Shaping one of UK’s most sustainable mixed-use masterplans: The Phoenix in Lewes
The Phoenix masterplan is an exemplar new sustainable neighbourhood in Lewes, East Sussex, which seeks to be one of the most sustainable and regenerative mixed-use developments in Europe, and the largest timber neighbourhood in the UK.
The scheme is headed up by Human Nature, a developer committed to making places to create transformational change. Designed around the creation of an inclusive community, with an emphasis on local materials and circular economy principles, its unique business and design approach looks to turn the imperatives of the climate crisis into an opportunity for better placemaking.
The proposed riverside development, for up to 700 new homes, offers building typologies that cater for diverse demographic groups and will be affordable for local people. It integrates green spaces including a river walk, parks, green corridors and rooftop gardens, and offers community spaces including shared courtyards, squares, affordable workspace and makers’ studios, and a canteen, event hall, taproom, and health centre. Crucially, it aspires to achieve Net Zero Carbon in operation, minimising waste, and energy and water use.
As building services engineers and environmental designers for the project, Atelier Ten‘s role is to set out the site-wide energy and water strategies, explore building services design options, and provide benchmarking and environmental design services (including energy modelling and facade optimisation) with the end goal of shaping a regenerative, zero carbon community with low energy consumption and reduced utility bills.
Sustainability Strategy. Image credit: Atelier Ten
When tailoring the energy strategy to the local context, as per the Atelier Ten ethos, we applied a ‘third horizon thinking’ – moving the dial by thinking the unthinkable. We explored the prospects of implementing a centralised system where energy is made a ‘community resource’ and landed in the option of implementing a highly efficient site-wide heat network with open-loop Ground Source Heat Pumps (using groundwater as an energy source to heat or cool buildings) and low temperature ambient loops to deliver and share heating and cooling across buildings and floors.
Other key elements of our proposed energy and water strategies include:
- Designing to Passivhaus standard, with at least 10% of the buildings on-site officially Passivhaus certified. To reach this policy requirement, set out in the South Downs Local Plan, Atelier Ten undertook a feasibility study to identity the buildings best suited for achieving Passivhaus certification – a globally recognised building standard that ensures high-performance, energy efficient buildings
- Diverse rooftop usage – including green roofs, urban farming and amenity space, and rooftop photovoltaics (circa 10-30% coverage), making best use of rooftop space to boost biodiversity, local food production, and solar energy
- Demand-side management to reduce peak demands and synchronise energy demand with renewable energy availability, using tools including thermal buffer tanks, load diversity, smart meters/controls, and dynamic time-of-use tariffs. To achieve zero carbon in operation, residual energy demand will be met via an off-site solar farm and battery storage
- Sustainable water consumption strategy (developed in partnership with Expedition) including smart rainwater harvesting, drought-resistant landscape planting, low flow appliances, and leak detection systems
- Sustainable drainage strategy, which supports the project’s approach to flood prevention, and looks to maximise opportunities for water reuse and recycling
Energy strategy. Image credit: Atelier Ten
Atelier Ten is delighted to be working as part of the leading multidisciplinary team behind this masterplan, which includes some of the UK’s leading architects, designers and engineers. The project is exciting to us because it exemplifies Human Nature’s commitment to ‘Exponential Sustainability’, a phrase coined by author John Elkington to describe breakthrough business models that accelerate change across social, environmental and economic goals. We hope that by bringing together important innovations in sustainable neighbourhood design, The Phoenix masterplan will set an important benchmark for the future, both in the UK, and beyond.
Visualisation credit: Ash Sakula
Visualisation credit: Ash Sakula