Highgate
Durham
Bounded by heavily trafficked trunk roads on two flanks and within a conservation area, this striking development of 26 flats and 34 town houses, all for private sale, is on a prominent steeply sloping site overlooking Durham city centre with its World Heritage Site of castle and cathedral.
The 1.28 hectare triangular site owned by Durham City and formerly part of its mediaeval layout was cleared in the 1930s, subsequently used as a car park, and was one of four inner city sites identified for early development in a 1998 city centre plan.
The competition-winning scheme by AMEC, Bryant Homes and RPS Architects is exemplary for overcoming the difficulties of the site and exploiting its location, for the contribution it makes to the townscape of the whole city and its reinterpretation of traditional building forms, and for the quality of materials used and care taken with the design of details. In demonstrating a high degree of variety within an overall pattern it manages to achieve the qualities of a quarter which has evolved over a long time and which 'looks as if it has always been there'.
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