The planning picture moved underneath the design too: after objections, the scheme was reworked mid-stream to carry more hotel accommodation, and in 2007 the whole team paused while the client reset the brief.
The full story
The retaining ran from first principles to the last detail. With the structural engineer we tested reinforced-concrete walls against reinforced-soil systems and re-graded the levels to lift the blocks out of the ground and reduce the retained heights. Rather than assume the worst, we commissioned exploratory ground works to establish the ground's own retaining ability before committing, so the solution was evidenced rather than over-engineered. It was worst where the cottage-wing gable met the car park, where the cut into the cliff was deepest.
The spoil was a problem in its own right. Excavating into a cliff generates enormous volumes, and the only routes out were narrow Devon lanes already a source of local concern, formalised in the construction traffic-management plan. The answer was a second application: an agricultural access road and landscape bunds at Rickham Farm, built from the site's own spoil, keeping construction traffic off the public highway, protecting the historic Devon banks, and creating new habitat and stock enclosure. Consent was secured on 8 December 2008, ref 20/1944/08/F.
The scheme's own planning applications were led by a separate practice, with successive submissions to South Hams District Council as the design was reworked. Rickett Architects' job was to keep a complex, multi-block scheme buildable through all of it: chairing the design meetings, resolving the cross-disciplinary detail, and carrying the technical design on site, novated to the contractor, until about 2009.
