Architect
HTA Architects
Developer
David Wilson Homes
Contractor
David Wilson Homes
Planning Authority
Northampton Borough Council
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Upton urban extension of Northampton uses a design code created through the Prince's Foundation Enquiry by Design process. Anyone who believes design coding forces development to be backward looking, obliged to use small windows to echo period fenestration and barred from sustainable energy technology needs to look immediately at this scheme on Upton Site C.
The development is for 26 homes for sale and 4 for rent. The housebuilder's brief of large family houses for sale has been met with a run of three-storey villas along the southern edge accessed from within the site where courtyard houses create a chequerboard of private gardens and homezone-like central courtyard.
These villas, orientated to milk daylight, include a 4-double-bedroom, 3-bathroom house type. It has a brick-fronted narrow deep plan 3-storey form with a double-height glazed gable and balcony or a bedroom at second storey, coupled to a 2-storey extension entirely glazed on the south elevation and topped with a flat roof turned into generous private terrace. In this type and several others there are double-height sun spaces, while lights along the roof ridge light stairwells with daylight or moonlighting. These houses, with their private amenity and rooms flooded with daylight, have the potential to create rare excitement across the local new-build market and nationally.
The glazed passive solar design is part of an extensive strategy for the scheme to avoid wastage. It achieves EcoHomes Excellent standard by incorporating sustainable urban drainage, photovoltaic panels on the roof and three-bin storage designed into the kitchen to encourage recycling. Covered bin and cycle stores to the side or rear of houses allow residents to keep rubbish away from the street and all houses can access the street from their garden on collection day.