Places with soul,
not shoe boxes
Our residents are the ones that can really make our neighbourhoods great, to build the kind of communities that look out for each other and nod a quick “hello” as they pass one another. But we also believe that we can help that kind of place grow by using the right ingredients, like great public spaces, shared landscapes, clever design and communal facilities.
Community Facilities
At Sero Homes, we believe life is better when you know your neighbours and are part of a friendly community. Whilst only people make communities, we do believe that how we create the spaces and places can help a community develop. We start our new neighbourhoods with this goal in mind: Shared landscaping and community facilities at the heart of every design, whether or not that’s in the middle of our new homes or forming the link to existing ones nearby.
For small schemes, this might just be a space to bump into your neighbours, but we’ll always try to raise that to a facility the new and existing community needs. Sometimes that’s a local shop, sometimes a café, sometimes a village hall. Always an opportunity to bond our new homes to the existing neighbourhood, and to each other.
Wildlife and Ecology
From Honey Bees to Hedgehogs, our wildlife is in trouble due to how we’ve all lived in the past. We aim to change that. Sero Homes design our homes and landscapes to be as accommodating to our non-human residents as we can. That doesn’t mean we’re suggesting a mouse in your house, but we’re certainly thinking about where her house can safely be.
The result is homes designed amongst bat foraging routes created with trees and low-level lighting. Homes with carefully judged garden boundaries that let hedgehogs through but keep kids and dogs safe. Homes that co-exist with our native wildlife for their benefit as well as ours. When you visit a one of our neighbourhoods, see how many homes you think we’ve built. We pretty sure you’ll miss lots of the homes we’ve built for bats, birds, bees, lizards, hedgehogs and many more…
Landscaping and Public Place
We believe the places between buildings are just as important as the spaces within them. Our new neighbourhoods are designed with this in mind from the outset. That means hard and soft landscaping that sets out to create places you can linger, meet people, move through and enjoy. It means we aim to avoid the dull tarmac and turf monoculture, and get every outdoor space to be a place.
Hand-in-glove with great external places are community and security. We always work to build landscapes where our homes provide ‘natural’ surveillance through their design. This helps build a community, but also helps discourage anti-social behaviours.