New Pond St

AR Design Studio were approached by the client, Little Acre Developments, to develop plans for a three house development in Newhall, Essex. Newhall is a new community made up of a series interlinked developments by a variety of architects, including Alison Brooks distinguished Newhall Be housing. The site is constrained by existing development and roads to three sides. As a result the design needed to address each street frontage while making the most of views over the neighbouring woodlands.

The design of the houses is a response to the street scene. Each three storey house features a primary timber clad unit with a single storey element that affronts the street. The result is that the site retains visual permeability between each house while the single storey elements create a sense of unity and horizontality at street level. These spaces contain the living room, which are provided here to establish a double aspect, with views down the garden of each plot and out over the road onto the woodlands. The rear of the ground floor features a large kitchen and dining space, which opens out onto the garden and shares a courtyard with the living room.

At each street corner, oriel windows are used at second storey, clad in the same metal as the ground floor to allow each house to turn the corner and address each street through a material relationship. The houses slope from front to rear in order to reduce the visual mass of each house and minimise overlooking to the neighbours and maximise the amount of natural light available to each garden.

The result is a set of houses that respond to both its setting within Newhall and position on the urban fringe, taking influence from both in terms of massing and materials from the urban and the surrounding woodlands.