Architecture | Masterplanning | Landscape

A residential scheme defined by the seamless integration of landscape, architecture, and masterplanning.

Castle Drive

Castle Drive sits on Pendennis Headland, a place of exceptional historic, landscape, and ecological significance overlooking Falmouth and its harbour. The project transforms a derelict former oil depot into six sensitively embedded homes and a new public park. Through terrain restoration, landscape-led design, and conservation-focused intervention, the scheme reinstates the character of the headland while enabling discreet, sustainable inhabitation.

The client sought to regenerate a heavily degraded post-industrial brownfield site while meeting stringent heritage, landscape and environmental requirements. The brief called for a low-impact residential scheme limited to the footprint of buried oil tanks, alongside a publicly accessible naturalised park offering new viewpoints and ecological enhancements. Central to the brief was working collaboratively with Historic England to minimise harm and deliver measurable heritage benefits.

The Brief

The scheme proposes six dwellings terraced into the hillside, restoring the original contours of the headland and significantly reducing visibility from key heritage viewpoints. Buildings adopt a recessive, battery-like character with green roofs, deeply recessed openings and subdued material palettes to blend with surrounding terrain. Access, parking, and private amenity spaces are concealed within the restored landform to avoid visual clutter and protect long-distance views.

A new public park occupies nearly a hectare of reinstated landscape, integrating historic wartime trenches, bat habitat provision, hedge banks, swales, and native grassland management. Two accessible routes provide connections to Castle Drive and panoramic headland views. Together, these interventions balance sensitive residential use with ecological uplift, landscape repair, and enhanced public engagement within this nationally significant setting.