The scheme, a 891 sqm plan with 8 residences is located in central Southampton. It is located in a back-land position overlooking a listed church.
We overcame several challenges, creating a design that is well-integrated into the surrounding 19th century context while providing visual interest. We worked with the community to create a design complementing their demands, including stepping down the scale from North to South of the site to and setting back the buildings from the church to provide a larger visual buffer.
Ultimately, Riley's will be a civic group of buildings, blending with the surrounding area. It will hold the street corner with a strong visual presence. The folded roof will affect the scale of the architecture and create a residential motif, engendering a sense of home.
The architecture will offer a generous open plan layout inside the ground floor of each house. Outside, visitors and residents are led to an intimate and delightful community courtyard as well as private gardens
The Planning Issues
We gained permission for three single family dwellings and nine apartments in 2020.
We justified the development as sustainable and tackling housing shortages. We also demonstrated how the robust design was suitable for the area and worked with the architects to produce a design in accordance with the design guide of the area. Other justifications we made included landuse, layout, scale and access.
One challenge was the heritage of the neighbouring church. We worked with the architects to produce a design sensitive to this heritage asset.
We followed a long process of community involvement, involving several meetings with counsellors, neighbours and the wider community. We worked with the architects to be sensitive of community concerns in their design.
We also successfully justified the demolition of existing derelict buildings.
