Estate regeneration - Levitt Bernstein

Estate Regeneration 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.

Since our founding in 1968, we have specialised in the revitalisation of housing estates across the country. We understand the role estate regeneration plays in providing more, better quality homes, employment opportunities and environmental enhancements to improve the quality of life for the wider community.

From our offices in London and Manchester, our urban designers, landscape architects and interior designers also enable us to look holistically at all projects, providing the expertise to deal with both the macro scale masterplanning and micro scale detailing both inside and outside the buildings.

Every one of our projects starts with the people we’re designing for and we work side-by-side with communities and clients from the very outset; engaging in consultation throughout the development process to create new, sustainable neighbourhoods.

As well as designing new homes, we set standards and shape opinion within the sector. ‘The Housing Design Handbook’, ‘Thinking Ahead’ and ‘Altered Estates’ are some of our recent publications exploring best practice and issues related to estate regeneration, and we also regularly contribute to other books, papers and guidelines.

Temporary pavilion at Bermondsey Spa

City of Stories

Resident garden party and growing workshops

Facilitating intergenerational conversations

Pop-up installation

Temporary pavilion

Community street party

Aberfeldy New Village Tower Hamlets, London Aberfeldy New Village LLP Our new masterplan will provide 1,176 new homes, shops, a faith centre, community centre and PCT, and creates a series of new routes in and around the site – making it much more permeable and welcoming. 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. Working in collaboration with make:good, a series of workshops were held to develop the proposals with residents.

“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

“The sophistication and continuity of the stakeholder engagement process has clearly paid off with a palpable sense of ownership, care and pride.”

Landscape Institute Awards judge

Ocean Estate Tower Hamlets, London East Thames Housing Group, First Base, Bellway Homes, Wates Living Space and Spitalfields Housing Association 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 feel proud of.

“What we’ve built at the Ocean Estate isn’t just bricks and mortar. It’s a brand new, inclusive community that has delivered and will continue to deliver positive change to a wide range of people. It is a brilliant example of how to ensure the community is involved in the changes going on around them.”

Aman Dalvi, Corporate Director for Development and Renewal, London Borough of Tower Hamlets

“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

“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.

Aylesbury Estate Southwark, London London Borough of Southwark, London & Quadrant Housing Group Our mini-masterplan for part of this estate involved demolishing existing stock and building better housing in its place, while reintroducing the traditional, legible street pattern through a series of new, smaller buildings.

We reduced heights and doubled density by creating smaller footprints with central courtyards, which meant a range of homes could be provided, all with access to private amenity. Internal layouts were tested extensively through planning and the construction of a full size show home to ensure the new homes would comfortably accommodate residents’ needs.

“A proud testament to the merits of inspirational and robust design-led placemaking.”

London Planning Awards judge

We were appointed to rework the Council’s original masterplan for this area as a result of public transport improvements. We began by identifying key destinations surrounding the site before looking at ways to create connections between them.

Many of our interventions have re-established the historic street network, which had evolved and disintegrated over time. Our medium rise, high density approach has created a distinctive urban neighbourhood – buildings have tight footprints with central courtyards, interconnected by new and improved streets and public squares. We recently installed a temporary pavilion for residents and passers-by to express how they felt about the area.

“What is most pleasing now on the ground is the obvious ownership of the area now by those who live and work in it. The whole atmosphere has been transformed into a place where people actually want to be.”

Tim Thompson, Principal Project Surveyor, London Borough of Southwark

Bermondsey Spa Southwark, London Hyde Housing Association

“The creation of this new neighbourhood will completely transform Barking town centre.”

Trevor Burns, Executive Director of Development, East Thames Housing Group

Gascoigne Estate Barking, London London Borough of Barking & Dagenham Our starting point for this project was to reintroduce a traditional street pattern and replace tower blocks with a series of smaller buildings. A large park sits in the centre of the estate, providing open communal amenity with paths through to the adjacent primary school and housing beyond. Throughout, we have taken an important aspect of the area’s history as the driving concept behind the design. The site was formerly home to a jute spinning mill in the Victorian era, and so we used ‘weaving’ to define the character of distinct neighbourhoods across the development.

Gascoigne Estate Barking, London London Borough of Barking & Dagenham

Review new Gascoigne images

Redbrick Estate Islington, London London Borough of Islington This redevelopment provides 55 additional homes, new community facilities, retail space and significant improvements to the communal outdoor spaces.

Our brief was to examine how we could improve the environment for existing residents, whilst offering much needed new homes for local people. The proposals involve the demolition of existing garages and retail space, which will be re-provided alongside a new larger community centre and three new residential buildings.

These will extend and complement homes on the estate, supported by a series of upgraded external spaces to improve access and provide opportunities for play.

“Redbrick is a real example of how high quality genuinely affordable housing and much needed community space can be creatively woven into the fabric of existing estates, improving the safety and quality of streets and open space for the common good.”

Stephen Nash, New Homes Development Programme Manager, Islington Council

“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

Eastfields Estate Merton, London Clarion Housing Group Working in collaboration with Proctor 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.

For this project, we first explored development sites for new homes within an existing estate. The new housing is carefully wrapped around or on top of the existing buildings, creating a series of new routes and spaces which reflect a more traditional street form, with active residential frontages achieved by placing front doors along the main routes and clear definition between public and private shared amenity.

Not only does this project regenerate a deprived area, create funds to refurbish the existing leisure building, substantially upgrade existing public realm and improve the safety of the area, but it also unlocks the delivery of over 150 new homes for the London Borough of Islington.

Bemerton Estate Islington, London London Borough of Islington

Winstanley and York Road Estate Wandsworth, London London Borough of Wandsworth 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.

“The Winstanley and York Road masterplan is what regeneration is about for us. It’s about design, buildings, streets and routes: but equally, it’s also about the non-spatial stuff, about engaging with the community and local politicians. That’s the really exciting bit.”

Vinita Dhume, Associate Director

The wider masterplan of Acton Gardens will deliver 2,500 homes, community facilities and green spaces on the existing South Acton Estate in Ealing. This phase will provide over 300 new mixed tenure homes, along with a range of community facilities in two new buildings arranged around a major public landscape. These facilities include a nursery, youth centre and a range of community offices, meeting spaces and shops, which together will form the social heart of the masterplan. The non-residential uses are concentrated on the ground and first floor, and feature materials and geometries that flow seamlessly between the interiors and the surrounding landscape, helping to maximise their connection to the surrounding public spaces and create inviting new public facilities to serve the local community.

Acton Gardens Ealing, London Acton Gardens LLP

Abbey Estate Thetford Flagship Homes The Abbey Estate is a suburban residential estate in Thetford, adjacent to Thetford Forest and the Little Ouse River, and in walking distance of Thetford Town Centre. We are working collaboratively with Flagship Homes and residents, through interactive workshops and drop in sessions, to understand the concerns and aspirations of residents and develop a series of masterplan options for the estate. The preferred, community led-scheme will help tackle the issues that the community have identified through the engagement process, and improve the character of the neighbourhood through high quality design.

Quaker Court Islington, London London Borough of Islington Quaker Court will add 42 new, socially-rented homes, a community space and new outdoor amenity spaces into an existing residential estate. This will be done through a combination of rooftop extensions and infill via family mews houses and a new apartment building, all the while carefully knitting into the fabric of the existing community.

Using volumetric offsite manufacturing has been a key driver as it allows for a higher quality build, but importantly reduces construction time and noise pollution on site, thereby limiting the impact on existing residents who will remain in their homes during construction.

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.

Holly Street Hackney, London London Borough of Hackney, The Holly Street Consortium In 1990, this estate was in desperate need of regeneration.

Our starting point was to reinstate the lost network of historic routes, creating a more familiar and permeable streetscape with mid-rise housing and pockets of green space. Three of the four towers were demolished, with the one remaining transformed to provide homes for older people. As well as 1,050 new homes, a new nursery, sports hall, youth amenities, employment training facilities and public space have been integrated into the wider regeneration – making the estate almost unrecognisable from that two decades ago.

“The success of the Holly Street Estate is testament to our commitment to working with local communities from the start to create better places to live – it’s about being there on day one and still being there when you’re handing over the last set of keys ten years later.”

Jo McCafferty, Director

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