Working in collaboration with developers TOWNhus, Mole Architects have designed a 42-home
co-housing scheme on the K1 site at Orchard Park, Cambridge.
Members of Cambridge Cohousing have been working with TOWNhus, a partnership between
UK developer TOWN and Swedish housebuilder Trivselhus, since June 2015. The scheme was
approved by South Cambridgshire District Council in April 2016.
K1 will incorporate 42 homes, from one-bedroom flats to five-bedroom houses. Homes will be
privately owned, each with its own private garden or balcony, and will also benefit from a large
shared garden and a Common House, where residents will be able to socialise and eat together.
The scheme comprises modular dwelling types, designed to Passivhaus standards, that can be
flexibly deployed on the different plots across the plan offering wide-ranging scope for
customization internally and externally depending on the user’s needs.
The dwellings are arranged in 3 rows of terraces orientated around a sequence of spaces,
increasingly private and “soft” in nature, moving from the Lane (a neighbourly street for people)
and via the Square to the Shared Garden, the focal space of the community with areas for
growing food, play, socialising and quiet contemplation.
Architects: Mole Architects
Client: Cambridge City Council & Cambridge Cohousing Limited
Developer: TOWNhus
Location: Topper Street, Orchard Park, Cambridge CB24 TWN
Site area: 0.97ha
Gross internal area: 0.86ha
Schedule: Design phase: February-Dec 2015
Planning approval: April 2016
Start on site: Jan 2017
Anticipated completion: Dec 2017
