The Project
This project was to create an imaginative and viable masterplan for the proposed Oxfordshire Cotswolds Garden Village adjacent to Eynsham that meets the requirements of the client and the masterplan. Some of the requirements follow below:
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2200 homes and a business park/science park
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High-quality affordable housing & locally accessible work in beautiful, healthy & sociable communities
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Genuinely affordable mixed-tenure homes
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Use zero-carbon & energy-positive technology to ensure climate resilience
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Strong cultural, recreational and shopping facilities in walkable, vibrant, sociable neighbourhoods
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Integrated and accessible transport systems, with walking, cycling and public transport as the most attractive forms of local transport
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Creatively and imaginatively address future lifestyles and technological trends e.g. 40% of people living on their own. Intergenerational living, electric vehicles, online shopping, drone delivery, self-driving vehicles etc.
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You must deliver sufficient housing with adequate supporting education, medical, employment, transport, retail & leisure, environment & heritage, community and green infrastructure to create a self-supporting settlement.
The Process
The process started with research into Gardens Cities, to gain an understanding into the history and structure. Following this, using GIS we screened and scoped the site to find any environmental constraints, for EIA, which could possibly affect the layout of the masterplan. This all had to be analysed and transfer on to the design of the masterplan (see below for masterplan) before the first public consultation, where we met and presented our masterplan to the local community, whilst answering any questions.
Following the consultation, our group split up to each focus and develop a certain part of the site, for me this was the central neighbourhood (which can be found below). This part of the design process meant individually we had to focus on the needs of our neighbourhood and also the whole site. So in order to create this place, there were many studios with the clients and people in industry, before the second public consultation.
To create the masterplan a range of softwares were used such as Sketch-up and CityCad,