Lyttleton Street, Lyng Estate, Sandwell

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council wanted to use INTEGER to challenge the perceived mediocrity in current homebuilding practice, and so increase the expectations of the public regarding social housing.

Head of Housing Improvement for the council, Barry Plant, was clear how these wishes were to be translated into reality: “You can clearly identify a council estate by its appearance, and what we wanted was for the INTEGER housing not to look like council housing. It’s welcoming that people passing by the site are asking the contractor where they can buy them.”

In choosing to build 15 new INTEGER homes on the fringes of a 40-acre estate of high-rise blocks and low-rise dark brick homes, Sandwell MBC aimed to illustrate this contrast in the most striking way.
 




Design and Construction Innovation
 
• A mixture of six one-bed apartments, six two-bed apartments, two three-bed houses and a single two-bed house
 
• Timber wall panels filled with recycled cellulose insulation, providing speedy construction and also near-perfect SAP energy efficiency scores
 
• Western red cedar cladding rendered with red acrylic paint to create visual interest in a location with a strong tradition for brick build
 
• Low maintenance aluminium roofing adding visual impact
 
• Glazed entrance lobbies to the apartments creating an attractive solar space or winter garden, making any would-be burglars more visible. Solar double-storey conservatories provide the same effect for the houses
 
• Clearly defined pathways through the buildings for electrical wiring and cabling for data, voice and TV

Environmental Technologies
 
• Passive stack ventilation in kitchen and bathrooms, removing the need for electrical extractor fans
 
• Solar water heaters creating domestic hot water to a maximum of 75°c. This is linked to a boiler which is turned on by a sensor if the heater draws insufficient solar energy to reach the required temperature
 
• A grey water system, which treats and recycles water from the bath to be re-used for toilet flushing. In addition, this system is topped-up by rainwater, via a diverter at the base of the rainwater downpipes

Intelligent Technologies

 
• Redundant cabling systems allowing for easy and inexpensive upgrade in the future
 
• Digital satellite, digital terrestrial and conventional analogue TV signals are provided from one centralised satellite dish and aerial system
 
• Every room except the bathroom has two phone lines allowing residents to dial-up to the internet and to make calls simultaneously
 
• A single central boiler system is used to meet the low heat demand of these highly insulated homes
 
• Intelligent controls judge the optimum time for the boiler to operate, while heat metering and thermostatic radiator valves in each dwelling provide environmental control for the individual tenant
 
• Low-energy light fittings are used but they are not controlled by any sophisticated systems as these were too expensive and complex at the time of construction

Community Involvement

An important part of the INTEGER programme is the education and involvement of the local community. This helps them to better understand how the INTEGER philosophy is not so much about buildings as an end in themselves, but buildings as an enabler for social change.

During the construction of the Lyttleton Street project, citizens from the local community were involved through meetings with the design team and visits to the site. Windows were cut into the hoarding protecting the building site so that passers-by could see the project take shape. An exhibition was held in the local library so that all in the community could see and understand what INTEGER aimed to achieve. More than 200 children from local primary schools have used the INTEGER development as a case study touching six key curriculum areas: the house, ICT, design, environment, science and citizenship. By involving these people, INTEGER has been able to assist the transfer of intelligent and sustainable technologies from the building site into the daily lives of people, educating and more importantly facilitating social change and community action.

Performance

The total cost of the Sandwell project came in at around 107% of the build cost of comparable traditional social housing.
However, lifetime performance of the buildings is such that benefits such as reductions in cost in use, reduced construction time and an enhanced standard of living for tenants more than make up for this additional premium

Barry Plant of Sandwell MBC believes that on a larger scale project of 40 units, costs for an INTEGER development would actually cost in at less than Housing Corporation indicative costs: “What we have learned is that we can make efficiency savings. We can do INTEGER at less than Housing Corporation indicative costs – if we’d had 40 homes we’d have done it here”.

Assessment

The Lyttleton Street project has been a step-change in the way that social housing is delivered. Yet it is not perfect. As Barry Plant says: “I’d love to see a scheme where we can move forward from what we’ve done here.”

Project Team

Client: Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council

Architect: Cole Thompson Anders

Contractor: Wates Construction

Intelligent Systems: i&i limited

Services Engineer: Oscar Faber

Structural Engineer: Anthony Ward Partnership

Quantity Surveyor: The Andrews Partnership

Landscaping: Cole Thompson Associates with Sandwell MBC

Performance Measurement: Centre for Performance Improvement in Construction, BRE