BACA Directors Richard Coutts and Robert Pattison have launched a spin-off hospitality and leisure company called 'Outdoor Sanctuaries.' It’s a fun project that has emerged from our practice during lockdown. We had been working on lots of lakes and ex-gravel pits to regenerate them for the emerging staycationer market. Many of these sites were bounded by trees, but we couldn’t find low-impact treehouses – so we decided to design, build, and sell our own.
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Bringing together a decade of hand drawings by BACA Directors Richard Coutts and Robert Pattison.
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“This book caught my eye in my local bookshop. First, the cover, and then the title! Picture attached with one of my sketches” says BACA Director, Richard Coutts.
Needless to say, the topic resonates, and for those who work in the water sector, urban design, or resilience planning, this will make a very enjoyable Christmas purchase.
From the back cover: Giulio Boccaletti - Honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford University - shrewdly combines environmental and social history, beginning with the early civilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and Euphrates Rivers. He describes how these societies, made possible by sea level changes from the last glacial melt, incisively examining how this type of performance led to irrigation and multiple cropping, which, in turn, led to population explosion and labor specialization.
We see with clarity how irrigation’s structure informed social structure (Inventions such as the calendar sprang from agricultural necessity); how in ancient Greece, the communal ownership of wells laid the grounds for democracy; Greek and Roman experiences with water security resulted in systems of taxation; and how the modern world as we know it began with the legal framework for the development of water infrastructure. 'Water: A Biography' richly enlarges our understanding of our relationship to - and fundamental reliance on - the most essential substance on Earth.’
Last week, BACA Director Richard Coutts visited the 'Flood school' at HR Wallingford’s flood testing site near Oxfordshire to attend Flood Re’s 'Property Resilience Roundtable.' Flood Re is a reinsurance scheme that makes flood cover more widely available and affordable to homeowners.
The topics covered included an update on the PFR Community of Interest, the Flood Compliance Platform, a detailed update on and practical exercise on Build Back Better, an update on the Scoring Project, and updates from Defra and the Environment Agency on policy and implementation.
Moving forward
It is our observation that homeowners will not wade through 500-page manuals and, often and reluctantly, will only engage with the statutory requirements of the building regulations. Recent conversations with clients have included challenging discussions over their requirement to have larger areas of glazing and questioning why we need to deliver 10% net biological gain. Another observation is the growing trend to pave over front gardens to enable electric cars to charge next to the home – the owners feel they’ve done their bit for the environment when, conversely, they are removing landscaping that attenuates and reduces surface water flooding. The rising cost of fuel prices has also added to the mix, and hence it is in this context that the Flood Re Insurance Coverage and proposed version of the EPC Certificate should be considered.
The data sets are encouraging, but what is clear is how best now to translate complex data (and, as we know, every flood site is different) into some simple, comprehensive guidance that empowers householders to improve their stock either proactively or after a flood event has occurred to boost their future resilience.
Our suggestions:
The assessment should also include what percentage of the property's external spaces are hard or soft (therefore addressing issues such as paving over gardens for electric cars and considering permeable paving as an alternative) and therefore not exacerbating surface water flooding.
12% Net Ecological Gain for Former Mineral Extraction Site and Car Breakers Yard
BACA architects have secured full planning permission for an ambitious aqua sports leisure park, hospitality venue, and visitor attraction in the Blackwater Valley near Farnborough, UK.
The proposals include:
The site is currently closed to the public. The 16-hectare site, of which 9 hectares are water, is in flood zones 2 and 3, was a former mineral extraction site and car breakers yard. Proposals have been developed in close consultation with both Rushmoor and Hampshire County Council, Heads of Economy and Strategic Regeneration, and the Planning Team.
Despite a challenging set of constraints, the scheme went through unanimously at Committee.
The proposals will promote healthy lifestyles and encourage physical activity, indoor and in-built sports and recreational facilities.
Working with Aspect Ecology, the proposals offer the opportunity for the existing lakes and surrounding habitats to be brought into favorable conservation management in the long term. The proposals will deliver an ecological net gain of 12.45% (Habitats) and 277% (Linear Features). New diverse wetland margins and reed beds will be introduced at three locations within the lakes, and the whole of the smaller central lake will be restored to create a pond and wetland area.
Team
Client: Drayparks
Planning Consultant: Bell Cornwell
Architect: BACA architects
Landscape & Ecology: Aspect
Flooding: Tetratech
Highways & Transport Plan: Waterman Group
BREEAM: Scott White and Hookins
Leisure Needs Assessment: Avison Young
Ground Contamination: Waterman Group
Floating Homes: Floating Homes Limited
