DESIGN-LED HOUSING. NOWHAUS.CO.UK

DESIGN-LED HOUSING. NOWHAUS.CO.UK

CGI of Nowhaus ground floor. 1 2

Let s make homes for people. Let s make homes affordable. Let s make homes cool. 3 4

Let s think differently. If I had asked what people wanted, they would have said faster horses. Henry Ford If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old. Peter F. Drucker The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. John Maynard Keynes Victor Hugo 5 6

The problem. We all need houses. That s why, at some point, most of us want to buy one, it s great to have a place to call your own and somewhere to express your style and taste. That got us thinking. We concluded that the current housing model is broken. There are only a handful of large housing developers, building mediocre homes without a second thought as to what people really want. We wondered what it would be like to build houses but start with a blank sheet of paper and no preconceptions about what a home should or shouldn't be. But we did know of a few issues that we wanted to fix. The thing is, most houses built today are outdated, bland, pokey, expensive and not designed for modern life. Whilst styles change monthly, housing design hasn t changed for decades. Why is all this relevant? About a year ago Tim and Adam were chatting about the bedroom tax over a pint. They noticed that if you want to buy a 1 bedroom house, the only choice you have is an apartment, probably with a car park nowhere near your front door and usually without any outside space or at best, a small balcony. That s fine for a while, but when you want to move up the property ladder, there isn t really much to choose from. 7 8

Design & fashion. Who wants to buy the same clothes, drive the same cars or listen to the same music that their mum and dad did? Fashion changes, design innovates and tastes evolve but for some reason, things haven t changed much in housing. New houses are still built with bay windows, chimneys and slate roofs. They look the same as the houses we were building 50 years ago - they re a pastiche, a bit old-fashioned and not particularly inspiring to today s generation. We thought we could do much better, we wanted to produce a house that makes the most of innovation, fashion and design. Something that will appeal to future generations as well as current. 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 00s 9 10

Layout & size. Almost all new houses are built with the same layout that hasn t changed for years: a front door leads to a corridor with a lounge to the side and a kitchen at the back. They have 2 or 3 bedrooms, all of which are small and at least one of the rooms is so small it s practically a cupboard... Oh and somewhere squeezed in, is a sort of fireplace. Mark Sidebotham Architect - shedkm We thought we could improve this. How about apartment style open plan living? Why don t we do away with corridors and measure the size of our homes not by the size of the house but by the amount of usable space? Why do we have 1 bedroom apartments but we don t build 1 bedroom houses? An individual (or a couple) buying a house only needs one room. Claire Harrison Architect - shedkm NOWHAUS is a re-invention of the traditional terraced house, using a simple approach to light, space and order 11 12

Energy efficiency. Fuel bills are getting higher so reducing energy and utility costs is not only essential, it s also good for the planet. Where it all goes... The way houses are built at the moment doesn t maximise the potential of building technology that minimise heat loss and maximise energy efficiency. We can do better! We set about looking at innovative ways to design energy efficiency into the layout as well as the materials. Everything we ve built so far has been super energy efficient so that s our starting point. 13 14

Density. Existing housing developments aren t fulfilling the potential of the sites they re built on. We re desperately short of houses in the UK, so we need to maximise the potential of the brownfield sites that are available. We wanted to provide a space-efficient layout that creates high-density living, with a community feel but without high-rise living. This means we can fit more houses and people on the sites, which in turn makes other amenities viable too. It also creates a place where people meet and know each other, a proper place to live. 15 16

Cost & affordability. Houses are still a distant and expensive dream for many people. We want to provide somewhere that people living in the city can move to, somewhere that people can afford and somewhere that people actually aspire to live. We know that affordability (to rent or buy) is essential, so when we set about designing a house we had to ensure it was amazing value for money. Avg. asking price in Central Manchester of Houses / Apartments Avg. asking price in Central Liverpool of Houses / Apartments 300,000 AVG. House Price 250,000 AVG. Household Earnings (adjusted) 200,000 SOURCE Office National Statistics 2015 150,000 Avg. asking rent in Central Manchester of Houses / Apartments Avg. asking rent in Central Liverpool of Houses / Apartments 100,000 50,000 0 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 17 18

Outdoor space. Ok, so the weather isn t always great but we all still like to spend time outside in the garden. Though we don t necessarily all like to spend the time actually gardening, that s why most new-build houses end up looking a bit sorry for themselves. The design and size of them doesn t help because they re usually pokey, without enough sunshine to grow a lawn never mind plants. We thought about how we could build a garden that needed minimal maintenance, always had great views, encouraged interaction between the residents and made the most of the little sunshine we get. 19 20

Current & previous problems. So we started with a blank piece of paper and worked through some ideas. First we looked at what s been done in the past to see where it s going wrong. Terraced houses of the Victorian era had the right idea for efficient use of land. However, tiny rear yards, dark alleyways and poor sanitary services meant they were undesirable compared to more modern houses of the 1950s. Modern house builders like to lay out housing estates as if they re a quaint village, a sort of escape from urban life. The problem is... they re not. It s just a really inefficient use of land. typical modern houses Inefficient 21 traditional terraced houses no garden just rear yard 22

The solution. Stage 1. A traditional terraced housing layout. So what if we could build a modern interpretation of a terraced house and reinvent the back to back terrace by removing the undesirable yard and alleyway. We can fit lots more houses on the land, they ll be cheaper to build and use less energy. But what about outdoor space? Somewhere the neighbours can chat and create a community? What about the garden? How about putting it on the roof? They ll be low maintenance, the daylight will be uninterrupted (aside from the british weather) and they ll have brilliant views. Stage 2. We removed the alleyway/gardens and brought both rows of houses together. Parking and pavement becomes shared surface. Stage 3. Then added a garden to the roof. 23 24

Community. We can put these homes next to each other and create proper communities. We can provide services too, such as car-sharing schemes, secure bike storage, co-operative food growing projects and more. 25 26

Land efficiency. On most sites NOWHAUS can achieve twice as many dwellings per hectare as a typical house builder (with bigger houses & better gardens!) TYPICAL PROPOSED HOME MASTERPLAN NOWHAUS PROPOSED HOME MASTERPLAN SITE LAYOUT 1:1500 3 bed detached = 15 units 3 bed semi = 60 units 4 bed detached = 2 units SITE LAYOUT 1:1500 1 bed = 84 units 2 bed = 32 units 3 bed = 30 units 77 units total 146 units total 2 2.54 hectares 30 dwellings/hectare 2.54 hectares 57 dwellings/hectare K E R S A L V A L E R O A D R I V E R I R W E L L 1 M O O R L A N E 27 28

What about the inside? Typical home - ground floor Viewable area Modified typical home - ground floor Viewable area Then we got thinking about the inside. The layout of new houses doesn t flow and hasn t been designed for modern lifestyles. Let s get rid of the fake bay windows, hallways, corridors, pokey rooms, and faux fireplace. Let s go modern and open plan. This is what was achieved with a simple tweak of an existing design. Looking better already. But this wasn t enough, we needed to create a completely new concept from scratch. 29 30

We had an idea. Typical new-build 3 bed home GIA 73 sqm NOWhaus 2 bed home GIA 75 sqm Ground floor First floor Ground floor First floor gross internal area 37.8 sqm net usable area 79.52% 73.57% Avg net usable area for NOWHAUS 2 bed home gross internal area 37.8 sqm net usable area 67.61% We can make the rooms bigger and brighter by stretching the layout. Far more daylight is let in by making the design wider and more shallow. The result: NOWHAUS. gross internal area 36.5 sqm net usable area 65.74% 60.7% Avg net usable area for typical new-build 3 bed house An open plan house with more usable area, more space to live in and more daylight. It s less expensive to build too! gross internal area 36.5 sqm net usable area 55.60% In fact our 2 bedroom house is bigger than a typical 3 bedroom house. The increased usable area means our 2 bedroom nowhaus is 13% more space efficient than a typical 3 bedroom house. By placing the staircase in the middle of the house, it acts as a room divider. We ve also designed it to double up as a storage area to maximize every possible space. It s all about the detail. The floors and walls are made up from composite panels of insulation and finished in blonde plywood which look beautiful. They don t need painting or carpet which means we don t need skirting boards and architraves. The bath is turned end on, so it s a full sized bath without taking up too much space. We ve grouped the bathrooms and kitchen together for building efficiency. It s also easier to maintain. 31 32

Look further, see more. Typical new-build 3 bed house NOWHAUS 2 bed home Ground floor First floor Ground floor First floor Point to point viewing distance 9.5 metres 9.2 Metres 8.4 metres 6.5 metres 5.2 metres Point to point viewing distance 5.3 metres 5.1 metres 4.1 metres 3.9 metres INCREASE in viewing INCREASE in viewing 80% 105% distance on ground floor distance on first floor We can build a house that not only has more liveable area, but also feels much more spacious. NOWHAUS gives a viewing area that is around twice the size of a typical house This makes it feel even bigger, brighter and nicer to live in. 33 34

Keep it simple. We ve created a 1 bedroom house, something that no house builder is providing in the UK. So residents only buy the space they need. We don t need to provide the residents with multiple-choice layouts, that s fine if you re loaded but most people aren t. nowhaus provides the best solution, making great design affordable. Precedent Images Outside, each house has it s own parking space. The three bedroom houses have two parking spaces. The road is pedestrianised to slow cars down making it safer, it also uses less space and looks nicer too. 1 bed NOWHAUS home + terrace 45.36 sqm living space + 12.94 sqm roof terrace ESCAPE ROUTE ROOF 12.94 SQM TERRACE WETROOM KITCHEN GROUND 24.30 SQM LIVING SPACE FIRST 21.06 SQM WORKSPACE BED SPACE 35 36

This is NOWHAUS. CGI of Nowhaus design. We ve designed a contemporary house with awesome architecture, which looks great. We ve made NOWHAUS fully open plan, it s bigger and it feels enormous even though our smallest house is a one bed. They re designed to minimize energy use to shrink utility bills. The layout of NOWHAUS maximizes brownfield land use double the amount of houses per acre. It s high-density living without being high-rise. It s a solution to the housing shortage. The clever design reduces construction costs to make them affordable and with gardens on the roof,everyone gets a fantastic view. If we work together, we could build lots of them, Let s MAKE homes! 37 38

CGI of NOWHAUS exterior. 39 40

Contact. Capital&Centric Sun House 2-4 Little Peter St Manchester M15 4PS Contact Paul Jones 07970 834074 pj@capitalandcentric.com 41 42

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