Bracelet Close
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The houses are arranged around a courtyard
Kilian O'Sullivan Download Original
A public housing scheme in Thurrock, Essex.
These homes for affordable rent have been designed around the community’s demand for houses, rather than flats. Two- and three-bedroom homes have been set out in a courtyard arrangement, providing active frontages and passive surveillance to the surrounding streets and pathways. Each has a private patio, upper floor terrace, and access to a large communal courtyard.
Houses are set around a courtyard, the courtyard being partly sunk into an existing slope with terraces of two-bedroom homes to one side and three-bedroom homes facing each other across the private internal court. The three-bedroom houses are entered on the middle level with stairs down to double-height living areas and up to bedrooms. Two large, single-family homes make up the third and fourth sides. Upper floors have private, set-back balconies and massive picture windows with views to distant hills.
The principal material is brick, selected to give a sense of permanence and articulated in bold, cubic forms, with variation of colour and texture to give richness and visual interest. Large picture windows are set within deep reveals, providing excellent daylighting and views to the countryside beyond. Windows, rainwater goods, terrace screens and wall copings share the same dark grey colour, emphasising the scheme’s simplicity.
Data
- Begun: May 2015
- Completed: Dec 2016
- Floor area: 1,182m2
- Sector: Residential
- Procurement: NEC3 (with traditional procurement options)
- Address: Bracelet Close, Stanford-le-Hope, SS17 7JX, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Bell Phillips Architects
- Project architect: Jamie Campbell
- Client: Thurrock Council Housing Department
- Structural engineer: Morgan Tucker
- M&E consultant: Atkins
- Quantity surveyor: Measur
- Service engineer/Sustainability/code assessor: Hilson Moran Partnership
- Development Consultant: Pod Partnership
- Project manager: Faithful+Gould
- CDM co-ordinator : Faithorn Farrell Timms
- Approved building inspector : Thurrock Council Building Control Department
- Main contractor: Wilmott Dixon
- CAD software used: Bentley MicroStation and Autodesk Revit