Meeting: Lecture on the Eddington development

Report by John Lockwood

​A large audience of Civic Society members, guests and students attended our annual lecture held jointly with the University’s School of Architecture in March 2019.

​The new Oastler building is proving an ideal venue for such important events. Our speaker was Kristof Keerman, Project Architect from Stanton Williams, a prestigious, large London-based practice.

We learned how they, with a number of similar practices, including Wilkinson Eyre, of tilting Tyne Bridge fame, are creating a new suburb for Cambridge on greenbelt land on a site similar in size to the large plots of the newly released development land in Kirklees.

Built at a high density yet with generous sized rooms, the combined skills of so many different designers are creating an innovative settlement for the future. It was interesting to hear of the project models made to get the juxtaposition of buildings, pathways, cycle tracks and roads correct.

Building to a high density allowed space in the development for leisure purposes. Besides an attractive town centre, there is a nursery and junior school, community centre, health centre, supermarket and shops.

Amazingly, each flat or house has a separate sheltered space for two cycles!

Built at one grade lower than ‘Eco-house standard, dwellings are provided with heating and hot water from a community boiler and rainwater is recycled around the site and incorporated into an attractive small lake. Even the waste bins are doing their bit – each being fitted with an electronic chip which indicates when they are full and should be collected!

We felt the timing of this well illustrated talk was fortuitous giving food for thought when new large housing schemes are planned in Kirklees.