Caldecote Village Design Guide
Place-specific design guidance developed in collaboration with village residents using an innovative ‘fanzine’ approach.
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Our Village Design Guide for Caldecote, one of a pair produced for South Cambridgeshire District Council, is intended to give confidence to all parties involved with the planning and design process that they understand the essential character of the village, and how to respond to this appropriately through design. The intention is that this will lead to better quality, more locally distinctive development that is welcomed by local residents and contributes positively to the sustainability of the village.
DK-CM, working with Spacemakers and EUropa, delivered a highly bespoke engagement process to directly inform the Design Guide. A group of villagers were asked to work with us creating – in the space of a day – a fanzine for the village that celebrates its strengths and analyses the challenges it faces. Information from the fanzine then directly informed the design guidance we developed – and a major innovation of the final guide is that the images and ideas of the villagers have been directly incorporated into the adopted guidance, which is a material consideration for planning applications in the village.
It was vital for the final guidance to be highly particular and to celebrate local distinctiveness. In Caldecote place-specific issues to tackle included mitigation of flood risk, achieving a positive relationship to a planned new settlement adjacent, how to intelligently intensify the ‘plotland’ condition of the Highfields part of the village to enable more housing in intelligent ways. Caldecote also has a very particular pedestrian route running along the spine of the village – this was captured and celebrated to ensure that it is reinforced by future development and change.
The adopted Village Design Guide can be downloaded here.
Credits
- Client: South Cambridgeshire District Council
- Collaborators: Spacemakers, Europa
- Dates: 2018-19
- Status: Adopted
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