Housing

MAST has been involved in the community-based Housing Association movement since its inception. Initially, this work was undertaken to improve traditional sandstone tenements and later was extended to the post-war housing schemes, and the rehabilitation and restructuring of a range of construction types. With increasing concern over the cost effectiveness of improving poorly located flatted properties, the proportion of rehabilitated properties dropped and new build became the norm.

This, in turn, led to the need for area wide feasibility and planning studies prior to investing in new housing.

Involvement of local residents in the decision making process has always been central to our way of working. We believe in explaining the process stage by stage and responding to the concerns of the user clients.

The development of sustainable communities has led to our interest in providing healthy homes and affordable heating, in well-insulated houses with integrated heating and ventilation strategies. The specification of locally produced products and materials is preferred, encouraging local employment and reducing embodied energy.

Over recent years, the practice has broadened our housing experience working with a number of developer clients on housing for sale projects and contractor clients on design and build projects. A number of these have involved Partnering where the project has been benchmarked against KPI’s. Our experience on a range of procurement types has given the practice a proven track record in delivering housing projects on time and budget.