Kevin McCloud’s development company HAB, teamed with Greensquare Housing Association are working in three small sites in Oxford in the Cowley area. Studio Engleback has already worked on three other HAB sites, in Swindon and Stroud, this time the lead architects are the award winning practice AHMM. Two are close to each other - Dora Carr Close and Westlands Drive, the third is adjacent to Greensquare’s offices opposite the Barns Road shopping centre.The Barns Road site is a 4 floor apartment block on a limited site over shops and the furniture restoring workshops of the homeless charity Emmaus.        

 

This has a biodiverse green roof and rooftop kitchen gardens for the residents. Westlands Drive is a mansion block with a central wintergarden, a form also used at the Dora Carr Close site adjacent to local playing fields and a nature area. This last scheme includes family housing with in-curtilage parking and a community centre, cafe and changing rooms. We continue our theme of edible streets and biodiverse sustainable drainage, used on the earlier HAB Oakus schemes.