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	Housing Brent Cross Grover Close 12 Houses, Waltham Forest York Place St Mary's Island Shepherdess Walk Private Houses Education Healthcare Commercial Arts & Culture Leisure & Exhibitions Adaptive Reuse Regeneration Urban Design St Mary's Island Housing, Chatham In 2001 the practice won an open international competition to regenerate 6.8 hectares of the Chatham Royal Dockyards to create over 400 new homes for a joint venture between Countryside Properties and SEEDA. The challenge was to avoid new low-rise mass housing becoming an estate and instead to lay the foundations for this new community. The proposal, 'From Table to Basin', emphasized the extent to which the provision of communal space underpins our design; be it family space around the breakfast table or 'civic' space around the dry dock (or 'Basin'). The scheme is laid out in terraces around the basin in an intelligible manner – fronts face fronts, backs face backs with interchangeable house types within blocks. This pattern is bisected by a diagonal road and the leisure space of the basin which links to a school, the marina and a ridge walk. The scheme addresses a variety of lifestyles and household types: e.g. home working, granny / teenager's flat; homes for singles, couples with(out) children and those retired and offers choices and flexibility for each home. Our approach to environmental design is based on common sense and palpable human experience rather than being strictly reliant on technology. Penetration of light and air, flexibility of use, and adaptability over time characterise this scheme considered 'the most innovative, sustainable and practical' aiming to provide what SEEDA described as 'a healthy living experience', making it easier to be 'green'. Careful selection of materials such as weatherboarding and hung tile provide a link with tradition – South East England has the highest concentration of these building materials – allowing for flexibility in construction. Our intention was to suggest simple construction solutions for innovative house designs. The project has been published in ARQ (vol5, no3, 2001) and was one of 12 schemes at the 'Coming Homes: Housing Futures' exhibition at the RIBA, London (2002).