Elderberry Walk

BwN Design Award

Location: Bristol

Project Type: Residential

Applicant: HAB Housing

Elderberry Walk is a brownfield development providing 161 new homes on the former Dunmail Primary School focuses around a central green street, with retained trees, new multifunctional green infrastructure features, a communal wildlife garden and edible planting.

This residential scheme has a mix of tenures, including social rent and ethical rent, proving that it is possible to design for healthy diverse communities.

Green infrastructure is integral to the layout of the scheme, creating places for people and wildlife, optimising the health and wellbeing benefits of green infrastructure by creating opportunities for people to connect to nature as part of their everyday lives.

The communal wildlife garden provides a space for people to get together, encouraging community cohesion; and areas of productive planting support local priorities for reducing health inequalities.

Structurally, Elderberry Walk is a good example of a green infrastructure-led approach to landscape and urban design.

The green street running through the site provides an attractive setting for the houses which front on to it, and creates habitat and foraging potential for bats, whilst integrating sustainable drainage features. This is one example of how HAB Housing have utilised the multifunctional potential of green infrastructure to its fullest across the scheme.