VI LA SALUD DEL ECOSISTEMA MUNDIAL
EL MODELO DEL CAMBIO MUNDIAL Y LA SEGURIDAD
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The Millennium Community at Allerton Bywater has been designed to provide opportunities for a mix of both uses and users whilst appreciating the limitations in demand for mixed use due to the rural/village location and the modest 520 new homes proposed.
The new development on a former coalfield site aims to stitch the community back together by bringing existing buildings back into use as community facilities and by providing flexible new building typologies that can be adapted for use to reflect changing social and economic trends as the neighbourhood grows and evolves.
A range of approaches have been taken to encourage flexible living and foster opportunities for employment and enterprise. Buildings fronting the village square have been designed with high floor to ceiling heights, and flexible floor plates to allow easy adaptation for commercial uses as demand increases.
New building typologies in Allerton Bywater Millennium Community include townhouses with atelier units to the rear.
The design code sets out a number of specific building
typologies including one which marries a three storey townhouse facing public open space with an atelier unit to the rear facing onto the homezone. The atelier may house a garage, cycle parking and refuse and includes a flexible space on the first floor which can be used as a playroom, office, gym or workshop depending on the needs of the residents. The atelier typology plays a similar role as a Georgian mews, and provides natural surveillance to car parking areas. These units have proved so successful that Miller Homes are revisiting their standard house types to include the Millennium Community homes as part of their portfolio.
The development also provides 16 award-winning workspace units (all fully let and operational), live-work units at ground level and areas for future office/employment use, all within a compact well connected urban form.
Parking
Adequate parking spaces are likely to be necessary to make a mixed-use centre work. The amount of land allocated to parking can be minimised by sharing parking between business and shopping (mostly in the daytime) and residential (full allocation needed in the evening). Parking should be convenient, but should not be allowed to dominate the street. Well designed, on-street parking which is integrated to the street and broken up with landscape and street furniture can help encourage use of the street and liveliness at all times of the day. Pedestrian-only streets can be underused and may be perceived as being unsafe in some locations.
Marketing
Put the sales and marketing strategy in place early in the project. Make early contact with traders and operators, and ensure that appropriate maintenance regimes are in place. Mixed-use developments should sell the concept and benefits of the lifestyle they are proposing and the high quality of life envisaged. Setting the scene for this lifestyle by providing facilities at an early stage may enhance long- term value.
Reserving sites
Where ownership permits, sites may need to be reserved for specific future uses to ensure the right mix. They should be located where they will not leave a gap, if possible. In some cases it may be possible for buildings simply to change use over time.
2.3.4 Employment in mixed-use areas
The majority of employment in mixed-use areas will be in offices and commercial outlets which can be located within mixed-use buildings or adjacent to other uses. But with careful design, even some types of factory can be accommodated in primarily residential areas.
Work from home
In some industries, information technology has made home working possible. Increasing numbers of people work from home either full-time or for part of the week. In determining the amount of employment land provided by working from home, the following equivalent land calculation should be used.
If five per cent of homes are true live-work units and a further 10 per cent facilitate working from home for two days a week, the average number of people working from such a residential area will be 90 per 1,000 households at any one
time. Assuming an equivalent B1 gross floorspace of 20m2 per worker, and a plot ratio of 0.4, this is equivalent
to an employment site of about a 0.5 ha. In view of current trends for more flexible working patterns, this is a conservative estimate.
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Mixed-use buildings or blocks can bring vitality and so raise values on certain sites. Considerations in fine-grained, mixed-use development include:
• Potential for shared facilities, including parking • The need for a high quality public realm and effective
management of those spaces • Managing the needs of different users
Buildings are having to work harder to be profitable and, on central sites, mixed-uses in plan, mixed-uses in section and more flexible terms of tenure can make for development which is both responsive to market conditions and raises values by creating a more diverse and stimulating location.
U ses and fa ci lities Illus trat iv e c atc b as ed o n n um of pe ople Ind ic ativ e sit e ar (ha ) EDUCATION Nursery school 2,000 0.5
Primary school (two-form entry) 4,000 0.9
HEALTH & COMMUNITY
Doctors’ surgery 4,000 0.08 Pharmacy 5,000 0.01 Community centre 4,000 1 RETAIL Neighbourhood centre 0.15 Local centre 0.07 Pub 6,000 0.06 Post office 5,000 0.06
Sport or leisure centre 24,000 1.00
TRANSPORT
Bus interchange 0.07
Station development 0.07
INTEGRATED DESIGN 2.3