A house at Fairmead, High Beach, Epping Forest

Development planning

AZ Urban Studio secured planning permission for a new family house on Green Belt land at High Beach, on the edge of Epping Forest. The site sits where ancient woodland meets open agricultural land, in a location where the policy presumption against inappropriate development is at its strongest.

An earlier permission already existed. Our task was to establish that a redesigned scheme, adapted to meet the client’s objectives and to improve environmental performance, could come forward without greater harm to the openness of the Green Belt or to the character of the surrounding landscape. We prepared the planning strategy and made the case to Epping Forest District Council that the revised proposal was an improvement on the fallback position rather than an escalation of it.

We had earlier obtained a Certificate of Lawfulness confirming that works already carried out accorded with the earlier permission. That certificate secured the fallback and underpinned the assessment of the new application.

The house was designed by Sergison Bates Architects. It takes the form of a villa, formally planned, built in thick insulating clay block finished in lime plaster, with a tall daylit living room at its centre and rooms linked by deep openings in place of corridors. The architecture is quiet and carefully judged, and it responds to the local vernacular and to the particular qualities of a site between forest and field.

The project is one of a number of private residential schemes in the Green Belt on which we have advised alongside a range of architects.

The house, known as A House at Fairmead, won a RIBA East Award and a RIBA National Award in 2026 and has been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2026. The prize recognises the architect, and we congratulate Sergison Bates Architects on it. Details of the shortlist are published by RIBA.