Built Form

WHAT DOES GOOD BUILT-FORM DESIGN LOOK LIKE IN KENT?

In Kent, good built-form design is where all the elements – landscape, surface treatments, boundaries and buildings – work together to create inviting spaces. We want to see common threads within your design that make your place coherent, with a recognisable identity of its own.

The function of your new place is part of its character. Memorable features, groups of buildings, public and green spaces, and streets that are safe, accessible and easy to navigate will all help to create a sense of place, and promote inclusion and cohesion.

START WITH GREEN SPACES

Green spaces provide a range of benefits for residents, and help make your development more resilient and sustainable in the future. Your design should therefore include both new and existing green spaces from the outset, in coherent ways that help bring your place together. You could consider harnessing aspect and orientation to provide natural lighting and shading, and maximise solar gain for heating; your planted areas and amenity spaces could also help prevent flooding, aid water management and support biodiversity. Green spaces provide opportunity for recreation, physical activity and should be designed as enjoyable places to meet that strengthen a community.

DESIGN FOR LONG-TERM RESILIENCE

Your design should take the long view and ensure your places can adapt to changing needs and climatic conditions. We want to see ecosystem services such as SuDS, and measures to avoid heat islands, improve air quality, reduce and capture carbon emissions and maintain and encourage biodiversity. Use green planting and existing natural areas wherever possible, since this supports both climate resilience and residents’ health and wellbeing. Equally important is the sustainability of the materials you use, so that they have longevity and can be sourced as locally as possible. Use Kentish Ragstone rather than Chinese Granite! It is important that Kent and Medway’s roads, footways and other highway assets remain serviceable and continue to look attractive well into the future. This means choosing materials which are robust, have a long lifecycle, and can be maintained simply and cost-effectively.

CONSISTENCY AND CONTEXT

Your design will have enough consistency to make your development a distinct place: we don’t want to see a collection of very different houses with nothing in common. What we’re looking for is a design where each street is a place in its own right, with its own coherent character and style. You will need to work at every scale, from individual plots through to how boundaries are formed; this will also help link your place to the surrounding area and existing communities.

Design details will depend on where you are in the county: in rural areas such as large parts of Tonbridge and Malling or Swale, you could use split-riven post-and-rail fencing in local timber to knit your development’s different parts together. In more urban locations like Maidstone or Dartford, a simple yet robust palette of materials could bring coherence.

Success is communities where people can easily recognise their place within the wider area, but do not feel segregated across their neighbourhoods.