Masterplan Strategy
...Working with the laws of nature...
For Farrells, exploring and understanding the world’s towns and cities is a passionate commitment. Our central concern has always been the relationship between urban design and built architecture; between creating first a place and then evolving an architectural face, which grows out of this deliberate sequencing of the design process.
Sustainability in the broadest sense has always been a core element of our agenda at Farrells, and at the heart of our design philosophy is a strongly held conviction that existing communities are a valuable resource and their regeneration and re-vitalisation should always be considered before launching into new build.
Place-making and good urban design is a primary foundation for the longevity of our built environment, both in terms of enduring in people’s affections as well as usefulness and economic benefit. Master planning and planning strategies, from the broadest point of view of how we arrange our built and natural environments, are critical and can be more fundamental overall than the buildings themselves. There is never a contextual vacuum; the people, culture, history and physical character of a place are always the starting and ending points as the act of creating a new masterplan or building adds to, and changes in some way, the very place it has grown out of. In that sense, it is fundamentally important that we consider the opportunity presented by the eco-development at Bicester to stimulate the regeneration of the town in the widest possible context.
Bicester’s strategic geographic position today is beyond question, sitting as it does at an important crossroads where the Oxford to Cambridge ‘Knowledge Highway’ is bisected by the London and Birmingham transport axis. The excellent public transport infrastructure already available on Bicester’s doorstep not only provides an ideal opportunity to create a new community in Bicester with much less reliance upon the private car, but also provides an opportunity to use sustainable transport for the delivery of building materials during the construction process.
Developing a vision for a new eco-development at North West Bicester has therefore been a fascinating challenge. We feel passionately that it is a much more sustainable model to grow an eco-community as a component part of an existing town than to create a new independent and isolated community which relies on brand-new infrastructure, and this view is supported by the Bicester Town Council as well as the Cherwell District Council.
The eco-development must, however, be part of a long-lasting and holistic plan for the whole of Bicester Town and not just a plug-on suburb which responds to a contemporary clamour for superficial eco-friendliness. It could in reality begin signpost a new sustainable future for the whole of Bicester, where the historic town centre once again becomes the focus of civic, cultural and economic life, where the heritage of this wonderful historic town is revealed and celebrated as an economic regenerator, where reliance on the private motor car is reduced and public transport becomes a preferable option, where the introverted commuter territories in the Bicester suburbs become an integrated part of the town and the constraining and dehumanising ring road is tamed.
Many good things are already planned for Bicester’s future and the eco-development should become part of this bigger plan to grow and enrich the town. Of course, having a grand vision is one thing but it can never be an end in itself - you need a strategy that translates ambitions into reality.
As part of his recent lecture at the Royal Institute for British Architects, Prince Charles encouraged the profession to begin “...working within the laws of nature...”, and this is a very interesting point of principle when one considers the opportunity at North West Bicester. In master planning, it is important to listen carefully to what the place is telling you it wants to be. It is necessary to find the ‘grain’ or the ‘essence’ of the place and to find ways to work with that grain and not to fight it or try and impose something that does not want to be there, or that feels alien.
Our design concepts therefore have taken us on a journey which has discovered the layers of complexity and vitality that go to make up this ‘place’ - the topography, the geology, the water courses that criss-cross the site, the character of the natural landscape, the woodlands, copses and meadows, the wildlife and ecology, and so on. Then there is the imprint of human activity in roads, tracks and paths as well as the historic settlement pattern, parish boundaries, the field patterns and their walls and hedgerows all combine together to create the character of the place we see today.
We have therefore put forward the idea that the design strategy for the delivery of the eco-development here should be borne out of the landscape and deliver environmental improvement as a means of creating a character rooted in the ‘place’. This is the cornerstone of our vision, and this becomes even more important now that we are facing some very difficult economic circumstances - landscape is one area where low cost investment can achieve a wide range of economic benefits, especially in a recession.
As an integral part of this strategy, we propose to create strong green linkages - using existing footpaths and cycle routes as well as new ones - between the new community and the surrounding countryside by allowing nature to penetrate right into the town; a high quality of stewardship and maintenance will be planned for from the outset. Landscapes of varying character - woodlands, wetlands, streams and rills, parklands and gardens - will in turn inform and influence the character of the neighbourhoods and the buildings from which they are formed.
And in order to allow the eco-development to grow gradually and organically over time, we propose to use the farmsteads as the nuclei around which the new community is grown. In this way we will build upon and reinforce the existing settlement pattern and the existing pattern of tracks, and footpaths (that were created to serve them) become the new connectors.
Connecting the new community to the land will be fundamentally important, with allotments and community gardens, open farms, community orchards, and farmer’s markets will provide access to locally produced food. In this way, the new eco-development will be deliberately designed to create local employment for local people, (not a dormitory town for Oxford or London) and enable and encourage sustainability, designed to accommodate climate change and consciously contributing to an ecological balance. This will be a landscape asset, designed to achieve an ecological balance and to contribute to the carbon-neutralisation of Bicester as a whole and located on the doorstep of a positively evolving existing settlement.
