The client’s brief was to establish the potential value for this underutilised site, which is principally bounded by two-storey detached dwellings to the south and the rapidly expanding multi-storey residential, commercial and mixed-use buildings near the railway station, to the north. We developed a proposal that could transition between the two different contextual scenarios.

The local authority is supportive of high density urban residential development and actively promotes high-rise mixed-use as an acceptable design solution in Woking’s town centre. Our early-stages work explored how we could increase the massing of the scheme towards the western corner of the site – the nearest point to the rail station – having built up from 3 storeys along the east and southern edges.

The proposals presented culminated in a 21-storey scheme on the prominent corner, gradually stepping down towards the outer edges and accommodating 184 dwellings that comprised a mixture of one, two and three bedroom properties. The ground floor, street facing use was proposed as commercial and included around 20,000 sqft of retail and leisure space.