AT chats to… Joanna Yarrow, about getting planning consent for the 685-home Phoenix Project, and the challenges involved in delivering the biggest timber-structure neighbourhood in the UK.

What makes The Phoenix so special?
I’ve worked in sustainability my whole career, so it’s a real honour to have the opportunity to put principles into practice in my home town of Lewes, where my family’s lived for four generations.

I believe placemaking has a unique set of superpowers in addressing 21st century challenges. The way places are designed, built and run can either inspire and enable us to live healthier, more connected and sustainable lives or force us into ways of life that damage the climate and nature, worsen social exclusion, loneliness, health and wellbeing. That means, creating places where mostly daily needs are met within a short or cycle, where you can hire a car if you need one, which reduces our dependence on private car ownership; where clean and affordable energy and well insulated and ventilated homes are the norm; or where shared living is embedded into every part of the plans.

At the Phoenix we’ve brought together some of the UK’s leading architects, landscape designers and engineers to design and build a place that will achieve fantastic quality of life, social and environmental impact. We’ve worked with thousands of local residents, with community groups, local businesses and activists to bring together best practice from around the world together with grassroots knowledge and experience to co-create a set of plans that should together make this a uniquely sustainable place to live and work.

What do you think will be the biggest challenge in delivering the project?
The Phoenix is an industrial brownfield site that’s been semi-derelict for decades; local people have campaigned for positive development here for years, and we’ve been running design and consultation activities here for over three years. So there’s an understandable impatience to get on with things! People might be expecting diggers on site next week, but there’s lots of detail and technical work to be done before we break ground early next summer, with the first homes built in 2027.

Each square metre has to work really hard to deliver social and ecological impact as well as providing well designed living and working spaces. There’s a huge volume and depth of detailed work to be done, bringing together best practice from around the world and continuing to engage the local community to craft designs for this unique site, setting up local supply chains for timber and other biomaterials, and training local apprentices.

It’s not just design and build – we’ll also be setting up and running services to support sustainable living, including co-mobility, renewable energy and hospitality. The Phoenix isn’t our only project: we have a line of other sites where we’re developing plans to scale and replicate these principles in different settings, from urban blocks through to new communities.

Do you plan to live there once it’s finished?
In many ways we already live here! Our office is on site, and will be retained in the new neighbourhood, and we run lots of community, arts and cultural activities around the site. These are part of our ‘meanwhile’ programme, and will continue as the development evolves. So one way and another our family spends more time here than we do at our house 10 minutes’ walk away!

In designing the Phoenix we’ve taken inspiration from places we admire. In addition to the street structure and architectural diversity of Lewes, there’s a strong influence from Sweden, where we lived and worked for some years. The apartment blocks are very reminiscent of our home in Malmö, with shared courtyard gardens, event rooms, laundry facilities and wonderful bikeability.

My 10 year old daughter is already working on detailed designs for a new apartment, so let’s see!

Joanna Yarrow is Chief Impact Officer at Human Nature and was previously Global Head of Sustainable & Healthy Living for IKEA.