London firm gets Ashford bid

Urban Initiatives beat out the Prince’s Foundation and several other competitors to design a major new English town in Ashford, Kent, a stop on the railway just north of the Channel Tunnel. The town is proposed to accommodate 31,000 people and 28,000 jobs, the first part of a homebuilding program that has been described as Britain’s largest in 50 years. The Ashford plan will follow codes that govern density and percentages of affordable housing, but also touch upon new urban issues like ensuring that housing faces the public realm. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, a supporter of New Urbanism, is championing the codes. Charrettes will take place in April and September of 2004 to create the plan, Kelvin Campbell of Urban Initiatives told New Urban News. The Urban Initiatives team includes practitioners who are well known to new urbanists. These include Jo Berridge of Urban Strategies of Toronto, Fred Koetter of Koetter Kim Associates of Boston, Bob Gibbs of Gibbs Planning Group of Birmingham, Michigan, and Kobus Mentz of New Zealand, who Campbell describes as “a leading light in the new urbanist movement in Australia and New Zealand.” The Prince’s Foundation’s team included Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. and URS. Others on the shortlist who were not selected include EDAW and HTA Architects; HOK International; and Kuiper Compagnons, a Dutch architect. u