What is Master planning?

The Master plan presents the overview, the vision for the whole site/area design, which, by establishing functional relationships between all of the parts of the site/area, then guides the detail design and interaction of the elements which make up the whole.

Design overview

In terms of the design process, Site assessment is followed by sketch designs, which are fluid, changeable options, produced to explore designs and to aid discussion. These are then refined into Master plans to provide the overview statement for the design.

Why create a Master plan?

Master plans provide an early statement of design intention. They help to communicate the benefits of the proposal to planners, senior managers or the public.

If your development project includes buildings, a Master plan will optimise placement, aspect and circulation of vehicles and pedestrians. This process makes the most of your site development and benefits from an overview of the site issues - a particular skill of landscape architects.

In recent times, forward-thinking businesses are increasingly mindful of the climate emergency, and wish to develop their landscape to reflect their ambitions for a business-wide sustainability strategy. A Master plan can be a great way to facilitate a planned, step-by-step route to your net zero goals. A Master plan is a vision, which can help to convey that your company's environmental strategy is being considered holistically, and is truly embedded in the culture of the organisation.

Why 2B?

We often recommend the creation of a Master plan to clients, to provide the vision and overview that any project needs to be successful.

For example, SuDS cannot be bolted on as an afterthought to a fixed building layout - the topography and functions of the site must be planned from the outset to maximise the opportunities and minimise the costs. As landscape architects, this is precisely the holistic view we bring to the site design process.

2B is amongst many companies that have declared a climate emergency. We have a particular interest in helping our clients to achieve their sustainability goals, through embedding Green Infrastructure, Sustainable Drainage Systems, Biodiversity, low carbon and ethical solutions into the fabric of the landscape Master plan.

Thank you! Fantastic turn around and they look really good. Nothing has been too much trouble and your presentation has been extremely professional. I appreciate your creativity. You thought of ideas that exceeded your commission and excited the community. I would really like to work with you again and would recommend 2B for any commission.

Mary

Corporate Lead Transportation, Calderdale MB Council

Case studies

Urban
Urban Masterplans: Sowerby Bridge 1

Combining Calderdale Council’s aspirations with our assessment, we developed high level strategic masterplans aimed at guiding development and restoration work within Sowerby Bridge. The above image is the Retail & Leisure Economy masterplan.

Urban Masterplans: Sowerby Bridge 2

The next level master plan took the proposals to RIBA Stage 2, a more detailed, but still conceptual consideration of how the high-level ideas might be developed at particular sites. These drawings were used for public engagement, before developing the designs further.

Urban Masterplans: Sowerby Bridge 3

This design reconsidered the relationship of Sowerby Bridge market place and its connection to the historic Rochdale Canal, which is a key leisure corridor.

Urban Masterplans: Sowerby Bridge 4

Re-orientating the space to address the canal, as well as the main road, punctuated the linearity of the A58 corridor, and reclaimed pedestrian and cycle priority.

Urban Masterplans: Thornton Square, Brighouse 1

Calderdale Council commissioned 2B to provide two concept designs for Thornton Square in Brighouse. The aim was remove the vehicle-dominated environment, to create a space which would allow for flexible events use, and an animated, attractive, and user-friendly public realm on non-events days.

Urban Masterplans: Thornton Square, Brighouse 2

Design 1 has a paving grid pattern which responds to the orientation of the landmark Old Town Hall building and runs across the one-way road to create a flexible space for performance when the road is closed for events. Tree avenues echo the paving pattern whilst also providing numerous benefits such as SuDS, shade, shelter and screening less attractive buildings.

Urban Masterplans: Thornton Square, Brighouse 3

The circular paving pattern for design option 2 reflects the machinery of the area's industrial heritage. Ground-level fountains would provide interest and could be switched off for events use. A raised stage would provide interest through level change. The large trees, green walls and rain garden planting beds would form part of the integrated SuDS system.

Urban Masterplans: Sheffield Markets Regeneration 1

This university project focused on regenerating a market square in Sheffield. Bold avenues define and soften the space for a series of market stalls and exciting public spaces. (image: A McDermott)

Urban Masterplans: Sheffield Markets Regeneration 2

The paving plan indicates a high-quality response to the streetscape, with a combination of parallel lines and flowing forms which encourage both movement and rest. (image: A McDermott)

Urban Masterplans: Barrow Market Place 1

The master plan produced for the Better Barrow community group reviewed an existing space dominated by car parking.

Urban Masterplans: Barrow Market Place 2

The proposed design would create an exciting multi-functional space at the heart of the village, which would tell the story of clockmaker John Harrison, the village's most famous son.

Restoration
Restoration Masterplans: Burnby Hall and Gardens

Restoration masterplan for the rock garden at Burnby Hall and Gardens, Pocklington. The drone photography is of the rock garden recently restored and planted.

Restoration Masterplans: Burnby Hall and Gardens

We did a planting masterplan as part of the restoration process. It was important to incorporate plants in the new design that were historically planted here......

Restoration Masterplans: North Cave Wetlands

As part of the Planning process for this site, we produced a Masterplan to show the mosaic of wetland habitat types which would be created by gravel extraction with sensitive restoration, guided by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (see also Photomontage > North Cave Wetlands / Aerial).

Restoration Masterplans: Yarrows

This plan shows the proposed restoration features of a quarry site, including water, grassland and woodland areas with indicative planting species.

Restoration Masterplans: Lounge Disposal Point

This Landscape Masterplan, for a former coal disposal point, was produced as part of the Landscape Evidence at a Planning Inquiry. It set out Leicestershire County Council's preferred position for restoration by the landowners, taking into account the site's landscape and biodiversity qualities, and in the context of its National Forest setting.

Parks
Parks Masterplans: York Community Woodland

Three masterplans were created to demonstrate a range of design approaches. The options ranged from dense, tree-focused woodland to high levels of community space and a range of varied routes throughout, with another option encompassing aspects of the other two.

Parks Masterplans: Easingwold

Millfield Park at Easingwold needed a strategic approach to adding new features, such as a lit running track, cycleways, exercise features, pond access and other features. 2B worked with the local community to map and visualise how those changes could take place.

Parks Masterplans: Bude

This park masterplan was created to provide a framework for local developers to invest this Public Open Space.

Parks Masterplans: Scunthorpe Central Park

A design for Scunthorpe's Central Park, with a landscape structure which responds to and builds on the existing layout. The design concept is inspired by Scunthorpe's unique geology, which brought it into being as an iron-smelting town.

Parks Masterplans: Woodland Cemetery Zoning

This Zoning masterplan explained the concept design and phasing for a proposed Woodland Cemetery...

Parks Masterplans: Woodland Cemetery Plan

...which resulted in this finished design to integrate cemetery requirements with woodland creation.

Parks Masterplans: Hull Super Stadium

A predecessor of the final Stadium design, this was produced as part of the Environmental Assessment of the Stadium project in West Park, Hull - perhaps a more exciting design than the final result?

Residential
Residential Masterplans

This masterplan showed that a landscape-led approach would retain key open space features whilst delivering much needed residential development.

Residential Masterplans: Hull Uni Student Accommodation

Here we proposed a fully-integrated SuDS system within the layout of the University Halls of Residence, showing that the design would be considerably cheaper to implement than conventional drainage.

Residential Masterplans: Westcote Farm

2B worked with drainage engineers to create the sustainable drainage masterplan for a new Residential development on a flood-prone site in East Yorkshire.

Residential Masterplans: Hilder

The masterplan is based on Green Infrastructure principles: social, economic and environmental benefits. The plan takes into account landscape character, existing vegetation, topography, surface water drainage and adjacent settlement, to provide an integrated design solution.

Residential Masterplans: Crosby Pathfinder

In this area just west of Scunthorpe Town Centre, problems experienced by local residents include rat-runs and excessive parking on their streets, to avoid charges in adjacent car-parks. This plan set out the main issues, which were developed in photomontages.

Regional
Regional Masterplans: Mersey Life

Mersey Life Green Infrastructure is a JBA project for the Environment Agency, using multiple layers of GIS data to analyse and identify Green Infrastructure opportunities along the Mersey, just east of Warrington (see also Green Infrastructure).

Regional Masterplans: Bransholme

This housing masterplan was based on Green Infrastructure principles: social, economic and environmental benefits arising from optimised use of the landscape context and linkages. The plan takes into account landscape character, existing vegetation, topography, surface water drainage and adjacent settlement, to provide an integrated design solution.

Master planning

What is Master planning?

Design overview

Why create a Master plan?

Why 2B?

Relevant Sectors:

Residential

Healthcare

Education

Heritage

Development

Community

Energy

Public Authority