Northstowe village wins prestigious Housing Design Award
Inholm, the second phase of Cambridgeshire’s new town of Northstowe and with a landscape strategy by Grant Associates, has won a 2020 Housing Design Award for its pioneering townscape design principles.
Inholm is a contemporary Fenlands village masterplanned by Proctor and Matthews architects with 406 homes designed by Proctor and Matthews and Shedkm. It is part of a wider plan led by Homes England to create Northstowe, which will eventually grow to a community of 10,000 homes making it the largest new town since Milton Keynes.
The village is being delivered by ‘House by Urban Splash’, a modern housebuilder which creates new and customisable homes using modern methods of construction. The company is owned by award winning regeneration company Urban Splash, Japan’s biggest housebuilder Sekisui House and Homes England.
Landscape strategy
Inspired by the Fens’ rich history and previous settlements that were set on higher ground, Inholm will be surrounded by a variety of landscapes including a country park, sustainable drainage swales, ecological zones and new schools.
While the village has defined boundaries it is also permeable, with cycle routes and pedestrian links spreading out to the surrounding new neighbourhoods and the planned neighbouring town centre, and stretching into Cambridge.
Homes on the edge of Inholm are configured to provide a distinctive village skyline and protect gardens and shared spaces (streets, mews, squares and pocket parks) within the neighbourhood - a response to the Fenlands’ exposed environment.
Inholm’s shared spaces prioritise children’s play, pedestrians and cycling, with car parking, bicycle storage and refuse collection points integrated with care into the streetscape. This reflects the driving design concept behind Inholm’s masterplan of ‘Healthy Living’ with a focus on ‘Youth & Play’.
Inholm’s homes
Inholm - a Danish word meaning ‘island in the marshes’ - will offer a range of home types, including later living homes, and mixed-use buildings. Contemporary in design, the homes use a colour palette and materials that reference local archeology, the Fens vernacular and craft traditions.
The modular built homes can be configured by the buyer to their own design before being built in a factory and delivered to site. Inholm is set to be the largest scheme in the UK to be manufactured off-site using modern volumetric construction.
Images courtesy of Urban Splash.
