Brooks Laundry (the Dye works) is a new low-rise development in north Bristol. Situated at the point where the areas of Montpelier, St Pauls, and St Werburghs come together, the site comprised 4 city blocks and 2 connecting roads that were closed to the general public.
The design opened up these important connection routes, providing a new entrance to the park and important safe supervised routes for the general public as well as new public space and flood alleviating green infrastructure.
The large green space in the centre of the scheme acts as a swale for the local areas and includes new opportunities to sit next to the water for recreation and learning.
The scheme is designed as a low-rise development adopting the forms and scale of the local context.
Homes are orientated north-south and have carefully sized windows to limit the risk of overheating.
On site generation of energy is achieved with PV panels.
All houses have lockable sheltered cycle parking included, and parking spaces are included within the scheme to avoid adding a burden to the already used streets in the local area.
Streets were widened on the north side to alleviate the problem of poor access for the existing residents, who frequently ran into problems with refuse collection and delivery vans not being able to reach them.
Materials were chosen for the envelope that have a long life with low maintenance requirements and used in such a way to make the most of natural daylight with light reflectance being used in courtyards to improve the daylight levels.
