So the workshop was kicked off by three members from Taylor Wimpey, who introduced us to the Taylor Wimpey housing developers. So this is some information which I have taken from the Taylor Wimpey website, which will help explain what they are all about:
"We were formed by the merger of George Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow in 2007, and have operations in the UK and Spain. We aim to be the developer of choice for customers, employees, communities and shareholders.
We are one of the largest homebuilders in the UK, operating from 24 regional offices across England, Scotland and Wales.
We build a wide range of properties, from one- and two-bedroom apartments to five bedroom detached houses, with a broad price range including both private and affordable homes. We are truly national and we cover most regions across the UK.."
So the main aspect is looking at the access routes around the site. So they look at different junctions, such as right turn lanes, roundabouts, etc. Also is there enough land available and how much of it do they actually control and can the site be accessed to adoptable standards?
Things to take into account first:
- Evaluate the constraints
- Talk to the engineers
- The overall aim of the project (use a mixture of property types)
- Analyse the site
- Site visit
- Assess the planning context
- Existing masterplan's which have already been proposed
- Other planning work
- Planning history of the site
- Create a layout which is will attract customers which will make it easy to sell and make it commercially feasible
- Aim for a coverage of 15,000 sq. ft
Also try and create a layout which:
- Comprises of a good mix
- Be dense enough
- Work alongside the constraints of the site
- Be acceptable to the planners as well as the urban designer
- Doesn't waste any land
- Well designed
A few more things to remember are:
- Good garden sizes (aim is to make it at least 10.5 long x by width of house)
- Correct road widths and sensible geometry (must comply with regulations of 5.5m wide)
- Parking (Each property should have a garage or assigned parking spaces)
- No overlooking to other properties
- Rear access
- Blank gables
- Make use of open spaces by introducing play equipment, etc
- Private drives or roads?
- Bin storage
- Landscaping
- Implement affordable housing - as this is vital for sales and commercial viability
Always bare in mind what the properties will look like, in elevation and not just in plan.
They then create a Design & Access Statements
Creating a finished site plan (whether through CAD or hand drawn)
The finished product (creating renders of a street view)
So the main things to consider when project managing residential estates, are:
- Safely delivering the programme to the cost calculated
- Manage CDM and HSE process, Principle Designer
- Manage the design and planning process
- Co-ordinate designs and consultants
- Manage submission to Statutory authorities, Services
- Upward ad external reporting
- Site start and production liaison
- Cost control and management (Quantity surveying)
- Site close out exit strategy
- Adoption of sewers, roads and open spaces
- Customer care issues
We was then given the different task options:
- Look at completing and annotating the constrains plan
- Look at providing a Pre-Construction CDM Plan.
- Try your hand at designing and plotting the layout for this scheme (proofing layout)
- Design some elevation treatment / Street scene
- Design a new house type for the scheme
- Do a project management programme
- Provide a cost cash flow plan (monthly)
- Work out some different returns for ROCE if revenues varied (Gained or Lowered) (Sensitivity testing)
- Individually, project team all create the development together
- Present to us on your blog or cloud, we take a look and who knows, we may offer some prises.
Although a lot of people decided to work in groups, my friends and I decided to tackle this project individually as we all wanted to create our own masterplan layout as we felt this would be most interesting.
As there was a lot of information to take in we didn't actually do much, other than just talk about different options and ideas. We also received a bit of help from Kevin Pearson who talked to us about how he tackled the project. Also by looking at the council website I managed to download the masterplan which he designed.