TOWN is pleased to announce the appointment of TOWNhus, its joint initiative with Swedish developer Trivselhus, has been appointed as preferred development partner by Cambridge City Council to deliver a 40-home cohousing scheme at Orchard Park, Cambridge.

The scheme, known as K1 Cohousing, will be Cambridge’s first cohousing scheme. Our full press release is below – we intend to bring further news on this exciting project in the near future.

Cambridge cohousing group chooses British-Swedish team to build new community

Cambridge, 20th July 2015

Cambridge City Council, together with Cambridge Cohousing Limited, has selected developer TOWNhus, working with Mole Architects, to deliver the city’s first cohousing project at Orchard Park, Cambridge. The appointment is the latest step in a collaborative process, working with future residents to design and deliver a new place that encourages community and supports a more sustainable way of living.

The competitive bidding process saw a shortlisted group of developers invited to submit proposals for the site, known as K1, working to a brief prepared by Cambridge Cohousing over the last two years. The new community will comprise around 40 homes, ranging from one-bedroom flats to four-bedroom houses, a large shared garden for food growing, play and relaxation and a shared ‘common house’ where residents will be able to eat together and socialise.

Jan Chadwick of Cambridge Cohousing, said:

“After years of hard work, our members are delighted that TOWNhus has been chosen as our development partner. They offered a creative and convincing response to our brief that will help us in deliver our vision for a place which is beautiful, sustainable, friendly and fun. We’re looking forward to seeing the scheme built over the next 18 months – and to attracting more members to join us and live here”.

The winning submission was made by TOWNhus, UK development company TOWN working with Swedish housing manufacturer Trivselhus. The TOWNhus plans, designed with Cambridge-based Mole Architects, take an innovative approach to housing design by allowing members to shape their own homes. This means that, unlike with most newly built homes, residents will have a choice of floorplans, number of bedrooms, interior design and external finishes, giving a new level of control over how their homes look and function.

Jonny Anstead, director of TOWN, said:

“We are thrilled to have been selected to help Cambridge Cohousing realise its vision for a new community at K1, Orchard Park. Cohousing has an important role to play in meeting housing needs in a new way – not only by helping people shape the places they live in, but also in reinstating the sense of community and neighbourliness that is often missing in new developments.”

The scheme has been designed using passive thermal design principles, meaning that homes will be highly energy efficient, with warm living environments and very low energy bills. At the same time, they will be spacious and light, with tall ceilings and generously sized, triple-glazed windows. The homes will be manufactured from Trivselhus’s high-performance timber panel system in Sweden before being assembled and finished on site.

Trivselhus’s founder and chief export director, Sture Lamme, said:

“Trivselhus is excited to have the opportunity to show the benefits of our precision timber building system in a new setting. We offer a holistically sustainable way of building – using our own slow-grown timber to manufacture homes that are high-performing and long-lasting – which has a strong fit with the ideals and requirements of the cohousing group.”

The development takes the form of three terraces of houses and ‘paired’ flats, together with a low-rise apartment building, with dwellings being finished in a range of four different kinds of brick, chosen to complement each other and the local setting. The ‘common house’ will form a standout building visible to people passing the site on King’s Hedges Road. The project has been designed by award-winning Mole Architects, who have been at the forefront of sustainable design and whose sustainable housing for the University of Cambridge is currently under construction.

Mole Architects’ Principal Meredith Bowles said:

“This is a very exciting project. We were asked for a design that provided beautiful, simple homes that can be readily adapted and customised to meet the needs of their inhabitants. The dwellings will wear their passive design principles and Swedish timber build system lightly and look for the most part like a contemporary take on the traditional Cambridge terrace. The common house, on the other hand, will be a real one-off and a fitting centrepiece for this new community.”

Councillor George Owers of Cambridge City Council, which owns the K1 site, said:

“There is a growing expectation on councils to enable and support custom-build and cohousing groups so it’s fantastic that Cambridge City Council is using such innovative methods to deliver housing by facilitating this development. The Council is looking at a number of models for new housing provision and a mixture is needed to tackle the housing crisis. Sale of the land will release funds which can be reinvested in other Council priorities, bringing benefits to the wider city.”

TOWNhus will be working with Cambridge Cohousing Litd, Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council as the local planning authority over the next six months to secure full planning permission. Construction is expected to begin in February 2016.

Notes to editors

K1 is a 2.4 acre site in Orchard Park, currently owned by Cambridge City Council. The Council resolved in

[2009] to use the land to facilitate a cohousing development and through a public procurement exercise, managed by the council in tandem with Cambridge Cohousing, has appointed TOWNhus as preferred purchaser to buy the site and deliver the proposed scheme.

Cambridge Cohousing Limited is a limited company owned and managed by members of K1 cohousing (www.cambridge-k1.co.uk). Cohousing is a form of housing development that enables future residents to actively participate in the design and management of their neighbourhood. Cohousing homes are usually privately owned, but outdoor space and communal facilities are owned by the community. For more information, see www.cohousing.org

TOWN (www.wearetown.co.uk) was established in 2014 to plan and deliver residential and mixed-use development projects with a strong emphasis on placemaking, design quality and sustainability.

Trivselhus (www.trivselhus.co.uk) is a house manufacturer headquartered in Korsberga, Sweden. Trivselhus is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Södra, a cooperative of 51,000 forest owners committed to responsible commercial forestry whose timber products are exported worldwide. The Trivselhus ‘Climate Shield’ is a high-performance, closed panel construction system whereby pre-insulated wall panels are precision manufactured to the requirements of the project before being shipped, assembled and finished on site. The system has been used to build over 7,000 dwellings in Sweden and 300 in the UK.

Mole Architects (www.molearchitects.co.uk) was established by Meredith Bowles in 1997. Mole’s commitment to ‘green building’ has been a constant throughout the life of the practice. Early low energy houses were designed from first principles in collaboration with environmental engineers, and have been used by the BRE, TRADA and others as exemplars. Mole has completed certified Passivhaus schemes (some of the earliest affordable housing to be built to this standard) and are working on one of the largest Code 5 housing schemes in the country.

Images: Darcstudio