3. Caring: Design

This guidance note is for architects and their clients. It is also for those evaluating their designs. These include planning officers and heritage professionals. It is to help designers reinforce local distinctiveness.

Designers may consider existing use, character and components of a place. These aspects inspire the form, scale and disposition of new structures and arrangements. Cornwall’s Local Plan highlights the importance of local distinctiveness and character. It calls for designers to create places with their own identity. They should be within locally distinctive contexts (Vision, para 1.18). This will help designers achieve ‘beautiful, enduring and successful' buildings and places.

The Framework can help designers establish what reflects distinctive attributes. This will include local design cues; dominant functions, materials, scales, layouts and details.

Ideal outcomes

• Thoughtful design, responding to local distinctiveness, in buildings, structures, and places.
• Clients and planning officers commission and approve designs which promote local distinctiveness. These are innovative and reflect the needs and aesthetics of their own time.
• Identification of existing building and design practice and style. This is related to local cultural tradition. This is recorded in a Context Appraisal (as recommended in the Cornwall Design Guide.

• Architects and designers seek expert guidance when assessing Cornish distinctiveness. This should include the Context Appraisal. Consider Heritage Impact Assessments (HIA) and / or Statements of Significance as well.
• New design should relate to the Context Appraisal. Designs should reflect the historic and landscape character of the development site. It should complement the wider context and conserve and enhance the distinctive. Design should introduce innovation where appropriate.
• Wherever possible use locally sourced and typical materials. Specification in design should be encouraged. This will support the supply of local materials and craft skills.

Things to consider

• Heritage Impact Assessments should inform assessment of distinctiveness and heritage significance. This applies to both designated and undesignated heritage assets.
• Design should seek to avoid pastiche, the imitation of a previous style. It is important to conserve existing heritage values. Aim to balance local traditions and the needs of our own times. Historic England’s guidance should inform these decisions.
• For large developments design codes and pattern books can be effective.
• Adapt to local circumstances and needs. Some traditions developed as adaptions to distinctive climatic conditions. Develop designs that reference both the historic and natural environment. These can help promote climatic resilience.
• Design should incorporate the repair and expansion of distinctive natural habitats. Natural habitats can be enhanced, whilst conserving the historic environment.
• The Cornwall Design Guide includes principles of the Cornish Distinctiveness Assessment Framework. The design guide should inform change and design and should include their distinctiveness.

Approaches and resources

• Work from the general to the specific. Begin with considering the general character (e.g. coastal, rural, urban). Develop finer understanding proportionate to the sensitivity of the location and the proposal.
• The following evidence bases have had a strong positive effect on design. These are resources that the council will continue to develop:
  1. Cornwall and Scilly Settlement Studies
  2. Cornwall Council Interactive Map
  3. Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Historic Environment Record
  4. Cornwall Historic Landscape Characterisation
• The Cornwall Design Review Panel encourages design excellence. They are available to assess all aspects of the design of new developments.
• The following contain policy approaches and guidance. These resources support the conservation and enhancement of Cornish distinctiveness:
  1. Cornwall Council’s Design Guide
  2. The Cornwall Mining Landscape World Heritage Site Supplementary Planning Document
  3. Historic Environment Conservation and Planning
  4. Cornwall and Tamar Valley National Landscape Management Plans
  5. Neighbourhood Planning
• Studies of distinctiveness may inform future editions of the above documents.
• Heritage experts can support the Context Appraisal process. Seek the advice of heritage experts in Cornwall Council and Historic England.

Tate, St Ives, reproduced courtesy of Tate

The following Guidance Notes may also be helpful:

2 Master Planning

4 Development management

5 Looking after Buildings