We created a series of houses around a living square that seamlessly integrated the site into the physical and social context of the existing village whilst creating a place that people genuinely would want to live in.

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The site, a disused car park, served the Crittal window factory within the Model Village created in 1930’s by Francis Henry Crittall in Silver End, Essex. It was created to house the workers of the factory and was a Utopian vision, like the Bournville village in Birmingham. Its unique Modernist International style led it to be listed as a Conservation area.

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The seamless integration of our scheme into the village and our understanding that the design needed to be both sensitive to the conservation area and commercially viable allowed to client to pursue the long process of planning with confidence that once approval was granted they would be able to develop the scheme to a successful conclusion.