Creating 41 new apartments on the site of Chris and Karron Eubank’s home in a quiet residential area of Hove on a site that had experienced difficulties in the past in getting consent for a development.
The Upper Drive itself is a quiet crescent of predominantly detached residences from the 1930’s period. They are set back from the road and have leafy gardens leading to a treelined pavement. The new development is contrastingly light, partly clad in pale timber, with brick features, glass-fronted balconies and large windows to encourage the sense of openness.
Significant challenges were successfully overcome in the design. These included arranging the buildings to create an appropriate street frontage in a suburban location, preserving privacy to surrounding properties and enabling mature tree specimens dotted around the site to be retained.
The scheme comprises 25 private apartments and 16 affordable dwellings, the latter developed through consultation with the Southern Housing Group. The scheme received a unanimous recommendation for approval by the council’s design review committee for the proposed use of traditional materials arranged in a contemporary style.