A collaboration with Hawkins\Brown, OKRA, OOZE and Murray Twohig, the Begbroke Science Park masterplan—which has now secured outline planning consent from Cherwell Council—will create 1,800 new homes and a million square feet of research space around Oxford University’s existing science campus north of the city.
Won via an open international design competition, the masterplan includes three new residential neighbourhoods with a new civic quarter, known as the “farmstead”, centred on an existing Grade II-listed Jacobean farmhouse.
RCKa led on the residential masterplanning and design coding for the new homes, introducing innovative “living streets” which promote active travel and healthy lifestyles, with easy access to nature and the wellbeing benefits of open green space. All of the new homes have been designed around the principle of “the car as a guest”, with walkable, playable public realm on the doorstep.
A series of green arteries, designed by Dutch landscape architect OKRA, link each of the residential neighbourhoods to the heart of the new campus and out into the wider countryside. A large part of the masterplan area will be rewilded and maintained for leisure, zero-mile food growing and flood mitigation.