Bradbury Place

The Design Process

The site presented a number of constraints. It had no vehicular access and was truncated by a Public Right of Way. A tree belt to the north-east provided good protection from noise generated by the nearby highway but also restricted development owing to tree root protection areas and canopy spread. To the east and presenting itself to the Winchester Road is a nondescript two-storey development. Form became an important consideration and in terms of townscape the building was used to ‘bookend’ Winchester Road in order that its presence on the corner site was tangible when viewed from the nearby town centre (see elevation drawing below). Two accommodation ‘blocks’ are created with strong gable ends to achieve this intent. The two accommodation ‘blocks’ of span the Public Right of Way to physically connect common areas and improve resident interaction and to enable all apartments to be serviced from a single lift. The Public Right of Way dissects the site but does not dissect the community living here. To achieve commercial viability the site needed to support 8 no. apartments. The height of the gables restricted the accommodation ‘blocks’ to three storeys therefore two single-storey ‘chalet’ apartments were developed between the three storey blocks and the adjacent existing community of ‘bungalows’, creating enclosed entrance courtyards. These also assisted with the transition in scale and typology between the three storey ‘blocks’ and the existing ‘bungalows’. The buildings are clad above ground floor in anthracite zinc. Brickwork forms the walls of ground floor storey and these are built to a datum which reflects the scale of the existing bungalows of the adjacent community. The zinc is intended to minimise maintenance and provide a strong material presence, reinforcing the ‘bookend’ concept. All of the apartments are fully accessible and cater for the needs of wheelchair users according to current design standards for this type of accommodation.