Housing

HOUSING GAINING FROM GARAGES

Bell Phillips has designed new housing on an unloved site in Watford. Here, Emma Carter, Senior Architect at Bell Phillips Architects, talks to PSBJ about the homes that have reformed the vacant plot – giving insight into their efficiencies and configuration to futureproof the development.

Riverside Road is a collection of five threebed terraced houses, each with their own rear garden and parking space, built as temporary homes for Watford Borough Council. After having marked the site as suitable for family housing, the council worked with Bell Phillips Architects to design and build new homes that would provide an affordable solution for tenants, while also serving as a benchmark for future developments within the borough.

Bell Phillips Architects has a track record of designing affordable homes that have low energy consumption rates for local authorities; Orwell House and Levitas House being two recent examples. Going beyond policy requirements, and as part of Watford’s proactive approach to tackling climate change, the houses have been built to BRE’s Home Quality Mark. The assessment provides a star rating and reviews all aspects of new homes, including running costs, health and wellbeing benefits, and the environmental footprint associated with living in the home. Working with a specialist assessor throughout the design and construction stages, the homes achieve four stars, comparable to BREEAM ‘Excellent’.

To meet this high standard, the design, material specification and construction method were meticulously considered. Bell Phillips specified a raft of passive measures to ensure that the in-use energy demand was minimised; excellent U-values and airtightness, high-performing aluminium composite windows and a whole-house MVHR system. While the dual-aspect homes are generously proportioned and designed for purge ventilation when necessary, the MVHR systems work to provide clean, fresh air to spaces, such as the living rooms and bedrooms, and extract stale air from the kitchen and bathrooms with minimal energy input. The windows have been sized to carefully balance natural light with the risk of solar gain. On south-facing windows, a lightweight brise soleil has been installed to further reduce any overheating risk.

Completely omitting gas from the development, each house also benefits from an ASHP and PV array, providing a renewable source of energy and space heating for the homes. Tenants also have direct access to individual off-street parking, fitted with an electric charging point to encourage the use of electric vehicles.

While the immediate context varies, with low-rise housing sitting alongside a small industrial estate to the north of the site, the terraced homes revitalise the garage site, introducing a design language complementary to the existing interwar housing estates.

By adopting the archetypical forms common to the area, but adding contemporary ideas, Bell Phillips has avoided visual monotony. The rich material palette includes two multi-tonal brick types that add warmth and visual interest to the terraces. A darker grey brick provides a solid base to the scheme, neatly housing refuse, meters and external storage, while stepped red brickwork helps accentuate the fenestration along Riverside Road. The tiled roof complements the surrounding context while a hidden gutter provides simple, contemporary eaves to the front of the building.

Internally, the homes are well planned to maximise functionality. On entry to the house, a lobby hosts space for a large utility cupboard and secure bicycle storage. The kitchen and living room are separated, allowing the living room to benefit from the full width of the property. On the upper level, two double bedrooms and one twin bedroom provide the flexibility for home working or accommodating young children. To futureproof the homes, the pitched-roof structure and internal stairs have been designed to allow the loft space to be easily converted into an additional bedroom, extending the capacity of the house to four bedrooms, without requiring any significant structural work.

The homes are constructed from a repeated lightweight timber frame, which is sustainable, easy to construct and has good thermal properties. Alongside timber’s environmentallyfriendly credentials as a building material, the lightweight structure also reduces the amount of concrete required within the foundations when compared to a typical brick and block structure, further lowering the building’s embodied carbon. Using MMC, rather than traditional methods, the timber frame was fabricated off site and delivered as a kit of parts for an efficient installation, minimising time on site and disruption to neighbouring properties.

Bell Phillips has reformed the site, removing vacant garages and putting in their stead outstanding, HQM-certified homes that enhance the character of the area and provide much-needed temporary housing for Watford Borough Council. Riverside Road demonstrates that even with constrained sites and budgets, careful planning, a rigorous design process and good material selection creates sustainable, affordable homes that deliver on local housing needs.  www.bellphillips.com