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Our Projects : Featured Project

South Lynn Millennium Village

South Lynn Millennium Village, marketed under the name “Yours South Lynn”, is the fourth of the seven English Partnerships’ designated Millennium Community Villages, being promoted by the government as exemplars of sustainable development.

Capita Percy Thomas is architect for the scheme.

Set on the outskirts of King’s Lynn, Norfolk, the project commenced is part of a 32ha redevelopment programme of brown-field sites to the south of King’s Lynn centre, set between the River Nar and River Great Ouse, by the leading property developer, Morston Assets, and their project partners, Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, Norfolk County Council, East of England Development Agency and English Partnerships. 

The development’s Master Plan provides for up to 900 new homes. This first phase creates 109 new homes providing a mix of apartments and town houses combining one bedroom through to five bedroom accommodation ranging from two storey to four storeys in height. 

The Brief

• Create a sustainable development, both in terms of the built form and the community residing there. 
• Development to be visually stimulating whilst respecting the existing King’s Lynn vernacular. 
• “Home Zones” and courtyards developed to enable the whole site to be ‘people places’ rather than controlled by the car. 
• The development was to also achieve Millennium Community Standards and be an exemplar of sustainable living. 

Town Planning Context

Care was taken to understand the existing vernacular language of King’s Lynn.

The varying heights of buildings, façade stepping and pedestrian passageways have been used to link the new development to its surroundings.

This understanding of the surrounding architecture has been carried through to the materials used and the colours chosen.

The finished scheme shows an enhancement to the historical language of King’s Lynn vernacular rather than a pastiche copy. 

Design Response

In achieving Millennium Community Standards the following design challenges have been addressed:

• Eco Homes Excellent rating for Phase 1 of the development.
• The building envelope is designed to give a 20% metered energy reduction per dwelling through the specification of low energy lighting, boiler specification, integration of ‘A’ grade appliances, clothes lines for outdoor drying, etc; thus reducing the CO2 emissions of each dwelling.
• Dwellings to achieve 10% above the current British Standard for day-lighting by ensuring that window sizes and positions are maximised. 
• Noise insulation increased by 10% above the current Building Regulations, achieved by careful detailing and attention to construction on site, monitored by independent specialist consultants. 
• Construction materials chosen from sustainable material sources, to deliver a reduction in embodied energy of 50%.
• Timber frame being used to enable off-site production, delivering reduced construction times on site, better quality control and a reduction in construction waste, which has been monitored to achieve an average of only 25 cubic metres per dwelling, reducing landfill waste. In addition insulation products that do not use ozone depleting materials have been chosen. 
• Regarding room sizes, the Housing Corporation’s Scheme Developments Standards have been applied to all units across the scheme. This has resulted in an increased footprint size to all dwellings not just the Housing Association units of approximately 10% in comparison with similar private sector properties. 
• Externally, as part of a Green Transport Initiative, secure rear external storage has been provided to all houses to provide storage for cycles given to residents upon occupation. 

Recycling has been addressed by two initiatives:

• A four-part segmented bin has been provided in the kitchen of all properties, coordinated with an external bin storage capacity sized to accommodate recycling initiatives designed to reduce household waste by 50%. 
• Communal water butts have been specified allowing for the maintenance of the courtyard spaces without additional environmental impact. 

To enable working from home, each property has a designated “home office” area, where levels of natural daylighting and power and IT datacabling have been combined to provide the optimum working environment.

Secure car parking is provided in courtyards and through on street parking bays, all of which are observed by a site-wide network of CCTV cameras as required to achieve a Secure by Design Accreditation. 

The dwellings types have been mixed to allow combinations of large and small houses to be set adjacent to apartment blocks. This allows for a variety of people to occupy each courtyard. All of the houses are designed so that the main living space opens into a small private patio space and then in turn onto the semi-private courtyard. The apartments all have direct access to the courtyards. 

Breaking from the traditional provision of private gardens, resident’s amenity space has been pooled to create semi-private courtyards based upon the London Squares concept. These gated spaces are for the exclusive use of residents and feature a combination of soft and hard landscaped areas, car parking and equipped areas of play.

Balconies have been used to add visual movement to the upper levels of the dwellings. The mixed-use of Juliets and walk-on balconies allows for elevated space to be used appropriately to the dwelling it serves. 

The project has been designed to meet and exceed Secure by Design through a combination of good design, specification of security rated doors and windows and the incorporation of CCTV to communal open spaces. 

The building materials specified have been chosen not only for their aesthetic quality but with a regard to sustainability and local reference.  Reviewing construction detailing and material combinations has ensured that the benefits gained by the careful choice of materials are experienced in the completed product. 

The scheme provides 25% social housing provided by Freebridge Housing Association, our Housing Association partner.  A mix of rented and shared ownership dwellings have been pepper-potted within the layout and, at the discretion of the client, all units, both internally and externally, share the same standard of quality and specification as the rest of the development. 

Landscape Treatment

Yours South Lynn is the first new build Home Zone to fully comply with current DoT legislation. Designed to give equal priority to vehicles and pedestrians, each street within the Home Zone has been articulated with a combination of high quality materials - on street parking bays lay juxtaposition between semi mature trees and hard landscape features designed to reduce vehicle speeds and encourage street based social interaction and play. 

The landscaping has played a crucial roll in defining external spaces, and reinforcing the courtyard garden and Home Zone principles creating a sense of place rather than just used as the softening factor to the buildings. Even the street lighting was considered and building mounted fittings were adopted in preference to traditional street light columns. The Design Team have concentrated on creating an overall palette of finishes allowing the building façades to sit comfortably within the overall landscaping context. 

In line with the requirements of EcoHomes, care has been taken in the specification of the landscaping visuals. Hedges have been chosen to echo the local species. Bird and bat nesting boxes have been included within the built form, and sustainably sourced soft landscaping materials have been utilised throughout the development. 

Project Timescale
Phased handovers allow for residents to occupy Yours South Lynn Phase 1 from March 2007, with the overall site completion to be August 2007. 

Links:

> Visit the Home Zones website
> Visit English Partnerships Millennium Communities website 
> Visit the South Kings Lynn website