Design codes can set a good basic standard without stifling innovation
Pollard Thomas Edwards
Our focus is to design great buildings and places and to deliver excellent services to our clients.
In our experience, design codes work. They foster dialogue. They break down barriers. They get people talking. They provide a common ground for everyone invested in a building project – the community, the developer, the local authority - each for their own reasons. In short, a good design code, is everybody’s friend. And they can help architects, consultants and builders, deliver better buildings. Better for users (the best design codes respond to how we live). Better for the neighbourhood (a good design code thrives on context). And better for the planet (by promoting sustainable design).
It is why we both use – and produce - them at PTE. Our Cherry Hinton North Design Code (also called ‘Springstead Village') for example, devised and delivered with landscape architect McGregor Coxall , provides a blueprint for housebuilder development that is less car-focused, and more walkable, sociable, greener, and energy efficient.
It’s been noticed too, by industry, winning the 2023 Landscape Institute award for Excellence in Landscape Planning and Assessment earlier this month.
Its success also encouraged Cambridge City Council’s ‘Inspired Living’ project (in partnership with the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service ) to ask us to create a design code for the city’s northern neighbourhoods including Arbury, Kings Hedges and parts of West Chesterton wards which we’re working on now,? drawing upon findings from our recent co-production workshops with local residents.
Cherry Hinton/Springstead Village client: Bellway Latimer Cherry Hinton LLP (a JV between Bellway Homes and Latimer by Clarion Housing Group)