Crab Hill: Oxfordshire Housing

Crab Hill is one of the South-East’s most significant strategic housing projects. Due to its location, scale and the inherent qualities of the site it presents a great opportunity to develop a high quality, sustainable mixed-use development. SLR's Place team led the masterplanning process and secured permission for up to 1500 residential units, combined with a primary school, a neighbourhood centre and other supporting mixed uses.

SLR was commissioned by Land Improvement Holdings (LIH) to prepare architectural designs for a bespoke housing first phase development at Crab Hill with a view to submitting a detailed planning application. The commission required an initial market review of competing developments in order to understand the current sales environment.

From this review, SLR prepared an outline mix and established appropriate house sizes and types which were then tested in layout form in response to established design guidance documents and an overarching development framework. A number of house-types were designed, working within an approved design code which provided material palettes and guidance on urban design principles.

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