Great Western Park, Didcot
Client: The Great Western Park Consortium
Role: Masterplanning and Urban Design
A 184 hectare site forming an urban extension to Didcot in South Oxfordshire.
Allocated as a Major Development Area (MDA) in the South Oxfordshire Local Plan 2001, PRP's proposed masterplan provides approximately 3,200 new dwellings focused upon three nucleated village centre areas. Facilities will include community centres, schools, sports and recreation facilities, public open space and associated infrastructure service. Great emphasis has been placed on the character of the potential development in relation to local settlement patterns and the surrounding landscape.
The principles of residential development are conceived as an organic grid of perimeter housing blocks, designed to separate the public from the private realm. Building enclosure vary dependant on density with continuous frontages up to four storeys high on the back edge of pavement in the District and Neighbourhood Centres, and individual buildings and informal grouping set back from the road on the rural fringe at predominately two storeys.
The character of the new buildings and architectural language will be developed, both as a response to local physical and cultural features and surrounding vernacular and as interpretation of the vernacular in a modern context.
