How the space between buildings can enhance residents’ quality of life.
The original Altered Estates (Chapter 3 ‘Getting the design right’) highlighted the particular challenges and opportunities for urban placemaking in estate regeneration. It discussed the departure of post-war modernist housing from traditional urbanism, and the process of reintegrating estates with their surrounding neighbourhoods through a process of ‘visible mending’. This theme looks at the spaces between buildings. It looks at how significant shifts in planning policy since 2016, and evolving expectations of residents, has influenced placemaking in estate regeneration. Useful generic urban design guidance was already well established and widely accepted in 2016 and covered in our original report. More recently the National Design Guide and National Model Design Code have helpfully summarised and codified best practice. This report does not seek to repeat this guidance, but to draw attention to some key topics in relation to estate regeneration. We explore how the growing prevalence of infill development on housing estates brings with it the opportunity and the need to improve the open spaces throughout an estate, not just the immediate surroundings to newly inserted blocks. Although the scope for change in these circumstances will be different from the comprehensive replacement of existing estates with completely new neighbourhoods, it can be no less transformational for people’s lives. To read the full theme please download the report. |
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