The Green Team

We’re very proud of our architects at Conran today. They have been shortlisted for a Housing Design Award for the Green Man Lane development in Ealing.

The awards are some of the most prestigious in public housing development, supported by the Government, the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the National House Building Council.

The view of the community café from Singapore Road

The Green Man Lane estate will comprise over 750 new homes for affordable rental, shared ownership and sale. New community facilities will include an hotel, a low cost gym and a market square with cafes, park and retail space.

The whole site from above

The houses will achieve Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, and will utilise rainwater collectors and water-saving technology.

The project is headed up by Paul Zara, Director of Conran & Partners.

“We want this to be outstanding architecture that raises the spirits of those who live there. Our aim is to set new standards in Ealing and create a place where people will be proud to be a resident.” 

Being shortlisted for a Housing Design Award seems like to a good start to us, Paul.

You can read more about the 2012 Housing Design Awards here.

Conran: Green architecture that raises the spirit of a community

It’s all steam ahead on Conran & Partner’s new green housing project in Ealing.

Back in September C&P were granted outline planning permission for the masterplan and detailed planning consent for phase one of the regeneration of the Green Man Lane Estate scheme which includes 154 new homes, enterprise employment units, new roads and parking spaces, a playspace for children, a community café and an energy centre to provide energy-efficient heating and energy to the new neighbourhood.

A visualisation of the scheme

Paul Zara is leading the project for C&P

“The redevelopment of Green Man Lane is of vital importance both to the area and to the people that live there. The opportunity to provide high quality homes for the current residents alongside new homes for sale and rent is a great responsibility and one that we have taken very seriously. We want this to be outstanding architecture that raises the spirits of those who live there. Our aim is to set new standards in Ealing and create a place where people will be proud to be a resident.”

It’s all about the people: residents, neighbours and other stakeholders have worked for over a year with the regeneration team to help shape plans for the project, giving their input into a range of areas including design, community regeneration and neighbourhood management.

The regeneration team also includes local housing provider A2Dominion and developer Rydon.

All in all a great team effort. We will be watching the developments with interest…

Read more about it on Conran & Partners website

Conran: High quality and made to last – true sustainability

Yesterday we came across this fabulous article by Joss Bailey , who runs the Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group, about Terence’s input at Friday’s Earth Awards (click here to read our post about the awards)

We’re very glad she agrees with us about what makes something sustainable.

Here’s a taster:

It is very easy to level the accusation that the Conran empire, however well-principled, caters only to the upper middle classes. The people who eat in his restaurants and shop in his shops are those who can afford both sustainability and luxury: ironic for a business built on a personal philosophy of thrift. But then the issue of over-consumption, at least in our own country, went hand in hand with the exponential growth of the middle classes – the lower echelons aspiring upwards via the accumulation of stuff. Surely Conran’s model is a much better one to aspire to? His designs are high quality made to last: his customer is not the insatiable consumer, but someone who buys an armchair for life. His products are only expensive by comparison, their price tags just reflect the true value of things (if not outsourced to a sweatshop).

Read the full article on her blog

The Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group is an interest group of MPs and peers that exists to keep the cause of good design on the Parliamentary agenda. We are all in support of that.