North Stevenage Local Centre
Residential
Visual marketing of residential developments.
Project Description
The development provides a mixed-use residential neighbourhood, featuring a local centre, a primary school, and extensive public open spaces, including a newly established 38-hectare Country Park situated between Stevenage and Graveley. Spanning over 70 hectares, the site is partially located within the St Nicholas and Rectory Lane Conservation Area and encompasses part of an area fondly referred to as Forster Country. This pays homage to the renowned author E. M. Forster, who resided at Rooks Nest House, east of the site, and drew inspiration for his celebrated novel ‘Howards End’ from the surrounding landscape.
Historically, the land was utilised for arable farming and included a network of public rights of way that facilitated local walking. This development addresses the pressing demand for new housing in the Borough of Stevenage, with a commitment to providing affordable housing options. Additionally, the project will establish a new Country Park within Forster Country, enhancing biodiversity, improving visual amenity, and ensuring public access to the natural environment, all while mitigating the risk of storm flooding in the local area.
Details of Our Involvement
Bellway Homes engaged us to create visualisations aimed at enhancing their marketing efforts. These visualisations included detailed images of the local centre, school entrance, site frontage, open spaces, and show homes. Our previous experience with comprehensive landscape designs for the entire development, along with verified visualisations for both the main development and the country park planning applications, positioned us well for this project.
Our main tasks included:
- Integrating design information from architects, engineers, and landscape architects to develop a comprehensive 3D model for visualisation purposes.
- Crafting a variety of compelling visual presentations, employing post-production effects to enrich the imagery of the development.
- Producing elevated views and street-level perspectives of the development that prominently feature the main entrance, retail access points, and the surrounding wildflower planting.
To ensure consistency and cohesion in our visual representations, we collaborated closely with NPA Landscape Architects and AAP Architects throughout the process.
Location
- Stevenage
Client
- Bellway Homes
Collaborators
AAP Architecture
Odyssey Engineering
Savills Planning
Nicholas Pearson Associates Ltd
Highlights of the Project
One notable advantage of this project was the opportunity for the client to explore various design concepts to enhance their sales strategy.
Some of the challenges we faced included:
- Merging large models into a unified representation while accommodating evolving designs.
- Achieving complex compositions requested by the client while maintaining appealing and attractive imagery.
- Presenting the development views in a specific artistic style to create visual appeal.
- Adhering to tight deadlines while interpreting numerous engineering drawings to capture the correct levels, angles, lighting, and accurate representation of landscape plans.
- Collaborating closely with the architect to incorporate the correct brick types and textures, as well as working with the landscape architect to include appropriate tree species and planting tones.
Conclusion
The series of visualisations successfully showcased the development’s appeal and its harmonious integration into the surrounding environment. Bellway Homes expressed strong satisfaction with both the quality and the impact of these visualisations. They utilised the imagery in presentations to their Board of Directors, Planning Officers, and local stakeholders, as well as in their marketing campaigns.
This case study underpins the critical importance of collaboration, meticulous attention to detail, and the effectiveness of visual communication in promoting new residential communities.
