Design principles that work

Development within the built environment must embrace statutory planning policy, sustainable development principles, conservation in the widest sense and commercial viability. Our work for LEGO World with the creation of LEGOLAND Windsor exemplifies our multidisciplinary approach to development planning.

Infrastructure renewal requires an holistic approach, exploring demand and land use implications while promoting the place-making agenda. We have created an inclusive solution to demand and needs assessment in our work with local authorities such as key Hertfordshire agencies.

Design encourages and forges solutions, establishing a new synthesis from apparently conflicting objectives. We have used design as the facilitator and the dynamic link between ambition and the feasible, efficiently holding together multiple elements of the natural and man-made. Our extensive project experience, including Dawley Regeneration and the creation of the Olympic Park for London 2012, provides detailed understanding of the principles of design led urban renewal.

Collaboration between a wide range of public, private and voluntary sector agencies is needed to meet community needs and aspirations. This focused action benefits from an innovative approach to the management of projects. In running the national Placecheck Initiative CIVIX broke new ground in facilitating community collaboration in urban design.

The appraisal and preparation of conservation proposals alongside the creative re-use of existing buildings is ever more important given the preference for brownfield land development. This can help satisfy sustainability requirements, and expert appraisal of the cultural significance of existing buildings should inform design and development proposals. We have demonstrated how regeneration can also be place-making on the grand scale in our transformation of the Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills from a 75ha redundant site to an interpreted historic industrial landscape and visitor attraction.