Will these designs help solve London’s housing crisis?
There’s no denying that one of the things London needs most are more homes – because the city is not just running out of affordable housing, it also has a space problem.
Together with the Mayor of London, New London Architecture, an independent, member-supported aiming to ‘ bring people together to shape a better city’, held an international ideas competition to find solutions for this problem.
On Tuesday, they announced the 100 shortlisted ideas – some more practical, while others follow a more radical approach; here is a selection of the highlights.
Building over overground railways could free up a lot of land.
Living Arteries by Benjamin Marks
More than 1,500 hectares, or 1%, of London land are taken up by overground rail services – that may sound not all that much, but building over this land would free a substantial amount of space for homes.
Building over just a quarter of this available land, with 140 homes per hectare, could provide more than 53,000 new homes.
Akira Yamanaka proposes filling the existing space between terraced or semi-detached houses with new homes.
G A P H O U S I N G by Akira Yamanaka
End-of-terrace and semi-detached homes often have comparatively small spaces between them; but still enough to build micro homes, which is what Yamanaka’s design focuses on.
After investigating a 100-meter stretch of a South London street, the architect determined that five houses could be built between roughly thirty existing houses – even if built at half of this rate, this would add more than 100,000 new households to the capital.
Like houseboats or permanently moored barges, the floating homes make use of London’s waterways.
Buoyant Starts by Floating Homes Ltd with Baca Architects
Space may be scarce on land, but London’s rivers – most prominently the Thames – offer plenty of what the group call underdeveloped and unused space.
Their floating – but stationary – homes are designed as affordable starter homes and the group thinks it would be possible to deliver 7,500 new homes to Central London – over the course of six months to a year.
In other countries, custom-built homes are quite common – bringing them to the UK could solve parts of London’s problems.
Custom Build by igloo HomeMade™ Homes
The designers behind this want to allow Londoners to build their dream homes – without all the difficulties that come with it, which is why they came up with Custom Build.
They design the home before it is then custom-built for the new tenants – at much lower rates than, for example, in other parts of Europe, although custom-building homes is much more common there.
Lidos, cinemas, schools: the homes of dRMM Archiects’ ‘waterhood’ would enclose everything you need in day-to-day life.
Floatopolis by dRMM Architects
dRMM also recognized the opportunities London’s waterways hold: they’re thinking of developing completely new – and floating – neighborhoods, encouraging public access to the water which has so often been paved over.
The new facilities can enclose everything, including lidos, open-air cinemas, creative workspaces and even schools, while tackling the problem of accessible and affordable land.
A first set of Y:CUBEs has already been built in South West London, giving young people the chance to start living on their own.
Y:CUBE by Rogers Stirks Harbour
Developed in cooperation with the YMCA London South West as an innovative and economical housing solution, the one-bed studios provide affordable starter accommodation for young people living in hostels or short-stay housing schemes.
The cubes arrive on-site as self-contained units and can be stacked and easily connected to existing mains and others Y:CUBEs.
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Stefanie Gerdes
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