Urban Design

Portfolio

As architects, landscape architects and urban designers, we create award winning buildings, living landscapes and thriving urban spaces, using inventive design to solve real life challenges. Each of our projects is different but the driving force behind every one is the desire to create something that is inherently beautiful, sustainable and useful.

As a practice, we are committed to creating masterplans, spatial strategies and development frameworks that bring about real, positive change within an area – improving education, employment opportunities, local services, the natural environment and transport systems for local communities. All of these aspects are key to sustainable regeneration and they inform our work as designers on a day to day basis.

We strongly believe that all projects are multi-faceted and require the highest level of ‘placemaking’, involving our urban designers, architects and landscape architects. This enables us to look at all projects holistically, providing the expertise to deal with both the macro scale masterplanning and micro scale detailing.

Every one of our projects starts with the people we’re designing for and we work side-by-side with end-users and clients from the very outset; engaging in consultation throughout the development process.

Fairlop Waters Country Park

Redbridge, London

London Borough of Redbridge

We are leading a co-designed masterplan that delivers a regenerative landscape vision for the park, that merges ecology with culture, and leisure with nature. The 220 hectare site is centred around a large lake. It has unique ecological value, having SINC status, as well as being a popular leisure destination comprising a number of well-used facilities, including a boulder park and sailing club.

The masterplan improves the connectedness of the park. We have restored users contact with the cycles of nature, as well as developing the specific, local character of the park. The masterplan will provide a plan of what can be done over time, forming a structure for investment, community involvement and implementation, to provide a well-structured, biophilic plan for the future.

Gravesham Design Code

Gravesham, Kent

Gravesham Borough Council

Levitt Bernstein developed the Gravesham Design Code ‘Design for Gravesham’ in conjunction with Gravesham Borough Council. This is part of their ambitious programme of community and place-led regeneration, as the Borough’s strategic importance and offer in the wider South East grows. The Code promotes the Borough’s expectations for quality and climate, allowing them to instil design quality across emerging developments and meet their target of being operationally net zero by 2030.

Liverpool Design Guide

Liverpool City Council

Levitt Bernstein have been commissioned to produce a Housing Design Guide for Liverpool. The government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) makes clear that local planning authorities should ensure that visual tools such as Design Codes and Guides are used to inform development proposals to provide maximum clarity about design expectations at an early stage and reflect local character and preferences.

The Liverpool Housing Design Guide will promote sustainable and inclusive high-quality design, that reflects the City’s distinctive character and context. For vibrant and successful neighbourhoods, it is essential to provide high quality and inclusive new homes which are well connected to the local neighbourhood which address the climate change agenda and deliver social value.

South-West Rugby mixed use masterplan

Rugby, Warwickshire

Homes England

Levitt Bernstein are working alongside Homes England at South West Rugby to design a mixed-use local centre at the heart of a new masterplan for 1,700 new homes on a greenfield site with supporting open space and infrastructure in Warwickshire. The Masterplan forms part of the wider Homestead View site allocation - an urban extension to Rugby, which will deliver a total of up to 6,000 new homes across a consortium of landowners and developers over the next 15 years.

East Norwich

Norwich, Norfolk

Norwich City Council

Working alongside our economic development consultant, we are working for Norwich City Council providing Strategic Development Consultancy advice regarding the East Norwich Strategic Regeneration Area. This is a 3500 homes masterplan providing 35% of The Norwich future housing need. Three key outputs are required for delivery: a Commercial Review and Engagement Strategy, a Strategic Outline Business Case and a Delivery Strategy.

“As one of the schemes to be balloted under Mayor Sadiq Khan’s mandate to allow residents a vote on estate regeneration, achieving planning success for the Douglas Bader Park estate is a significant achievement.”

Andy Hill, Chief Executive, The Hill Group

Douglas Bader Park Estate

Barnet, London

Home Group / Hill Group JV

The Douglas Bader Park Estate regeneration will see 271 existing, substandard homes replaced with a neighbourhood of 753 new, high-quality homes for social rent, shared ownership and private sale. Homes range from large 4 bed family houses through to maisonettes and starter 1 bed flats. Our masterplan addresses key problems with the current estate layout: we will improve wayfinding through a hierarchy of streets, new open spaces, marker buildings at key nodes, a pedestrian friendly street that runs through the site and a series of character areas. The scheme introduces a series of new open spaces, including a neighbourhood green and urban square, and revitalises the underused green spine to the west, drawing the landscape through the new streets to provide improved play and amenity for local people. We developed this scheme in close consultation with existing residents and the London Borough of Barnet to ensure cohesion with nearby emerging developments and the surrounding neighbourhood’s suburban scale.

Aberfeldy New Village

Tower Hamlets, London

Aberfeldy New Village LLP

The key concept for our original masterplan, which provides 1,176 new homes, shops, a faith centre, community centre and PCT, is to create a series of new routes in and around the site – making it much more permeable and welcoming for both residents and visitors. A new linear park sits at the heart of the neighbourhood, featuring soft planting and informal play spaces. New homes are arranged around this green space in medium rise, high density buildings ranging from four to ten storeys.

A hybrid planning application has been submitted for an extended masterplan which sets out proposals for a further 1,552 homes, a cycle and pedestrian connection across the A12, new public open space within a wider network of improved open spaces, the extension of Aberfeldy High Street and affordable workspace. The combined masterplan delivers 2,466 homes.

Balfron Tower

St. Leonard's Road

Jolly’s Green

Teviot Estate A12

Bromley

“Aberfeldy Village is quickly transforming into a vibrant new neighbourhood around a significant new London park at its heart. Housing of all types and tenures has been carefully designed to support development of this mixed, sustainable community – both now and in the long term.”

Ben Ffoulkes-Jones, Project Director, EcoWorld

Masterplan site boundary

Site boundary of original masterplan

Phase A sites

Eastfields Estate

Merton, London

Clarion Housing Group

Working in collaboration with Proctor and Matthews and Cullinan Studio, our concept for Eastfields was to turn the existing site inside out. The central green has been retained, but the architectural monolith has been recreated as a series of smaller buildings with a hierarchy of routes through to it. Many homes now front onto this green space, enabling it to be better used and more secure. By reinstating a more traditional street pattern, we will not only better integrate the neighbourhood within its context, but also significantly increase the density.

“Underlying this whole project is the principle of shared values between the three architects and the client. It’s made for an inspiring and collaborative design process, which I truly believe has led us to a better result and a better future for the local community.”

Barry McCullough, Director

We were appointed to develop a long-term spatial masterplan for these two estates suffering from the typical problems of 20th Century council housing. We initiated a consultation process with the community, outlining four options on a sliding scale and fully explaining the costs and benefits each would bring. The design of the masterplan is a direct result of this process and local people opted for the most radical change. However, for the currently successful areas we proposed smaller interventions to improve the environment: new lighting, pocket green spaces and innovative street furniture.

Winstanley and York Road Estate

Wandsworth, London

London Borough of Wandsworth

College Bank and Lower Falinge

Rochdale, Greater Manchester

Rochdale Boroughwide Housing

We are collaborating with the local community to identify and assess the different development opportunities for these two neighbourhoods through a series of workshops and extensive stakeholder engagement. Our resultant masterplan establishes the detailed values and costings of individual projects, in addition to phasing considerations, management structure and governance arrangements, legal and technical mechanisms for delivery, funding sources and the preconditions necessary to secure adequate finance. We aim to create a distinctive place, building on the existing community and reimagining and enhancing the character and identity of both estates.

The comprehensive regeneration of this estate involved refurbishing 1,200 existing homes, building over 1,000 new homes and enhancing the landscape. Existing monolith blocks made way for smaller buildings to recreate a more traditional street pattern, designed around central courtyards with variation in scale and materials to respond to the context. New routes into the site, where pedestrians and cyclists have priority, further improve its permeability. A shared surface approach to street design with seating and tree planting has also created incidental spaces for residents to inhabit and feel proud of.

“Our work on the Ocean Estate has transformed a post code. It’s seamlessly integrated the new and old communities and carefully fused together architecture and landscape to create a genuinely mixed, thriving neighbourhood.”

Gary Tidmarsh, Director

Ocean Estate

Tower Hamlets London

East Thames Housing Group, First Base, Bellway Homes, Wates Living Space and Spitalfields Housing Association

Our competition-winning strategic plan for Brentwood town centre releases several car park sites to create a design which supports mixed use development, improves the gateway into the high street and shifts priority form the car to the pedestrian. In anticipation of the new Crossrail station, cycling and pedestrian links will also be strengthened. All of these aim to enhance the local character whilst being mindful of the unique historic setting. A review of field data enabled us to clearly understand the area and wider context, which was undertaken alongside a comprehensive market demand analysis.

Brentwood Town Centre

Essex

Brentwood Borough Council

Oxford to Cambridge corridor

Oxford, Cambridge

National Infrastructure Commission

Our approach to this open competition highlights a wide variety of possible developments through an enabling network of transport, green and blue infrastructure –a web of opportunities. The threads of the web form the critical transport and movement infrastructure links, creating a series of ‘green rooms’, which build on the surrounding natural assets, forming special places and productive landscapes for the region. Our linked places typology looks at a new approach of developing in flood risk areas, and progressive new typologies will also form part of the ribbon extensions.

In collaboration with LSE, we have published a report exploring the opportunities afforded by a strategic review of the green belt. With a particular focus on the potential of the London Stansted Cambridge Corridor, the study demonstrates that a regional green belt policy could deliver huge benefits in terms of improving public access to green space; creating new communities with social and physical infrastructure, and supporting existing and emerging local economies through increased employment opportunities.

Green belt research

Interrelationship with London

Manox Factory

Manchester

Engie

Our proposals will transform this former factory site just outside of central Manchester into a new residential neighbourhood. The 410 homes, 49% of which will have three or more bedrooms, will be built using modular construction techniques to improve design quality, flexibility and sustainability. Access to the adjacent Rochdale Canal will be enhanced, and a new green link between this waterway and Saxon Saint Park will provide significant new amenity space at the heart of the scheme.

The Abbey Estate is a suburban residential estate adjacent to Thetford Forest and the Little Ouse River. We are engaging with residents to understand their concerns and aspirations for the estate and develop a series of masterplan options. The feedback informs the development of the masterplan, with a view to arriving at a preferred option which will be taken forward to planning. This community-led approach will help to tackle the issues that have been identified through the engagement process and improve the character of the neighbourhood. Improvements to the riverside area will unlock the potential of significant but currently underutilised green space. The masterplan will deliver up to 1500 new homes.

Abbey Estate

Thetford

Elm Grove Estate

Sutton, London

London Borough of Sutton

The Elm Grove Estate is located in Sutton town centre, to the rear of the High Street. There are currently 73 homes on the estate: a mix of flats, bungalows and houses. The Sutton town centre masterplan has identified it as having the potential to be an enhanced residential neighbourhood, providing improved homes for existing residents and additional homes for the wider community in a prime town centre location. As such, we have carried out a series of workshops with residents to explore their needs and the possible development opportunities, with an aim to deliver up to 300 new homes.