Urban Design Field Trip 2022

Green Walk, Didsbury

July brings with it the now annual Hope Architects Urban Design Field Trip, which this year remained entirely north of the Watford Gap, after last year’s journey into the south of the country. On the first day, we visited a small contemporary scheme, Green Walk in Didsbury, South Manchester, and then went on to walk round Woodford Garden Village, a vast Redrow scheme on the site of the old Woodford Aerodrome.

Woodford Garden Village, Cheshire

After that, we headed North to visit a site we gained permission for in 2020 - Keld, being built out by Northstone in Barrowford. Northstone’s contracts manager, John Rush, gave us a huge amount of his time and put up with a litany of idiotic questions, but we all learned a lot about how our planning work gets translated into bricks and mortar on site.

Keld, Barrowford

We then spent an enjoyable evening in York, exploring the city and eating a fantastic meal at The Whippet Inn. Having awoken somewhat refreshed and in good spirits, we visited Derwenthopre, a now largely complete development led by the Rowntree Trust in York. This development is something we refer to all the time with clients and planners, as it really is an examplar of innovative (sub)urban form, and in particular incorporates sustainable drainged excellently into the public open space running through the site.

After that we travelled to Leeds, for a walk around the regenerating riverside near the Royal Armouries, and to visit the CITU modular housing scheme.

We really enjoy these trips and hope to keep them as a regular feature of practice life. They perform a really useful function in bringing other people’s work to the attention of the team and provoke interesting discussions throughout. More importantly, they are great fun, and an important opportunity to destress and enjoy each other company without worry about work and deadlines!