Young Brums go for it! JRF unwraps its model market-rent complex for singles

After a major research exercise, two architectural competitions and almost 12 months of construction activity, Joseph Rowntree Foundation is ready to test its initiative to develop City Centre Apartments for Single People at Affordable Rents in the marketplace. In October it opened the showhome of its first CASPAR scheme, a 44-apartment canalside development in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter.

“We have already had interest in the homes from people passing by and we are about to start advertising,” said Cedric Dennis, head of housing at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

For a rent of between £85 and £115 a week, the young and single city worker can rent a one-bed apartment with its own balcony within a new-build development that has the same pared-down style as upmarket waterside warehouse conversions for sale.

The scheme was designed by architect Allford Hall Monaghan Morris following a design competition, a route also adopted for the second CASPAR project in Leeds which has just gone on site. AHMM’s design comprises two parallel blocks, clad externally in brick, separated by an internal courtyard with a glazed roof. Courtyard decks and three link bridges provide access to apartments at each floor level. Use of hardwood cladding for courtyard elevations and decks completes the wharf styling. Apartments incorporate bathroom pods, supplied by RB Farquhar. Design and build contractor John Sisk will complete the project to programme before Christmas, with first tenants due in after the new year.