Barefoot Architects completes UK's largest co-housing scheme in Dorset

Bristol studio Barefoot Architects has completed the UK's largest co-housing project in Bridport, Dorset, creating a series of brick and timber-clad blocks lined by car-free streets and shared vegetable gardens.

Named Hazelmead, the development was designed for Bridport Cohousing Community Land Trust (CLT), which formed in 2008 to address a critical shortage of affordable housing in the area, where average house prices exceed 11 times the average local income.

Located with an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) on the outskirts of Bridport, the development contains 53 new homes across nine timber-framed blocks, with a mixture of flats and terraced homes all sold or rented at 80 per cent of market value.

Designed by Barefoot Architects in collaboration with Bridport Cohousing CLT, the blocks were oriented along the contours of a gently sloping site, with car-free streets overlooked by front gardens that were designed to foster interaction between residents.

"Hazelmead was designed as an intentional community, with social interaction encouraged and enabled by design in as many ways as possible," Barefoot Architects founding director Sam Goss told Dezeen.

"It is impossible to overestimate the power of car-free streets. It makes these spaces feel truly carefree. They are spaces for children to play, to grow food, and for birds, bees, bicycles and benches," he continued.

"This single design shift enables more social interaction, a sense of safety and is something truly special for the UK, demonstrating what life can be like when housing is not designed around vehicles."

While the blocks of terraced homes organise the street layout to the north, the development's two apartment blocks sit at the southwest and southeast boundaries of the site, where they flank a central village green alongside a parking area.

At the heart of this village green is a straw and timber "common house" containing shared facilities for residents, which is currently being self-built by the community in collaboration with local studio Common Practice.

The timber frames of each of the development's blocks have been finished with a base of red brickwork and an upper level of Siberian larch cladding, which has been treated to accelerate and control the weathering process.

Each block was topped with a slate roof, with almost the entire south-facing roofscape topped by a photovoltaic array that powers a "community micro-grid" operated as a subsidiary of the CLT.

"The different patterns and textures of the cladding provide articulation and definition on the different elevations and 'chimneys' which contain ducts from MVHR, heat pumps and soil pipes," explained Goss.

Hazelmead was recently named by the Royal Institute of British Architects as one of the best buildings in the UK for 2025, along with a block of 11 affordable apartments in Lewisham by architecture studio Archio.

The photography is by Rebecca Noakes.

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