Axis Design are architects in Birmingham based in the city's Jewellery Quarter. As leaders in the use of social media tools that encourage debate and the sharing of knowledge, we blog, share links and twitter the latest news about our work in housing design, sustainability and online consultation work... follow us here or get in touch.
The quality of supported housing for the 55+ market in the UK is a topic we’ve been discussing here at Axis Design a lot over the last few years. This year’s brief for the British Homes Awards gave us the opportunity to explore some of our ideas and show how we believe the industry could turn to existing housing solutions from the holiday home sector combined with improved landscape and infrastructure to meet the aspirations of retiring baby boomers.
Here’s our response to the Lifetime Homes challenge set by the British Homes Awards 2009 (click images for full size):
Eco Lodge Parks
Asset rich but cash poor; dire pension and savings forecast; inheritance tax worries; probably working until our seventies. The kids could help but they are mortgaged to the hilt and need help with childcare and top up fees.
Today’s reality for the youth of the 60’s, nurtured on the NHS, fashioned on the Mini, honed by world travel, inspired by JFK, rock & roll heavy…. their 21st century living is essentially about affordability and equity release creating third age choices and financial security.
What if we could sell up the family home, spend one third of the proceeds on a third age home, then invest the rest, buy a villa in Goa, or help the family?
In eco-Lodge Parks you can….. and even generate letting income over the next 20 years.
Thanks to Jez Sanders from Red Landscape for collaborating with us on this work. Although we didn’t make the shortlist we’re still very pleased with the concept and hope to get the opportunity to develop it in the future.
Today sees the official opening of the passive solar spaces we designed on behalf of Waterloo Housing for the latest phase of Brandwood End in Kings Heath. Thanks to funding assistance from Birmingham City Council we’ve been able to provide two storey glazed spaces to the rear of ten houses of mixed tenure. Designed as flexible spaces alongside the kitchen/dining room we believe that the life style benefits of sun spaces are equally as important as the energy/economic benefits.
Like our work in the refurbishment field, we’ll also be doing extensive post-occupancy monitoring of these properties over the next 3 years. We gave a short presentation at Ecobuild this year covering all these issues and the slides are available online.
The first properties proposed as part of our Blurton masterplan document are nearing completion. Here’s an image of the bungalows at the centre of the courtyard.
The first two ecoterrace properties are now complete!
91 London Road and 63 Booth Street were officially opened with the help of renowned ecologist David Bellamy. If you ‘d like to come along and visit the houses we’re having a number of open days during the next few weeks. Full details can be found on the project web site: ecoterrace.co.uk
May 12th will see the official opening of the first two properties at a specially organised launch event. After that 63 Booth Street and 91 London Road are being opened for public viewing over several days in May 2008.
If you’d like to take a look and discuss the project with team members, feel free to visit us on one of the following dates:
91 London Road (map link) and 63 Booth Street (map link) will be open on the following days:
Saturday 17th May, 10am - 2pm
Tuesday 20th May, 10am - 3pm
Wednesday 21st May, 10m - 3pm
Tuesday 27th May, 10am - 3pm
Wednesday 28th May, 10am - 3pm
Saturday 31st May, 10am - 2pm
Here’s the latest image from our project in Stourbridge. This shot shows the way each of the properties has a slightly different relationship with the street, depending on the paving and the door position.
Construction should be completed soon. We’ve also submitted the project for a Building For Life award - we hope to get a gold standard result…
The results of the competitive bid for the redevelopment of Shard End in Birmingham have been announced this week. Unfortunately, despite making it to the final shortlist of three, our collaboration with Lovell West Midlands and Red Landscape was unsuccessful.
That doesn’t stop us being proud of our submission, so here are some images and an animation showing how we would have redeveloped this mixed use scheme of housing, community library and shops. Click on the images for full size versions (final photorender was courtesy of a1visual.com)
