Vision
Urbane is a development company which creates sustainable, high-quality homes and socially permeable communities, with design quality at the heart in London. Due to the nature of our homes (utilising Modern Methods of Construction), Urbane have an agile business model which operates effectively on challenging London sites from micro (single plot) to macro (300+ units).
Urbane has been built on the collective experience of the Directors (Holly Porter and Duncan Wilson) in land acquisition, partnerships, finance, design and delivery.
Team
Duncan Wilson
Urbane Director
Urbane Director, Duncan Wilson, has extensive knowledge of the UK Residential Development Industry. He has worked in the industry for the last 14 years with two national housebuilders. Prior to founding Urbane, Duncan was Head of Development Consultancy for Aston Rose.
He brings a huge wealth of experience in areas such as site identification and selection, acquisition structure, build cost, financial modelling and affordable housing. Duncan holds strategic relationships with housing associations, local authorities, agents, local and national businesses.
Holly Porter
Urbane Director
Urbane Director, Holly Porter, studied architecture at Cambridge University (BA Hons, MA) and the Royal College of Art (MA). Holly leads the planning, design and delivery of Urbane Projects and has delivered over £100m worth of built projects in the last five years.
Prior to Urbane, Holly founded award-winning MMC practice Surface to Air Architects. She also founded Chicks with Bricks: a network dedicated to celebrating diversity in the property industry (for which she was awarded The Prime Minister’s Points of Light Award 2019).
What we do
Urbane have created a flexible yet standardised set of home designs: detached homes, terraces, townhouses, coliving apartments and traditional residential apartments. All homes are designed to surpass national policy and building regulations. The designs have a high quality baseline specification: which can be applicable to social, private or rental markets (based on London plan targets).
Unlocking London
Due to the pre-designed nature of Urbane homes (utilising Level 3 BIM), speed of erection, quality and cost certainty is guaranteed. This, combined with the flexible yet standardised layouts made up of relatively small components, means that Urbane have an agile business model which can operate effectively on the full range of challenging London sites from the micro (single plot sites) to macro sites (300+ development).
Partnerships
Lasting relationships will continue to be one of the defining factors of Urbane and a key ingredient in its success. That is why we have employed a best in class team with shared values of social permeability: from designers to manufacturers, to deliver it with us. Our homes are designed and manufactured in the UK.
Commitment
Urbane are committed to building. Using our close relationships with the local authorities within the London boroughs we are working transparently to ensure we meet local and national planning policy so that we can maximise the number of homes we build.
Diversity
Urbane are passionate about diversity and inclusion. As such, Urbane Director Holly Porter founded Chicks with Bricks in 2005, a proactive network created to enable and promote female talent in the Property and Construction industry. She was awarded a Points of Light Award by the prime minister in 2019 for her outstanding contribution to diversity. Chicks with Bricks operates as a not-for-profit network. Profits raised go towards The Prince’s Trust Women in the Built Environment Programme.
