Waterbeach Urban & Civic / Defence Infrastructure Organisation Cambridgeshire Sector Residential, Workplace, Retail and Hospitality, Education, Culture, Sport and Leisure Our Role Urban Design Status Ongoing Size 295ha / 729ac / 6,500 homes A masterplan to grow a town on the site of a former RAF airfield and barracks, to support a population growing to more than 25,000. Fletcher Priest’s plan seeks to maintain close connections to the existing Cambridgeshire village of Waterbeach rather than creating a freestanding new town on this former airfield site. It will eventually provide up to 6,500 new homes and support employment, civic, education and recreational amenity, responding to the needs of the globally-significant knowledge economy of the region. Designs have developed over a five year period since Urban & Civic commissioned Fletcher Priest to help them win the bid to develop the 293ha site, north east of Cambridge. Our involvement built on a long-term relationship with the client team that dated back to working with them on the Stratford City and East Village masterplans. Including adjoining land, the proposals deliver up to 11,000 homes and support a community the scale of nearby Ely. Urban & Civic are acting as the master developer for the site, deploying our strategic and detailed masterplan and design codes to secure planning approvals and deliver key physical and civic infrastructure. Within this framework, and shaped by tightly written guidance to ensure design quality, multiple developers will bring forward new homes for the community that will grow there. Waterbeach needs to work as a well-designed place that serves its residents, and also needs to be deliverable and work as an economically viable development that supports the investment needed to deliver on such an heroic scale. The design team began by exploring the range of housing types and densities required, and the structure of streets and spaces which would connect Waterbeach with existing settlements and those under development nearby. A significant challenge with any development in the area is provision of transport, and mitigation of traffic. Local residents are keen to ensure that any additional housing does not have a detrimental impact on an already congested road network. In response, we prioritised sustainable transport over the car. Waterbeach is within cycling distance of Cambridge, so provision is made for a cycle superhighway that links the two, to be delivered in the first phase of new development, including cycle-first design across the site at all stages. The local railway station provides direct connections to Cambridge and to central London. Ample parkland and footpaths positively contribute to the health and wellbeing of residents. Extensive work with landscape designers and local environmental groups allows us to achieve biodiversity net gain across the site. A former WWII airfield, RAF Waterbeach transferred to the British Army in 1966. The site still bears remnants of its previous uses, with a central airstrip, a control tower and a man-made lake chief amongst them. The lake was constructed by the Royal Engineers in the late 1970s with the primary aim of testing amphibious military vehicles. The site also features mature woodland, including ash, as a result of the Royal Engineers’ work at the site. These assets have been incorporated into the masterplan, improving amenity for residents and recognising the site’s aviation and military past. The layers of history run even deeper; the masterplan will connect into and reinterpret a medieval causeway that will form the spine of the plan and link to Denny Abbey, a scheduled ancient monument and farmland museum immediately to the north. Connections to history are embedded throughout the proposals, and will ensure that Waterbeach grows as a rich and specific place that is rooted in its context. This project is of an astonishing scale and complexity. Negotiating these complexities lead us to consider the masterplan at multiple scales – to zoom in and to zoom out continuously and simultaneously. Urban & Civic’s ‘master developer’ model led us to focus on the design and delivery of infrastructure, high quality public realm and key civic buildings to help accelerate delivery and enhance values. This has enabled a multi-scalar design process in which regional-scale, strategic, decision-making takes place alongside typological design and research at the scale of individual homes. Image credits Fletcher Priest Architects Assembly Studios Tim George Urban & Civic Practice → Approach People Community Awards Publications Careers Services → Architecture Interior design Urban design Research Sectors → Retail hospitality Workplace Culture sport-leisure Residential Education Contact → Social MailChimp Linkedin Twitter Instagram Facebook Copyright © fletcher priest architects 2021 We use cookies to help us improve your experience on our website. By closing this notification or interacting with the website you agree to our use of cookies. Find out more → I accept