Tarnside & Mardale Crescent New Housing Development

An award winning housing development for 41 general needs homes comprising of nine accessible bungalows and a mix of two and three bedroom semi-detached houses. Working in conjunction with Wates directly for Leeds City Council’s Housing Growth Team, the scheme has successfully delivered high-quality council housing for the city of Leeds.

The housing development has had a huge positive impact in the wider community. The layout and design were developed to ensure that the proposals were contextually responsive. A direct pedestrian and visual connection through the main Tarnside site was developed by the introduction of a boulevard, which allows for simple clear navigation and legibility within the existing network.

Car parking has been placed at the side of houses where possible to avoid car dominance in the scheme. The boundary treatment strategy created directly responds to the wider street scene, and takes into consideration defensible space, whilst still allowing for generous private amenity areas for all houses. By following existing building lines, using similar building massing, and carefully using the levels of the sites to respond to the topography, we believe we have achieved a successful integration that will allow new residents to interact positively with the existing community.

A fabric first approach was taken to enhance the energy efficiency of the buildings. This, combined with a high level of air tightness enabled us to achieve a 20% reduction in the Building Regulations Target Emission Rate for operational energy site wide on the scheme. Future proofing these houses was also a key aim for the council, so each house has been designed to be easily adapted to any changing needs of the residents.

Accessibility for all has been integral to the project but an added complexity because of the sloping nature of the site. Being able to overcome this has resulted in exceeding Building Regulation and Planning minimum standards with 78% of the properties meeting M4(2) standards and 5% of properties meeting M4(3) requirements.

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