Three awards for Portland's Olympic village (From Dorset Echo)

Three awards for Portland's Olympic village

11:30am Sunday 24th June 2012 in News By Laura Kitching

Kim Slowe and team receive the awards

THE Olympic Sailing Village on Portland stole the show at a leading UK design award ceremony and scooped an historic three accolades.

The site’s Dorchester-based developer ZeroC dominated this year’s UK Housing Design Awards (HDA), winning:

• Supreme Award for best overall scheme.

• Best Affordable Housing Award.

• Interior Design Award.

The Officers Field development, which has been temporarily handed over to the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG), will provide accommodation for international athletes during the London 2012 sailing events.

A total of 84 residential units will host 700 athletes and 550 officials during the Olympic Games.

Around half that number will use the accommodation during the Para-lympic Games.

In September, the apartments will be converted into homes – with kitchens replacing additional athlete bedrooms – and 19 of the houses transferred to Magna Housing Association, the remaining 59 are available for purchase. ZeroC managing director Kim Slowe said: “We went to the British Museum for the Housing Design Awards.

“It’s the leading UK design awards and we won three awards, for the first time in the award’s history.

“They stated that for the first time in living memory all 14 judges were unanimous in their decision.”

He joked it was ‘embarrassing’ to return so regularly to the stage and added: “We were the most unpopular people in the room.”

The HDA awards, which are in their 64th year, are a partnership between government and key industry bodies.

Ten other projects also picked up awards.

In April this year, the ZeroC’s Officers Field development at Portland won the prestigious Housing Project of the Year award at the Building Awards.

The Building Awards are considered to be the Oscars of the construction industry and they celebrate the very best in UK construction The trophy was presented to Mr Slowe, in front of an audience of 2,000 construction professionals at a glittering award ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

Mr Slowe added: “This is our third award in as many months – Officers Field wins triple gold.”

All the residential units are low carbon with the heating and hot water for 58 of the homes coming from a biomass heating system and many of the houses are fitted with rainwater harvesting.

The selling of the private homes is already underway and details of the homes that are still available can be found on the Officers Field website www.officersfield.com.

Visit hdawards.org to find out more about the awards.

Contact the Officers Field Sales Office on 01305 824777 or the marketing agent Goadsby on 01305 831831.