Urban planners, Tribal of London, have won the Manual for Streets Award at the Institute of Highways and Transportation (IHT) for its work on the Woodbrook eco-village at Lisburn, Northern Ireland.

Speaking to GPN, Patrick Clarke, Tribal’s director of masterplanning and urban design, said: “At Woodbrook we have tried to create a more traditional streetscape as opposed to a network of roads from the highway design manual. We looked at village street patterns and sought to recreate those.”

Woodbrook is Northern Ireland’s first eco-village and has used cutting edge technologies to reduce the ecological impact of the development. For example, one of the largest biomass boilers in the UK has been installed and it provides heating and hot water to all 360 homes of the development’s first phase. Additionally all homes are provided with a free bicycle and a bus pass for one year.

Using a scheme that is similar to ‘open space’, Tribal has relied on the lines of buildings rather than myriad street signs to identify junctions and potential hazards. Clarke again: “It’s almost a reverse psychology; we have removed the certainty that a driver gets through warning signs and speed limit indication. For example we have used larger, maybe four storey, buildings at cross roads to alert drivers that a significant junction is approaching. We are forcing them to be more alert and to drive with more caution.”