Designing from the site up
How a residential masterplan grows out of its site, in nine steps.
Every good plan starts with a close reading of the ground it sits on. This film follows a concept masterplan for an irregular, L-shaped residential site beside a church and retirement living, with established trees to keep.
Nothing is drawn until the site has been understood: its boundary and structures, its trees, the path of the sun and the summer and winter breezes. Each later decision about where people live, sleep, arrive and gather answers to those conditions.
01
Site and context
The site, its neighbours and the streets around it.
02
Site boundary and existing structures
What is fixed, what can change.
03
Existing trees
The trees that shape the plan and stay.
04
Climate
Sun path, and prevailing summer and winter breezes.
05
Orientation
Living and sleeping zones placed for light and air.
06
Testing the dwelling layout
Options tested against the site’s conditions.
07
Access and landscape
Arrival, movement and planting resolved together.
08
Built form
Dwellings given their final shape.
09
Masterplan
One plan that answers to the site.