Tattenhoe Park

Details

A single generation can witness significant swings in terms of social and demographic trends. For homes to be sustainable they must be capable of adapting to the various and changing needs of many generations of uses and users.

At Tattenhoe, a proposed new neighbourhood on the edge of Milton Keynes, Milton Keynes Partnership have developed a masterplan and design guidance which promotes the concept of ‘Super-flexible Homes’.

Prospective developers shall be required to demonstrate how their proposed development can be used in different ways to meet different lifestyles and changing circumstances. New dwellings will need to illustrate how they are building on historic and emerging good practice to incorporate design features that make adaptations and extensions easier than in a ‘standard’ dwelling by either reducing cost or construction work or both.

A flexible approach to planning approvals is being developed which shall allow buildings to be adapted, extended, sub-divided, amalgamated or changed in use. This allows residents to adapt their dwellings over time as their family grows and contracts, or as their working requirements change.

Homes should also be capable of responding to advances in technology. Super-flexible Homes enable and accommodate an incremental increase in density (both persons per hectare and square meters per hectare) of a neighbourhood.

In view of this, amenities such as parks and open spaces at Tattenhoe are provided such that they can cater to a larger population in the future.

The main image gives an indication of the principles being promoted at Tattenhoe; it illustrates a concept developed by HTA Architects on behalf of Barratt Homes, for the Design for Manufacture Competition. The proposal illustrates that by avoiding load bearing walls within the centre of homes and using the full volume of the building envelope; homes have the potential to be either flexible free flowing spaces or sub-divided to provide additional rooms as required.

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Proposals from Design for Manufacture shows how avoiding load bearing walls in the centre of the home can provide flexible spaces.