This design looks for new ideas about how to live, how to build and how to manage our urban environments in a sustainable manner, within the context of the British coastline. Seaside towns have become topical, with huge investment promised in urban regeneration programmes. However, recent developments appear to be failing to address some key issues and are storing problems for the future. They raise such questions as whether it is sustainable to be building contemporary holiday apartments on a sea front promenade with little concession to the Code for Sustainable Homes or the surrounding environment. This concept attempts to show a multi-faceted, mixed-use seaside development incorporating education, residential, business, industrial, leisure, retail, conservation and key social services and democratic forum uses all fully integrated with one another and the surrounding landscape environment. The development attempts to use communal renewable energy in the form of wind power, geo-thermal energy and tidal forces. A key aspect of the development is the structural grid imposed over the site. This grid acts as a more long term or permanent feature of development that then facilitates a successful urban community through a variety of methods including the provision of renewable energy, structural support, circulation, landscape retention from coastal erosion and sculpture. The grid is able to dismantle failed or defunct building stock and remove materials to be salvaged or recycled on site or taken away using green transport. The house design for this coastal community is made from timber frame and can be adapted from a two-storey house to a large family unit, or conversely from a large family unit to smaller apartments. Homes are designed to minimise the use of oil, and to score highly in the Code for Sustainable Homes, reaching a level 4 at least. As well as timber frame, the homes use other renewable materials such as timber cladding, blown paper insulation and reclaimed masonry, with super-efficient biomass boilers/wood burners. Fresh water use is kept to a minimum, with the adoption of greywater recycling, dual flush and flow restricting appliances. Other green features include passive solar design, natural ventilation, and allotment gardens for vegetable production.
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