Q Developments win Homes England masterplanning award for planting housing on Surrey garden centre site
The award for Best Masterplan & Placemaking at the Housing Design Awards has gone to Q Developments for their housing scheme in Alfold, Surrey.
Homes England is delighted the award for Best Masterplan & Placemaking at the Housing Design Awards has gone to Q Developments for their housing scheme with an “English village feel” in Alfold, Surrey.
The reuse of this former garden centre site allows for organic growth of an existing village. The project will deliver 56 new homes via a mixture of houses and apartments arranged around a shared village landscape, which allows for new future connections with the existing village and amenities.
The masterplan and placemaking category is a first for 2020 and was sponsored by Homes England - the third year that the agency has supported the Housing Design Awards, which have been handed out this week.
Leigh Johnson, Head of Master Development at Homes England, said:
“Congratulations to John Pardey Architects, Q Developments and Waverley Borough Council. Their winning design is all about creating that elusive English village feel. This masterplan meets all the criteria of the BFL12 design guidance and its response to the site’s local distinctiveness with clear pedestrian and cycle routes through the site.
“It’s a scheme that puts people and the homes at its heart of design and not the car, a true mix of tenure and types of homes to deliver a thriving and mixed community of future occupants.”
Carl Gulland, Director at John Pardey Architects said:
“We don’t take lightly the privilege of adding new homes and places to existing rural communities. At Alfold we thought really hard about how to create a contemporary addition to a historic Surrey village that would resonate with the true qualities and character of place rather than resort to hollow caricature, and ensure future connectivity.
We wholeheartedly believe our proposal will improve the village for the wider community as well as new residents.”
Mark Randall, Architect at Q Developments said:
“For over 20 years we have been promoting the value of good design, developing homes in places where people want to live. Following the garden centre’s closure in 2018, we drew upon the history of the Surrey vernacular and historic settlement formations in order to knit this landscape-led scheme into the existing village.
“The house types offer generous accommodation on large plots and maximise the opportunities for natural daylighting, energy-efficient contemporary living, and home working. We hope that through the award’s recognition of the quality of our scheme, our past award-winning projects and future work, we can continue to promote the value of good residential design whilst regenerating brownfield sites such as this.”
Leigh Johnson added:
“Homes England and Design for Homes chose to include the new award to demonstrate that good quality, well considered masterplans are key to delivering successful places to live. In fact, I’d like to congratulate all the shortlisted schemes for their contribution to raising design standards in housing.”
This year’s shortlisted schemes are here and the winner of the masterplan award is here.