BILL HODGSON BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
Can Community Self-building Contribute to Solving London’s Housing Crisis?
L
ondon is experiencing a serious
investigation has been carried out in my
of demand for properties, and prices
only two-dimensional information such
housing crisis with an excess
rising at around 10% per annum. Yet many inner London housing estates owned by
local authorities contain under-used parcels of land: air-rights above single-storey
garages, left-over corners of undefined public space, or social spaces whose
functions have long since ceased, such as first-floor playgrounds.
This PhD aims to interrogate the
potential for these small, unused sites on
public housing estates to become locations for community self-build housing projects.
The objective is to build such a project and test its viability in practice. To enable this,
new mapping techniques are needed in order to explore sites, find data, and digitally record this information in a coherent, scalable and potentially parametric manner.
My intention is therefore to develop
scaleable processes which can identify
and catalogue unused spaces on council
estates, including the analysis of significant data such as site area, potential height, and property adjacency. Thus far, this
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selected case-study area, Hoxton, using as plans, estate agents web sites, or by
wandering around streets in the hope of
finding something suitable. My proposal is
that by adding height and geometry to the mapping process, new sites can be found
which would otherwise be ignored or missed out. Furthermore, developing an interactive form of 3D-mapping will allow local
residents to discover and influence where new housing insertions might best be
placed. This software will thus contribute
both to the finding of potential sites, while also leading to community involvement, particularly regarding vital factors such as the ‘right to light’ of neighbouring
properties. An additional important feature
of the PhD, is a series of public engagement projects that will assess the willingness of Hoxton residents to participate in
community self-built housing projects.