Farmstead
Masterplan for village extension, Essex
How do you design a new village? By looking at an old one.
The medieval village of Amberley in the South Downs, like many others grew up as a confluence of farms, sitting cheek by jowl with each other, perched above the flood plain of the river Arun. Each farm is an informal collection of farmhouse, outbuildings including large barns and open byres enclosing their farm yard and kitchen gardens.
These interdependent compositions, both functional and picturesque, remain dominant even now the last working farm has gone. Bigger barns are converted into new independent homes, byres into garages, yards into shared driveways. Gardens are still gardens.
This masterplan gathers these tropes and arranges them once again to form the new rural village now, composed of individual homes around collective yards for the shared and protected ancillary uses of every day domestic life.
Service: Masterplan
Location: Stebbing, Essex
Client: Undisclosed
Cost: Undisclosed
Areas: XX m2
Dates: XX
To Live In To Learn In To Work In To Play In