The clients own a building in the Ouseburn Valley and had been trying unsuccessfully for up to ten years to have proposals developed that would successfully achieve planning approval.

We were invited to examine the feasibility of developing the site for student housing. There is inevitably a difficult balance to be struck between providing enough space to make a scheme commercially viable against the need to control the impact of the building in terms of height and mass on this contentious and sensitive site.

Working closely with the Planning Authority and English Heritage we developed a scheme that provided 117 student spaces of varying sizes with some integral car and cycle parking. 190m2 commercial space located on the ground floor provides much-needed active frontage. Holding tanks and grey water recycling are specified to reduce the building's impact on the environment.

The 4067m2 of development has been carefully modelled to break up its mass and using the recommendations outlined in the Ouseburn Central Master Plan, respect is paid to the topography of the site and the materials found in the Ouseburn Valley.

The project gained planning approval in August 2007.