St Valentines Close: Gordon Road, Winchester

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KEY FACTS

St Valentines Close is a mixed-use redevelopment of a former commercial laundry site. The site lies in a prominent corner location on the edge of the conservation area to the north of the city centre of Winchester, in the area of Hyde.

The redevelopment provides fourteen new dwelling houses plus 300sq.m of office floor space. The housing mix provides a terrace of 6no. 2 bedroom, 2 storey houses, 6no. 4 bedroom, 3 storey houses, 1 no. detached 2 bedroom house and 1.no detached 3 bedroom house. Each house has a private garden, with integrated cycle and bin storage. One parking space is provided per dwelling within a parking court to the rear of the houses.

The brief was to create a high quality, predominantly residential redevelopment, which would repair this important corner site.

The mix and amount of development was dictated largely by local planning policy; which at the time of design (2010) required that 50% of any new dwellings must be ‘small’; ie no more than 2 bedrooms and no larger than 75sq.m (gross internal floor area), to provide housing at the lower end of the market. The remaining 50% of the housing could be of a size and mix to suit local market demands. As the previous use of the site provided some employment the local planning policy required some employment generating accommodation must be reprovided on site.

Following a thorough analysis of the site and the context our design approach was, in summary; to reinstate the two street frontages to the south and east sides of the site; to create a development which addressed and contributed to the public realm and improved pedestrian permeability across the site by creating a new footpath connection between Hyde Abbey Road and Gordon Road.

The new buildings have been designed to be ‘of their time’, embracing both 21st century materials and construction technologies as well as 21st century lifestyles. At the same time the design is sympathetic to the surrounding context and has taken into account the character of the adjacent Conservation area, which is predominantly Victorian and Edwardian terraced housing. The new houses follow a simple, ordered design which creates a subtle rhythm to the street frontages. The design is intended to be a contemporary reinterpretation of the surrounding vernacular, using pitched slate roofs, projecting bay windows, entrance porches (either recessed or projecting) and fundamentally, repetition within the elevations.

The scheme was shortlisted for a Solent Design.