Devon buildings, architecture + architects

Devon Buildings Designs: Architecture News

post updated 18 June 2026

18th June 2026

Ingenious completes low-carbon residential development in Exeter with Construction Carbon

• ISCA Gardens is a newly completed residential development in Exeter

• Scheme completed below Ingenious’ embodied carbon threshold, unlocking carbon-linked funding incentives

Ingenious Real Estate is delighted to announce the successful completion of ISCA Gardens, a residential development for rental in Exeter. The scheme achieved an upfront embodied carbon score below the target embodied carbon limits in the UK Net Zero Carbon building standard (UKNZCBS), and below the threshold set under Ingenious’ Carbon Impact development loan programme. The development delivered this through having no basement floors, low carbon foundations that replaced traditional concrete (Vibro stone), and a lightweight, efficient steel frame and cladding with carbon efficient MEP services.

Launched in January 2025 in partnership with Construction Carbon, the Ingenious Carbon Impact facility offers our borrowers rebates on debt funding costs when projects meet embodied carbon targets. The initiative aims to accelerate the adoption of lower-carbon construction practice across the UK residential sector.

ISCA Gardens, a five-storey apartment building with a Gross Internal Floor Area (GIFA) of 7,168 m², is among the first completed developments to demonstrate the programme’s effectiveness. Construction Carbon completed a Whole Life Carbon Assessment at early design stage and at Practical Completion, assessing the project’s embodied carbon throughout the construction process. The assessment was carried out in accordance with RICS Whole Life Carbon Assessment guidance and industry best practice.

The result highlights how informed material selection, efficient design and robust carbon management can help developers reduce embodied carbon while maintaining a project’s commercial viability. With growing focus on embodied emissions from investors, regulators and occupiers, the project also demonstrates the role financial incentives can play in supporting more sustainable development.

Tom Brown, Managing Director, Real Estate at Ingenious, commented: “ISCA Gardens demonstrates the success of what we set out to achieve when we launched our Carbon Impact development loan programme. By linking funding incentives to measurable carbon outcomes, we wanted to encourage developers to make lower-carbon choices without compromising the viability of their projects.

“The successful completion of ISCA Gardens below its embodied carbon target is a significant milestone, showing how transparent carbon measurement and reporting can deliver meaningful environmental benefits alongside the delivery of much needed new UK housing. We look forward to supporting more developers as they seek to reduce embodied carbon and deliver the next generation of sustainable homes.”

Gilbert Lennox-King, CEO at Construction Carbon, said: “ISCA Gardens is an excellent example of how carbon data can be embedded into the development process from the outset. Giving project teams visibility of embodied carbon throughout construction enables better decision-making and helps drive lower-emission outcomes. This project demonstrates how accurate carbon assessment, combined with financial incentives, can provide a practical route for developers to improve sustainability performance and reduce emissions across the built environment.”

The completion of ISCA Gardens marks an important milestone for Ingenious’ Carbon Impact programme and reinforces the firm’s commitment to supporting sustainable residential development across the UK.

Ingenious Real Estate

Formed in 2013, Ingenious Real Estate focuses on providing senior development and bridging finance to well-designed schemes in locations across the UK that have a proven demand. Typical loan terms are 18-30 months, and the team has since completed more than £1.2 billion worth of transactions. The current portfolio balance is weighted towards residential.

Construction Carbon

Construction Carbon provides tools and services to decarbonise construction by tracking, reporting and verifying whole life carbon emissions, with a mission to enable lower carbon developments to unlock better financing terms.

17 February 2026
Devon Estuary Home, Shaldon, Teignmouth
Architect: MortonScarr Architects

photo : Richard Downer Photography

+++

Major contemporary architectural developments in Plymouth area, southwest England, UK, in 2025:

4 June 2025
Devon Farmhouse
Architect: Woldon

photo : Jason Ingram

26 January 2025
Lynwood Therapy Pool
Design: OEB architects

photo : Nick Dearden – Building Narratives
OEB architects was approached to design a Therapy Pool for a client affected by chronic back pain, which had left them unable to move or rest comfortably, let along walk down the steep steps to the pebble beach for their usual swim in the sea.

+++

Devon Architecture Designs

Devon Architecture News – latest additions to this page, arranged chronologically:

7 February 2022
Royal Terrace Gardens Torquay Lighting, Torquay
Design: Michael Grubb Studio

photo courtesy of article provider
Set amongst the picturesque coastline of Torquay, South Devon, the Royal Terrace Gardens are a popular tourist attraction frequented by locals and visitors alike. Multi-award-winning lighting design practice Michael Grubb Studio was commissioned by Torbay Council to develop ‘Lightplay’ – a new, permanent, lit interactive route along the seafront.

+++

21 June 2019
Multi-disciplinary design team sought for University of Plymouth’s New Engineering & Design Facility, Plymouth

RIBA Competitions launch of a ‘Competitive Dialogue’ process on behalf of the University of Plymouth. The University is seeking to procure multi-disciplinary design services for a New Engineering & Design Facility (NEDF) on its main city centre campus. As well as accommodating the School of Engineering, the NEDF building will provide additional space for the School of Art, Design and Architecture.

Full info at Plymouth Architecture

18 May 2019
Coypool Park Plymouth
Planning and masterplanning: LDA Design

image courtesy of article provider
Homes England has appointed Cognition Land & Water Ltd as contractors for one of the largest demolition contracts this year in the Southwest, which is a major step forward in delivering new homes at Coypool Park in Plymouth.

13 Feb 2019
Liveable Exeter Devon housing
Design: LDA Design

image courtesy of architectural office
Liveable Exeter was prepared by LDA Design and shows how the Council’s plans for 12,000 new homes by 2040 will benefit existing communities.

+++

15 Nov 2018
A Secular Retreat, South Devon
Architect: Peter Zumthor

photograph © Jack Hobhouse/Living Architecture
Devon house by Peter Zumthor
Peter Zumthor is frequently described as the greatest architect at work in the world today, and has been awarded the internationally prestigious Pritzker Prize. He is famous for his baths at Vals in Switzerland, and the Bruder Chapel near Cologne in Germany.

More new Devon Buildings online soon.

+++

Devon Buildings 2011 – 2017

11 Aug 2017
New House in Dartmouth
Design: 6a architects

photo courtesy of Wood Awards
New House in Devon
House in Devon is an early-twentieth century family home with extensive views of the sea.

25 Jun 2017
Seaton Jurassic Devon Attraction, The Underfleet, Seaton
Design: Form Design

photo © Matt Austin
Seaton Jurassic Devon Attraction
The building stands at the heart of the world-renowned Jurassic Coast and was praised by judges of the prestigious Michelmores Property Awards.

24 Apr 2017
Princesshay Exeter Expansion
Design: Chapman Taylor ; Panter Hudspith; Wilkinson Eyre

image courtesy of architects
Princesshay Exeter Building
The development plans will see part of the current bus and coach station site transformed into new restaurants, shops, a cinema and an outdoor amphitheatre.

+++

RIBA Southwest Awards Winners in 2016
Regional Award-winning buildings in Devon, 3 May 2016:

Plymouth School of Creative Arts, Plymouth, Devon:

photograph : Hufton & Crow

RIBA Southwest Awards 2016

+++

3 May 2012
University of Exeter Forum
2008-12
Wilkinson Eyre Architects

photograph © Hufton+Crow
University of Exeter building
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has officially opened the University of Exeter Forum; a spectacular new hub for students designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects. The £48 million project provides a new entrance for the University’s Streatham campus and houses new student facilities and teaching accommodation beneath a soaring timber-framed ETFE and copper roof.

Plymouth College of Art Masterplan
2011-
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios

image from architects
Plymouth College of Art
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios have recently been appointed as Lead Architects for the Masterplanning of Plymouth College of Art future expansion and refurbishment that will lead the way for a 10 year redevelopment of the College.

Devon Architects

+++

Devon Architecture

Key Devon Buildings, alphabetical:

Baggy House – private, north Devon
1995
Hudson Architects
RFAC Building of the Year 1995

Castle Drogo, Drewsteignton, near Exeter
1910-30
Edwin Lutyens architect
National Trust property
Edwin Lutyens architect

High Cross House, Dartington Hall, Totnes
1930s
W. E. Lescaze
1994- renovation by John Winter and Associates
Home of The Dartington Hall Trust Archive and Collection
Modern house – simple white forms
Swiss-American architect : William Lescaze
Designed as home for William B Curry, first headmaster of Dartington Hall School.

Nautilus Apartments, Westward Ho!
2006
Guy Greenfield Architects

Plymouth Civic Centre
1961
HJW Stirling

Plymouth Theatre Royal, Plymouth
2003
Ian Ritchie Architects

photo from architects
Cornish theatre building

Princesshay shopping centre, Exeter, southwest England
2007
Chapman Taylor ; Panter Hudspith; Wilkinson Eyre
Devon building

Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
2008-
Allies and Morrison Architects

picture from architects
Exeter Museum building

Teignmouth Community College – Masterplan
–
Keith Williams Architects

University of Exeter Forum Project
2008-
Wilkinson Eyre Architects
University of Exeter project

University of Plymouth – Roland Levinsky building
2007
BDP + Henning Larsen

photo © HBG UK Ltd
University of Plymouth building : Architecture Competition win

West Buckland School, Barnstaple
2010
Design: MRJ Rundell & Associates Ltd

photo : Rundell Associates
West Buckland School
West Buckland School is one of the premier schools in the Southwest of England with an enrolment of 700 students ranging in age from five to seventeen. The brief was to create the best educational facilities for Art and Design & Technology in the Southwest of England, replacing the poor existing buildings with new high-quality contemporary structures.