Fawley Waterside

Fawley Waterside represents one of the most extraordinary sites in the south of England, located on the edge of Southampton Water and the Solent, on the site of the former Fawley Power Station.

Working initially with Leon Krier as masterplanner, and with Kim Wilkie the landscape architect, we developed a proposal over many years for a vibrant new ‘merchant city’ at this spectacular location which will combine marine industries with a high-density urban fabric mixing apartments and townhouses.

For various reasons the project did not progress beyond the planning phase and it is likely that a more commercially-led project will come forward for the site in years to come. The Krier masterplan stands, nonetheless, as one of the most interesting and richly-detailed traditionally planned settlements to be designed in the UK in recent decades.

Details

Client
Fawley Waterside Ltd

Location
The New Forest

©ben pentreath ltd 2018

Cirencester

For the Bathurst Estate and Harper Crewe, this is the first phase of the major urban extension of Cirencester being planned to the south of the historic Cotswold Market town.

Our practice was selected to design the scheme after a limited invited competition. We proposed a language of simple, contemporary vernacular design that relates to the similar project that we developed at Roussillon Park, Chichester.

The scheme contains a large variety of houses and a village green at its heart, with a strong emphasis on sustainable construction and a palette of local natural materials. Construction commenced in 2022.

Details

Client
Harper Crewe

Location
Cirencester

©ben pentreath ltd 2018

Poundbury

Over two decades now, our practice has designed houses and buildings in Poundbury for the Duchy of Cornwall. Poundbury, the experimental urban extension to Dorchester envisioned by the former Prince of Wales in the 1980s, and masterplanned by Leon Krier, brings to fruition the most significant delivered new urbanist development seen in Europe. Internationally renowned for its creation of mixed-use, walkable streets, with a significant proportion of affordable housing, Poundbury could be considered perhaps the most influential housing project in the United Kingdom since the Second World War.

Our work in Poundbury began in the late 1990s, when, as a student at the Prince’s Institute for Architecture, Ben won a small limited competition to design the first phase of Pummery Square. Five years later, we designed Woodlands Crescent, and then in 2012 work started on the South East Quadrant. Since that date, the practice has designed or masterplanned over 1000 houses, including Royal Pavilion which forms the focal point of Krier’s masterplan.

Our experience in Poundbury, working with the Duchy and with Leon Krier, puts us at the heart of the new urbanist planning movement and from here we have gone on to design several other major schemes, including the Tornagrain New Town in the Highlands, South-East Faversham, for the Duchy of Cornwall, in Kent, and Welborne, in Hampshire. Large scale masterplanning remains a fundamental part of our practice’s work, as it has been from the first, and we love applying the lessons of Poundbury and these other projects on a wider and wider scale – improving the built environment of the British Isles and leaving, hopefully, a powerful legacy over the decades.

Details

Client
The Duchy of Corwall

Location
Poundbury, Dorchester