The South West Quadrant is currently under design at the Duchy of Cornwall’s experimental town the west side of Dorchester in Dorset, masterplanned by Leon Krier and Colum Mulhern.

Learning from the experience of the previous phases and from creating a community over a number of years, the Duchy has appointed a team of four individually talented architects to design the buildings in the South West Quadrant which will provide around 200 residential units when complete.

The designers behind this new phase are George Saumarez Smith of Robert Adam Architects, Ben Pentreath of Working Group, Craig Hamilton of Craig Hamilton Architects and Jonathan Holland of Hackett Holland. Previous phases of Poundbury have been designed with limited interaction between individual architects. By working together the team will provide a coherent strategy for the new streets, in order to give a greater level of harmony between the buildings.

The design, which has been submitted to the planners in October 2007, shows a number of different building types including offices, apartment buildings, terraced houses and detached homes. The buildings have been inspired by the architecture of the Regency period, using a restrained classical vocabulary. The materials will generally be scored render and buff-coloured brick with slate roofs, with decorative ironwork used on the more important buildings.

The simple detailing will produce elegant buildings which can be constructed and finished to a very high quality by the builders, C G Fry and Morrish, both of whom have years of experience working in Poundbury.