The contemporary village

The Nightingales

The Nightingales transforms a piece of under utilised greenfield land into a purposeful community addition, fit for 21st Century living.

Set in the outskirts of Andover, the delivery of 82 new homes, for our long-standing client Foreman homes, is a mix of houses and apartments. This new development falls alongside the neighbouring Picket Piece community, which has seen several other developments since 2015.

Using our depth of technical knowledge, we developed the housing units in great detail using BIM software. Each house type is designed bespoke, fit for the site, with multitudes of functions such as garages serving as roof gardens & terraces.

Led by strong urban design principles, the site priorities connections to green open spaces, utilising the streetscape as a means to tie the houses into the green core of the development.

I have had the pleasure of working closely with HGP for some 20+ years now, and have always relied upon their knowledge and expertise, but, for this scheme in particular, they really came into their own: they helped us to adopt an entirely new look and style of build, of a form of construction that we had never before attempted, and they also helped us to better navigate the planning-process through their management of the local council officer’s own design-aspirations, and all of this has culminated in a development of which we are now immensely proud

Steve Carrington – Foreman Homes

Accented material changes across the housing types help to create a sense of individuality and way finding.

Strong gable forms address the site perimeter giving the new community a sense of place. Defendable spaces and shared surfaces encourage active movement throughout the development.

The original scheme was an organic design around a central “village” green. The encouragement from the local planning authority was to pursue a more contemporary development, this allowed us to question the nature of a village green and reimagine its design and use.

The masterplan deliberately encourages interaction with the reimagined village green, adjacent properties offer passive surveillance and a sense of ownership over this community asset.