Pike Lane Housing

Backland sites produce a predictable diagram: a road down the middle, parking on both sides, and front doors facing a car park.

The land trust had lived with that outcome elsewhere and asked us explicitly not to repeat it.

Cars last

The shared surface is designed as a garden that a vehicle can enter, rather than a road with planting. It is laid in a single clay paver, has no kerbs, no road markings and no adopted highway, and reaches a width that comfortably takes a fire appliance only at two passing points.

Parking is in a small court at the entrance rather than at each door. That is a genuine inconvenience for residents carrying shopping, and it was the most contested decision in consultation. The trust took it to a vote and it passed narrowly.

Four years on, the court is used at about seventy per cent of capacity and the shared surface is full of children, which is the trade the residents voted for.

Homes that face each other

Every front door opens onto the shared surface. Every kitchen window looks at it. That is the whole passive surveillance strategy, and it works because the plan is dense enough that the distances are short.

Overlooking is only a problem when nobody knows each other. Twenty-two households is under the number where that goes wrong.

Brick

The whole scheme is one brick, laid three ways: stretcher bond for the walls, a coarse basketweave at the thresholds, and a deep soldier course at the eaves.

Using a single material for a scheme this small was a cost decision before it was an aesthetic one. It also means the trust holds one pallet of spares in a shed, and can repair anything on the site themselves.