We set out to design bright and airy, well-organised and robust homes surrounding a large green and diverse parkland. We felt that it was important to make it a place that feels safe for everyone to walk at all times of the day and for children to play in green spaces in sight of their parents. The private and communal spaces are clearly defined, with the ambition of creating a strong sense of neighbourliness and community.

The proposal includes 22 dwellings comprised of 7 No. three bedroom and 6 No. two bedroom terrace houses along with 9 No. One bedroom apartments. (See Fig 6.) in accordance with Design Standards for New Apartments 2022 and the Kildare County Council Development Plan 2023-2029.

In the manner of the small elegant Victorian town parks dotted around Ireland, we located two wooded green spaces at the centre of the site, surrounded by housing on all sides. Each of the twenty-two dwellings have views to the new parks, making them safe places for children to play, vibrant spaces to look out onto and communal places to spend time.

The unusual shape of the site lends itself to a more fluid plan form for the housing, where the building lines follow the outlines of the boundary rather than running in rigid straight lines, in order to maximise green space and density.

There are many Victorian residential parks in Ireland that are timeless and enduringly popular places to live. They work in a very simple way. Each of these parks has a great communal garden surrounded by large mature trees that is passively policed from the overlooking houses. The green space is usually lined with a cast iron fence or hedge and is surrounded by a narrow road, and lined with terrace houses. These houses are usually slightly set back from the pavement with an open and visible small front garden in order to provide privacy to the ground floor living spaces.

Case studies such as Fairfield Park in Rathgar, Dublin and Mount Pleasant in Stranmillis, Belfast, share similarly small park-like gardens to the one proposed and the same layering of wooded park, small road, parallel parking spaces, pavement, small front garden, then terrace houses.

The site has been designed around having abundant and safe green communal space which is visually and physically accessible to all.  We envision separating the parks into spaces with different characters, some wooded with light tall silver birches, some more open grassy spaces for children to play, to complement the public play park across the main road. One of the spaces will have hard landscaping and low walls for casual gatherings such as a community barbecue or children's party. There is space allowed for small community vegetable gardens for residents.