'House by Urban Splash’ has created its first Row House homes – a new typology designed by architect shedkm – and builds upon the hugely successful Mansion and Town House concepts.
The designs for the first Row House homes were unveiled at the start of the year with the offsite prototype developed in the ‘House by Urban Splash’ factory in Alfreton, East Midlands, before being delivered to the East Float area of the Northbank neighbourhood – a community that is being developed in partnership with Peel L&P at Wirral Waters in Merseyside.
Chris Shaw, Delivery Director at ‘House by Urban Splash’ explains: “Row House is the third residential typology in our award-winning portfolio and comes from our experience in recent years in using MMC to create hundreds of sustainable, brilliantly-designed homes across the country. To date, we have completed our three storey Town House homes and Mansion House apartments in places like Manchester, Birmingham, Salford and North Shields – it’s a pleasure to now bring more of our pioneering architecture to a new area of the country.”
Hazel Rounding of Liverpool-based shedkm – designers of the Town House and Mansion House products – adds: “Row House is a pioneering new design for homeowners, featuring our most innovative thinking around modular layouts, with efficient internal space and open-up features that offer additional outdoor living space – a concept that will suit the needs of modern buyers spending more time at home. We are delighted to see them become a reality at the Wirral.”
The first three storey Town House homes have also been delivered to Wirral Waters, with all of the homes occupying a waterfront position overlooking East Float Dock, a stone’s throw from the River Mersey. Richard Mawdsley, Director of Development for Peel L&P’s Wirral Waters, said: “The arrival of these first homes at East Float is yet another significant example of progress at Wirral Waters. Together with the other developments along Northbank, we are creating a new mixed, sustainable neighbourhood – a community for all. These innovative homes will sit alongside new public realm, including pocket parks and dockside walkways, helping to support healthier communities with a focus on fresh air and active travel.”
Town Mansion & Row House Success
‘House by Urban Splash’ is an innovative concept delivering radical new products to the UK housing market. Using offsite manufacture and customisation, House enables customers to design their own homes, selecting from a variety of options to tailor homes to suit their lifestyle. The last year has seen the completion of sites at Port Loop and Piercy Street, with others progressing in Birmingham, Manchester, Wirral, and Cambridgeshire.
Building on the success of the volumetric Mansion and Town House product – now in production for five years, and recently launched in improved Mark 3 guise – the House core range has expanded toencompass a variety of new homes designed by shedkm. As a sister to Town House, Row House uses the same modular technology, but repackaged in a smaller, simpler and more affordable format, allowing higher densities.
At Port Loop, Birmingham, houses are arranged in terraces enclosing a shared garden square. This provides a generous communal amenity space of much greater size and quality than individual private gardens would allow and has been instrumental in fostering a sense of community among residents. Customer choice was again a key part of the brief, but the emphasis was on allowing customers to choose any size of home on any plot.
The new Row House homes will form the third phase of regeneration at Port Loop and will stand adjacent to another phase of Town House homes – 105 of which have already been created at the waterside site close to Birmingham city centre. Chris continues: “In two short years, Port Loop has completely transformed. What was once a disused, rundown former industrial patch of land, has fast become a vibrant, award-winning place in which hundreds of people now live, work and play.
“We continue to evolve our product portfolio, introducing new homes to the market to help more people across the country live in brilliantlydesigned houses and communities. After the success of our Town House family homes, and our Mansion House apartments – the first of which have sold out in Manchester – we have created Row House for customers who want something different again. We look forward to seeing it become a reality at both Port Loop and Wirral Waters.”
NORTHSTOWE – THE MODULAR NEIGHBOURHOOD
Progressing its new development at Inholm at Northstowe, Cambridgeshire, ‘House by Urban Splash’ delivered 43 homes in 43 days. “This is a wonderful day,” said Eva Hogan, Sales Manager at Inholm. “We’re so excited to complete on this area of Inholm. We’ve created the homes using modern methods of construction (MMC) – meaning they’ve come to life quicker and more efficiently than traditional build. The MMC process is slick, with a precision manufacturing approach that means the homes are created to a high design specification. Now all the homes are in-situ, it’s rewarding to see how we’ve rapidly transformed this site into a brand-new neighbourhood.
“This is a futureproofed new take on suburbia which is proving extremely popular. It’s not about cul-de-sacs, or places that
accommodate cars over people: our blueprint is an alternative which promotes great design and healthy living for the future of all residents. As the world has changed so much over the past 18 months, we’re creating a neighbourhood which accommodates work and play – in an environment created to enjoy life.”
To read the full article, go to Offsite Magazine
