Parkside

Coventry will be City of Culture for 2021 and has enjoyed increased attention with new employment and education opportunities. In recent years Coventry has also seen an intensification and densification around the mainline station, which feeds London Euston and the West Coast line.

The scale of the development responds to its university location and the surrounding regeneration area. When viewed together with adjacent developments, Parkside provides a significant future customer base, local services and employment opportunities.

Allocation has been carefully planned to ensure that the site benefits from its central location and excellent transport links, providing privacy and security for residents and importantly a mix and specification that meets students current and future demands. Purpose‐built student accommodation will also help release the traditional student housing stock, allowing these residential properties to make a better contribution to housing needs.

A key consideration of the development is to ensure the preservation of the protected viewing corridors from key locations around the city centre. The three spires of Coventry’s skyline lightly cross the southern edge of the site. The development is designed to not encroach on this protected viewing cone and is reflective of planning approvals for towers of a similar height in the vicinity.

A portion of the city’s historic city walls has been fully preserved and revealed within the development, with the new blocks carefully located to ensure that the archaeological remains are safeguarded and given opportunity for interpretation. The intention was for an exhibition use and events programme around the exposed wall would occur for the City of Culture celebration and prior to the construction work commencing.

The site is bounded on the north side by a protective strip that encloses private central courtyard/garden areas, which can be utilised for amenity and recreation. These spaces act as links between the various activity zones within the development.

The ground floor uses facing onto these spaces are communal leisure and co-working areas which can benefit from these secure external amenities. The clearly defined double fronted entrance area acts as a central meeting point and leads into the café/shops/common room areas, providing an active street frontage to key elevations.

The lower podium floors of the development, containing the largely post graduate studio rooms, emphasise the horizontal proportions set up by the surrounding developments and ring road flyover. This is balanced by the vertical interest provided by the ‘finger blocks’ above, containing the student room clusters, articulated to receive the best natural light conditions while responding to the surrounding developments, views and axes.