Bishops Drive New Build Social Housing in Bishops Cleeve
This project continues our work on the former Smiths Industries housing estate at Bishops Cleeve for Rooftop Housing Group, which now extends to over a decade, transforming former garage sites into contemporary social housing. The scheme transforms a former garage site into a contemporary mews style scheme on what was otherwise disused land that encouraged anti-social behaviour. Priorities included maximising housing numbers, respecting local character and keeping within budget constraints.
The Challenge
Our Response
Working alongside Rooftop Housing Group and Hemingway Design, we helped deliver a high-quality mews development that regenerates the neglected site, improves community safety and provides much needed new homes. The initial community consultation was carried out by Hemingway Design and we then collaborated with them on the design up to the planning application stage, and then continued the scheme up to completion,
The design emphasises a street rhythm via the gable ends which are facilitated by a standing seem valley roof. The selection of brick seeks to find a balance between the local context and the desire to be contemporary.
The Outcome
14 high quality, spacious affordable homes with parking spaces were created on what was previously under-utilised land. A strong sense of place exists through the mews style development and natural surveillance reduces the opportunity for anti-social behaviour.
Bishops Drive demonstrates how thoughtful architecture can unlock the potential of forgotten sites. By combining careful urban design, community engagement and contemporary architecture, the development provides high-quality affordable homes while creating a safer, more attractive neighbourhood.
"My relationship goes back at least 20 years. I asked them to do a small job on a project near St Chad's Cathedral in Birmingham to basically redesign the interior and they did an absolutely amazing job and they turned what was a quite a drab social housing project into somewhere that people really wanted to live in.
We had a project when I moved to an organisation called Rooftop Housing who specialise in working with gypsies and travellers and Kevin and The Space Studio pitched to provide the gypsy and traveller community some brand new homes / pods and did an absolutely amazing job using off-site construction. This grew into developing garage sites in Bishop's Cleeve near Cheltenham. The team designed across at least four sites, circa 50 brand new homes with contemporary design, absolutely amazing properties and I recognised that quality was what The Space Studio was all about."
