Chetwood unveils reworked River Hull scheme

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Chetwood Architects has revealed its reworked proposals for a large residential and hotel development on the east bank of the River Hull

Chetwood Architects has revealed its reworked proposals for a large residential and hotel development on the east bank of the River Hull.

Dubbed the Boom, the £100 million project was turned down by Hull City Council last month after councillors said the designs 'lacked flair'.

The latest proposals are the practice's third attempt at drawing up a scheme acceptable to the local authority.

Intended to sit next to McDowell + Benedetti's high-profile comma-shaped bridge, the Chetwood project is itself a replacement for an earlier, failed scheme proposed by Benoy.

Describing the thinking behind the revised designs, Simon Baker, head of Chetwood's Leeds office, said: 'The overriding comments from the planning committee concerned the look and feel of the proposals; the proposals didn't celebrate the location and consequently a sense of place 'identity' was lacking.

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'In addressing these comments directly we have reviewed our original proposals, [though] we have retained a large number of the urban design principles which established the scheme and have tuned the design.'

Baker added: 'We still have four buildings which respond directly to their context, but [these] four fingers have been splayed more to open the spaces between them to the river.'

Other changes include removing the landscape deck between the two central blocks and introducing coloured concrete with a mix of natural granites.

A future timescale is not yet known.