9th April 2025
ANGEL YARD COHOUSING SHORTLISTED FOR A 2025 HOUSING DESIGN AWARD.
9th April 2025
ANGEL YARD COHOUSING SHORTLISTED FOR A 2025 HOUSING DESIGN AWARD.
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We’re thrilled that Angel Yard Cohousing has been shortlisted for a 2025 Housing Design Award.
Angel Yard is a 34-home cohousing project in central Norwich, developed by Sussex Street CIC with TOWN and designed by Archio. Built on a 0.27 ha brownfield site, the scheme draws on the form and spirit of Norwich’s historic ‘yards’, with homes arranged around a shared courtyard.
Residents will have their own private home as well as access to a common house, guest bedrooms, a shared laundry, communal garden, and a ‘library of things’ – all designed to support more sociable, low impact, community orientated living. The scheme also includes two homes for adults with learning disabilities, delivered in partnership with Golden Lane Housing, a UK first for cohousing, enabling supported living in the heart of a mutually supportive community.
Angel Yard Library of Things. Image by Archio.
The award shortlisting recognises the project’s ambitious sustainability agenda. All homes are dual aspect and designed to meet Passivhaus standards, with cross-laminated timber construction to reduce embodied carbon. The all-electric strategy includes individual air source heat pumps, MVHR, rooftop PV, and an on-site microgrid with battery storage. Sustainable drainage, permeable paving, rainwater harvesting, and biodiverse landscaping further reinforce the environmental approach.
The scheme was co-designed over 10 months by future residents in collaboration with TOWN and Archio, through a series of in-person and online workshops. The result is a neighbourhood shaped by and for the people who will live there, combining climate ambition with long-term community stewardship.
Planning consent was granted by Norwich City Council in March 2024, following engagement with Historic England and the Norwich Society.
Congratulations to all the nominated projects!
Explore the shortlisting on the Housing Design Awards website.
