Coulson Building Group were appointed as the D&B contractor for this 42 home co-housing scheme on the K1 site at Orchard Park, Cambridge. Developed with TownHus and Cambridge City Council, the project offers four modular timber dwelling types, designed to Passivhaus standards, that can be flexibly deployed on the different plots across the plan offering wide ranging scope for the customisation internally and externally depending on the users needs. The construction of the apartments were of a CLT and Glulam material with the terraces being constructed from a timber frame in Sweden then delivered and erected in place.

The dwellings are arranged in 3 rows of terraces and a block of apartments orientated around the sequence of spaces, increasingly private and soft in nature, moving from the Lane and via the square to the Shared Garden, the focal space of the community with areas for growing food, play, socialising and quiet contemplation.

A major part of the project was also to include a new car park, roads and pedestrian pathways throughout the site. All new surface and foul drainage was provided to each dwelling and final connections to the sewers. We also liaised with the local stat authorities to install new electricity and water supply’s to each of the houses. We also had to get involved straight away with relocating an existing sub station. The site had a sub station constructed in the middle of the land and therefore needed to be removed and relocated to the perimeter of the site to enable us to commence to development.