Greenwich Millennium Village (gossip spaces)

Key Principles

Fostering interaction through design
Creating gossip groups and social spaces

Details

The development will deliver 1,377 mixed tenure homes together with a range of facilities including shops, offices, a health clinic, primary school, community centre, teleservices centre, yacht club and ecology park.

The buildings and open spaces have been designed to promote positive social interaction and a feeling of community. Homes are clustered into five groups of about 300, focused on a public place. These are further sub-divided into smaller horse-shoe shaped "gossip-groups" of 30-50 homes. This is taken to represent the number of people who recognise each other without forced intimacy.

Other Information

Location: London Borough of Greenwich
Project Team: Promoter: English Partnerships, Masterplanner: Ralph Erskine. Phase 1 design co-ordinator: Hunt Thompson Associates. Project Manager: Trench Farrow & Partners. Specialist architects: Baker-Brown & McKay, Cole Thompson M&E engineer. Landscape and ecology: Battle McCarthy. Developer Consortium: Countryside Properties plc, Taylor Woodrow plc, Moat Housing Group and Ujima Housing Association.
Contact: Phillip Dibsdale, Area Director Greenwich, English Partnerships, Tel: 020 7531 2491
Site Area: 13ha
Density: 70 habitable rooms per ha