Newhall Housing
- Due for Competion - 2008
- Contract value - £6m
- Contract type - Design & build
- Architect - Richard Murphy Architects
- Role - Project Architect
Richard Murphy Architects was invited by Newhall Projects Ltd, a private development company, to contribute to an already developing site on the edge of the Harlow new town in Essex. Much of the site had already been developed through the master planning of Roger Evans & Associates of Oxford. The site allocated to the office being no exception was also masterplanned by Roger Evans.
The design is to a degree a continuation of ideas already expressed in the project at Cramond. The idea of abolition of front, back and side gardens in favour of larger private back gardens is kept. Suburban roads, already laid out in the master plan have been strengthened by the idea of becoming walled lanes with housing generally at right angles to the road with first floor window supervision of each street.
There are four house types: a “town house” along the southern and northern boundaries of the site, two single aspect suburban garden houses which occupy the majority of the site and finally a two-bedroom mews flat at first floor which has a terrace but no garden, sitting on top of garages for adjacent houses. In this way the large parking requirement of a suburban housing development can be incorporated into inhabited space instead of the usual large and unsightly double garages.
In addition to the houses there is a small block of flats in the south east corner of the site contributing to a more urban large scale centre as part of the master plan and abutting a row of flats by ECD Architects.
