Cowick Street

Location
Exeter
Client
First Urban Group
Value
£8.5m
Completion
2019
Size
2 One-Bed Flats, 4 Duplex Apartments, 5 Courtyard Houses, 244sqm Commercial Space
  • Winner

    Development under £10m

    British Home Awards 2020

Integrating contemporary design into a conservation setting

This is a mixed use development comprising 244sqm of commercial floor space, two one-bed flats, four duplex apartments and five courtyard houses.

The site was historically a petrol filling station. This was demolished a number of years ago and was being used as a hand car wash.

The local planning authority adopted a new Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), which required dual aspect dwellings and revised amenity space requirements.

With the very tight site constraints these had to be met in novel ways with ‘light tubes’ internally to bring natural light into kitchens located at the back, roof top gardens and a shared pocket park.

The response from planning officers and the committee to our contemporary design was very positive. In the case officer’s report, he confirmed “the architecture of the scheme will also be striking and will contribute positively to the character and appearance of the conservation area”.

Our landscape and planning teams were involved throughout the process. Our landscape architects designed the internal courtyard, and implemented a planting strategy to balance with the hard surface treatments and building mass. While our planners dealt with matters related to the SPD.