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A 33 room student accommodation building.

 

The aim was to create as many rooms as possible, to maximise our client’s rental income, without sacrificing the provision of spacious rooms. The early sketch appraisals highlighted the need to use the roof spaces to provide additional rooms, something which the local authority conservation team were reluctant to support due to the potentially damaging effect on the conservation area.

We addressed this reluctance by extensively modelling the proposals to produce a visual impact assessment, or VIA, to demonstrate how little the roof modifications would adversely impact the conservation area. 

 

Our efforts achieved planning success for our client and we were appointed to support him through funding and construction stages, with the project being completed, after a 12 month construction period, in time for new student occupants. Feedback from the university and from the new occupants has been very positive. 

 

An important aspect is balancing the number of study/bedrooms with the provision of communal spaces. The main idea was to provide a maximum of six rooms per communal kitchen/dining area in a ‘cluster’ arrangement. The ground floor plan (the blue print clicked on to view this page) illustrates this approach. It also shows the provision of ensuite bedrooms and an external space that is accessible for every occupant. These ingredients have all combined to make the building very popular.