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Brighton Station Site - Mixed Use Housing

Part 2 Project 2000
David Simpson
University of Brighton | UK
This project was prompted by the opposition of surrounding communities to plans for the development of Brighton’s largest remaining brown-field site by a consortium, headed by a major food superstore. Following a planning appeal, at which the Council was required to draw up a planning brief for the 13 hectare site, a group of three diploma students got involved in the subsequent Community Planning process to try and establish our own brief based on the wants of local people and existing architectural competitions within the town. The result was a masterplan that would act as a foil to the proposed development and provoke debate and was presented at a public meeting as part of the consultation process.

My interest was to create sustainable, mixed-use housing and work units integrated within the masterplan, the form of which was driven by the two opposite boundaries of the site: the hard railway and the soft linear park. I used the project as a vehicle to test my both my research into modular high-tech construction combined with heavy masonry party walls and floors, and the effects of low car living on urban form and housing design.

David Simpson


David has been nominated due to the depth of enquiry and consistent high quality of his investigations and design outcomes. As part of a team of three students undertaking the masterplanning of the vast Brighton Station goods yard, David came to the project with a very passionate need to take part in the current debate around the influence of the car on our urban environments. His in-depth studies into the influence of the car upon house design was complimented by parallel studies looking at the nature of living and working environments for a future dominated with Information Technologies. David also looked at the real potentials of prefabrication within the context of the U.K¹s construction industry by looking at best practice case studies in Europe as well as the U.K and testing them within the constraints of his program for the site. He also developed an acute understanding of the nature of the spaces between his buildings, ie. the street and other landscapes such as the ¹green route¹ that formed an integral part of the masterplan proposals.

2000
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