NEW TOWN — Adam Garratt

After recently moving to a “New Town” which is more like a suburb connected to the city, I have been fascinated by the make up of the place. To get here you must reach the city limits where the motorways are, an area that at one time would have been the edge of the sprawl before reaching countryside that leads to small villages & hamlets & then the next town 10 or 15 miles away. But now near the motorway beyond the big office blocks is a new science park which is partly built & fills the gap between the motorway & a new housing development. This housing development goes on to fill the gap between the Science park & a hamlet. The hamlet once far from anywhere now butts up to newly built supermarket delivery warehouses & the Airport. These distribution centres & the small international airport connect directly to the “New Town” where I live, completing this new seamless link from the city to the suburban town. Here there is a regular bus service, a main line railway station to London, a medical centre plus a primary & secondary school. It would seem lots of homes are planned for this site, some complete by 5 or 6 years others still a hole on the ground.

Walking around the established areas is really interesting. There is a sense of a personality & identity developing in the streets as buildings settle into their place, gardens mature & ware & tare begins to show. In this town there are several housing developers working on the new buildings, each bringing their own style. The homes vary from 2 bedroom terraces, to 4/5 bedroom detached houses. There are 3/4 storey roadside apartment blocks & coach houses above garages & entrance ways to private parking lots. There is social housing here, private housing & rented homes. Many homes in the side streets have private bay parking bays but there is also a clear effort to force roadside parking which naturally adds traffic calming along the main bus route through the town. This slows the traffic entering the town as it approaches the primary school, shopping square & open space play area.

In the middle of the two sides of the developing town is an area that google maps calls a ‘Country Park’, this space is defined by the meeting of 2 brooks along the northern edge surrounded by a vast green space. In this green space old oak trees have been preserved, the derelict farm house that once worked all of the surrounding land is situated here & dog walkers, joggers & picnickers enjoy time in the well managed semi manicured/wild environment. The country park also creates a natural separation between the two sides of the town, each with their own new town aesthetics.

Walking around & exploring both the new town & the Science park have turned up some interesting insight into how we get these developments as well as seeing the materials & process that are used to achieve them.

At the science park there is an interesting mix of environments. One edge is a housing development in various stages, there are a few farm fields & at the top of the hill are newly finished office buildings surrounded by hedgerows & lawns. This whole development is set on a hillside facing the airport, warehouses & new town. From this hill at night the lights twinkle like a metropolis in the distance where you can see air traffic at the airpot, trucks & vans at the warehouses & homes at the town. Due to the incompleteness of the Science park there are roads that lead to nowhere which are blocked off by large concrete blocks. The concrete blocks are heavy & certain but are not very assertive. They actually seem playful due to their LEGO like appearance & clumsy placement on top of wooden pallets which have broken under their weight. Near by are abandoned traffic cones that have been knocked over, three of which are tethered together by blue tape. When driving in or out of the new town this is a good route to take in order to track how the place changes over the weeks & months.

On the newest part of town where most of the building work is taking place, plots are being prepared as earth is moved, foundations are being laid & fences guard almost finished homes. On this side of town red earth covers the roads

This developing space is really interesting as it is possible to see the plan of what is to come. Historically architects have been known to reference their architectural plans as ‘God’s view’, a place as seen from above. An analogy that is no doubt ego boosting for themselves but in principal a useful way to see a space. We see the unobstructed plot in which a house will fit, we see the designated space in the form of a trench which describes to us the thickness of walls. In the ground there is evidence of sewerage infrastructure. We see spaces within the breeze blocks suggesting ventilation & insulation & around this building space there are stacks of materials which will become the structure itself then beyond this we see more of the same. More plots, more materials, more holes in the ground.

This whole place is filled with cues to process, there are items & materials that will not be apparent when the town is complete. There is an order to all of this which is legible within the dirt. By making frequent visits it is possible to see the place grow over time but if you were to visit just once then you can still see the whole picture because all of the various stages are visible to see at once.

Some of the smaller details around add to the visual story of the developing town. As mentioned the roads along the building sites are covered in red earth but as you move further from the sites this redness on the tarmac fades gradually to black as it is spread thinner along the road surface by vehicles. There are also signs at the roadside alerting drivers to the construction ahead, signs which are weighed down by sandbags. There are also just groups of abandoned sandbags at the kerbside & in corners near to fences. Naturally I am drawn to these.

The developing space beyond the the edge of the city moves the urban sprawl a few more miles east. The new town is an extension to the city, I would have called it an estate years ago but a suburb is how it feels, linked along the way by spaces filled with places to work, homes & transit hubs. This was once countryside & farm land but it is now host to thousands of families living in streets named after what was once here.