced some research about trends in the South East and they have said there will be a shortage of 500,000 homes in 2016 or maybe But the more alarming thing they said - and 500,000 homes is quite alarming, as far as I am concerned - what they are saying is that the houses we are building do not meet the needs of the community. They are the wrong sort of houses. So that is a challenge there across the board in the type of development that we are producing. I am going to talk about two aspects. There is a lot of confusion about density. It is not helped by the differences we practitioners know between PPG3 density, the way that the Government and the planners want us to calculate density and how our friends the builders calculate density. Out of interest, there is a 10 to 20 per cent difference between the two figures, which does not help with confusion. It really does create problems. A density of 30 to 40 is what we were settling for at the start of the PPG3 process [3]. What is interesting now is that I am involved as the planning coordinator on schemes and I can clearly see now that 30 to 40 was the sort of level that we were pitching at originally when PPG3 came into being, but now we are actually moving far higher up the scale. I think it is a combination of both policy directives but also land values. [3] 3

4 Builders are now saying they can only make schemes work viably at densities of 40 to 50 [4]. But the reassuring thing is, in terms of housing mix, we can still get quite a variety. And it still is quite strongly family orientated, incidentally. We are starting to now see densities of 50 plus on major urban extensions [5, 6]. This is where it starts to deliver a sustainable density. That sort of density cannot apply everywhere. There are questions about location. For example, at Ashford it may not be appropriate to do that sort of density on some of the peripheral areas. But the reassuring thing is even the densities in the bottom image here are over 100 including three-storey town houses [5]. We are also mixing it in with four and five, six-storey buildings. But we are, I think, actually reflecting the current need. [4] [5] [6] 4

5 We call those tiles [3-6]. They are used to estimate the capacity of sites. When you talk about density in a Master Plan you must be able to show people what that means. The builders will want to know what that means in terms of housing mix. Are we actually creating densities that are too high for the market and the demand that we are trying to meet? And the reassuring thing is that even with some of these high densities that is not a problem. I have chosen education as an example to explore the issues that we are facing [7]. The school on the left is what I feel is the suburban solution. It is a low-slung school, in amongst three and four-storey houses on a new development, surrounded by green areas. It has the feel, particularly with this 3 metre high fence around it, that it is like an open prison. You can almost see people tossing the lunch boxes or whatever across the fencing. It has that disconnected, disjointed character. The top image is Fairford Leys where there is an attempt to actually integrate with urban form - the same can be said with Millennium Village - exciting architecture relating to urban form. But the historic example is Winchester where it is fully integrated with urban form. It is actually part of the street. The private spaces, which we all understand we need post Dunblane, are actually locked behind the building frontage where you get a series of discrete courtyards opening up into larger areas. It is curious that all the time for the best examples we go back to historic examples. [7] 5

6 This is a very subjective table, an analysis of where we are at [8]. I am concerned about the lack of progress we are making in some issues. Certainly in terms of density I think we are now nudging up to the right level. In land use terms quite often I think, unfortunately, we still bring the tokenism. We still have a lump of employment added onto the housing areas. We are not really tackling that. Facilities, still so little consideration is given to such an important aspect. Transport as well, again, is not thought through. Fundamentally, bus routes are added in afterwards. The bus service is usually quite poor. In age structure terms there is some progress from pure family housing to meet market needs, but I do not think we have made enough progress. Today we are going to hear about the New Hall scheme, which has contemporary architecture, but the architecture that we have lacks that confidence. We are going back to traditional forms in a pastiche way, I think, too much. We need to have more confidence about contemporary architecture. Open space, we are still creating green deserts where, with facilities like playing fields, in particular football pitches, so little use is made of these spaces. They are not facilities that reflect the structure of the community. And similarly organisation, we have loose consortiums really not up to the task of delivering these high density integrated developments. [9] [8] 6

7 I am going to briefly talk about Priory Vale before we go on to Eastern Quarry because it is an example of work we are carrying it through to Eastern Quarry [9]. 6,000 houses. Interestingly, we are now substantially into delivering this PPG3 scheme. We are trying to create a vital new community and we saw the market centres, the traditional examples of those ultimate sustainable communities. [10] [12] [9] 7

8 These were self-sufficient places creating within walking distance a huge range of activities [10]. But what staggered me was even in small 3,000 populations developments, far, far smaller than the extensions we are creating, we are coming up with a terrific range of activities. But not only retail but also business uses. [10] 8

9 This is the Master Plan for the centre which shows how we are trying to widen the range of uses, creating land use stacking, including flexible use of space so that local initiatives can be captured set in a traditional urban form [11]. [11] 9

10 This is the CAD model of that [12]. At the top you can see how the school is integrating with the local community to create a social and economic centre. We are also creating contemporary architecture with traditional urban forms [13]. [12] [13] 10

11 This is a plan of the South East showing the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, which is transforming the perceptions of the area [14, 15]. Eastern Quarry is on that route. Eastern Quarry is part of the Ebsfleet Valley Scheme. It is a confusion of terms here. We have had to use the term Eastern Quarry for historical reasons, but it is part of an Ebsfleet Valley which will deliver 10,000 houses and 8 million square feet of non-residential space. A huge scheme. The title is New Urban Village. It is far more than that. [14] [15] 11

12 Here is the context [16]. It is a very unpromising setting. In mental geography terms I am sure a lot of us, I am guilty of this, did not know this place existed. It is a backwater very much transformed, as I say, by the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. But there is a lot of social deprivation in this area. It is dominated by extractive industries and Eastern Quarry is part of that very scarred landscape which will benefit from the growth that has been put into that area. [16] 12

13 Here is the sketch scheme we started off, showing the integration with Ebsfleet, trying to capture the potential of the site, creating urban villages with a striking dramatic setting [17]. The reason for that is we are building in a quarry. We are turning that real constraint into a positive asset and linking with the other communities around. It is very important that that happens. You remember the slide I showed about the setting of the quarry. The quarry face is actually at the bottom of the slide. A lake is put up against that to provide something which will have a dramatic and compelling appeal for the development as a whole. That, [18], gives you a demonstration of the scale with Ebsfleet in the distance, the village spanning out before you and the dramatic setting given by the lake and cliff face. [17] [18] 13

14 There are very practical reasons why the lake is there. That is the lowest, deepest part [20]. We have not got enough fill to fill that part. It is up against the cliff face. It creates the drama. There is a spall zone. [19] [20] 14

15 There is a shadow zone. It all fits together. When you arrive at an answer like this you know you are on the right lines - a compelling logic for the solution. [21] 15

16 But at the heart of this development is sustainability. This shows how close the new community is going to be to the Fast Track stop [22, 23]. Fast Track is going to be a bus-guided system, probably high-speed, high-frequency, very comfortable attractive service that links this sub-region and the elements, within it Dartford and Gravesham and the new sites as well. It is very important that we get proximity of housing to those stops. That is going to make the difference between car dependency and a more sustainable form of development. Here are examples of Fast Track as we envisage it -- high quality. It has to be appealing both in its imagery and actually in the service it offers. [22] [23] 16

17 The other important aspect we are encouraging is the really sustainable form of transport - walking. We have set up that the structure of this new community based around providing centres very, very close to the community [24, 25]. Forget about this idea about 800 metres walking distance. We are trying to target 80 per cent of the development within 400 metres walking distance of the village centre to create a true sustainability. It would be far more convenient to walk than it would to take the car. It is creating this change in the balancing of convenience from one mode to another which is so important. This emphasises the scale of the development and issues of connection and accessibility. [24] [25] 17

18 Here we are analysing how the structure works [26, 27]. The green elements will be very important within the development as well. We are not talking about creating just playing field, but this is the real battle we have. A lot of people are saying we want what there are, seventeen playing fields. We are saying, no, why 17 playing fields? If we are creating a sustainable urban development which is balanced in age structure, we do not want the gaps created by playing fields, what we want is sporting facilities that are relevant to the local community. [26] [27] 18

19 These are some of the details we are working on with EDAW for the facilities [28]. The image at the top is where we are creating local parks as multifunctional spaces, accommodating a range of activities. Because in sustainable high density development we clearly have to use every space as much as we can. The idea of just having single use spaces which are seldom used is just not possible. [28] 19

20 Here is the village structure in detail [29]. I will admit to basing that urban structure on some of our London suburbs [30] which to me seem to offer examples par excellence of high density housing in attractive setting, but you will notice here how important the green spaces are as well. So high density housing must be given the right setting. [30] [29] 20

21 Here is a centre where we are going to try and create a truly multipurpose mixed-use centre and that centre will accommodate something like 200,000 to 250,000 square feet of retail space and a true range of facilities. Here is an image from that scheme where we are capturing some of the potential of the site by bringing the water into the market centre [31]. You can see in that image as well the powerful backdrop. This is the end slide [32]. I ll conclude by saying that in Eastern Quarry we are trying to do something more than creating highdensity suburbs. The feeling I have is that with a lot of analysing the trends and the schemes that are emerging, we are guilty of creating high-density suburbs that do not tackle the issue of sustainability and comprehensiveness. But Eastern Quarry I think will form a new example about how to tackle these issues and will form an example for the new urbanism. Thank you. [31] [32] 21