Grandpont final design report by will pedley edited

Grandpont Final Design Report / Will Pedley : 11079583 / U37742 : Designing the City

Will Pedley - 11079583

2D layout plans of final design scheme Detailing uses, car parking and vegetation.

Uses - The plan below shows the mixture of uses within the site.

Around the public space there is a mix of uses in order to encourage more activity and vitality. This mixed use will take the form of a retail outlet/cafÊ on the ground floor (shown in yellow) with residential above it and opposite a mix of commercial on the ground floor and residential use on the upper floors. This arrangement is in keeping with Gehl’s (2010) ideas about mixed uses, which are also supported in The Urban Design Compendium (Homes and Communities, 2000).

Car parking - All streets are designed to a width of 9m. This accommodates for 2m of parking each side running parallel with the 5m carriageway. As per Manual for Streets, footpath build-outs will be used in order create breaks between the lines of parked cars (2007, p.104). Also in keeping with the recommendations in Manual for Streets, parking has been incorporated on street where possible (2007, p.108), except for within the mixed commercial and residential blocks where additional capacity has been provided within the block perimeter.

Trees and vegetation - Where possible existing trees have been retained. The trees lining the edge of the railway have been utilised as both a visual and sound buffer. Trees along the river front have been kept. A small copse at the north end of the site has been retained as well as some trees lining the road leading from the public space, providing an avenue like feel to the street.

Figure 11. Plan showing typical on street parking layout.

Figure 10. Plan showing the different uses of buildings.

Figure 12. Plan showing additional parking incorporated into the block perimeter.

Figure 13. Plan showing the incorporation of trees and vegetation.

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Will Pedley - 11079583

Final design scheme analysis - Morphology Detailing of building dimensions, street to building ratios, image character and housing density.

Building dimensions All houses are 6m wide and 9m deep. This is slightly larger than the houses in the neighbouring area, which are approximately 5.7m wide.

This alteration has been made as it is more convenient in terms of accommodating car parking in front of houses.

Flats and commercial properties range in width and length but all have a depth between 9-13m as per The Urban Design Compendium, which states that this is the optimum size for robustness and potential for change of use over time, which is more sustainable (2000, p.94).

Street to building ratio and Street Hierarchy The main road (see figure 17) which leads directly to the area of public space (and also provides a pedestrian and cycle link to the Grandpont bridge) has a street to building ratio of 5:3, with a setback Figure 17. Section of key road towards area of public space. of 4m each side. This is in contrast to most other streets, which are Section shows setback, footpath, parallel parking bay and typically 2:1 without any set back, and also some pedestrian/cycle carriageway. only streets, which have a ratio of either 4:3 or 4:5. This disparity has been designed so that it creates a type of street hierarchy with the narrower roads being less significant in terms of importance and prominence than the wider key street.

Figure 18. Section of typical secondary road.

Section shows footpath, parallel parking bay and carriageway.

Image Character In terms of image character, the development will draw upon the exemplars of the surrounding area. Instead of the 80’s semis and terraces of Salter Close, the Victorian terraces of Marlborough Road (see figure 19) will form the basis of the style of houses, with bay windows and similarly pitched roofs. The flats and offices will emulate the style of the Geoffrey Arthur Building, while avoiding the large windowless wall spaces that can be seen in figure 20.

Housing Density Gross housing density is 40 dph based on the 6 ha site and 240 Figure 19. Photo of houses in nearby Marlborough Road. dwellings. This conforms to Oxford City Council’s Local Plan (2005) recommendation of 40 dph, this is a little under the recommendation in Shaping Neighbourhoods (Barton, Grant and Guise, 2010) of 50dph, due to the incorporation of commercial use. The net density is 65dph.

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