F E AT U R E By Jonathan Falkingham
Towards a new suburbia
1 1. A CGI of the new House by Urban Splash homes coming to Northstowe. © House by Urban Splash
The new village of Inholm in Cambridgeshire is being built by House by Urban Splash. Its creative director explains why it offers a blueprint for an approach to landscape design that accommodates the demands of high density housing whilst prioritising resident wellbeing and health.
T
he 406 home village, granted planning consent in February, will be the largest project in the UK to be manufactured offsite using volumetric construction. As the second phase of Northstowe, a 10,000 home sustainable new town on a 409 hectare site 8km from Cambridge City Centre, it represents an ideal opportunity to test and develop an approach to residential settlements that respond to the challenges of contemporary life.
The key principles of the project are based on decades of research and experience of the various parties involved – the project is being delivered by ‘House by Urban Splash’, a new company backed by Urban Splash, Homes England and Japan’s biggest house builder, Sekisui House, working with Proctor & Matthews Architects as masterplanner and lead architect Grant Associates as landscape architect, together with architects ‘shedkm’. It is an approach that is rooted in experience, but also attempts to
predict changes not only over the next decade but for generations to come. Whilst the design approach was established long before we understood the transformative effect of COVID-19, the pandemic has accelerated the changes in priorities and lifestyles we have sought to pre-empt, bringing a new urgency to ‘Live well by design’, our mission to transform the way we design our homes, neighbourhoods and public realm. The importance of a mixed, vibrant, sociable community has been thrown into sharp focus, as 57
