The Boring Revolution | AA Diploma 13

The Boring Revolution

AA Diploma 13

Joost Beunderman, Raven Xiangxue Chen, Carlotta Conte, Karim Fouad, Henry Jiao, Oskar Johanson, Indy Johar, Hyunjun Kim, Sixuan Li, Jack Minchella, Anushri Patel, Calvin Po, Sadia Rahman, Serwan Saleme, Pranav

Vakharia,

Kai

Hang

Yau.

The Boring Revolution

AA Diploma 13

The Boring Revolution An Introduction Open Seminar Series

A Humane Revolution An Introduction Instinctual Feedback of Self & City Sadia Rahman

Re-Imagining Rent Pranav Vakharia

A Modest Tyranny Anushri Patel

Urban Family Co-Op Raven Xiangxue Chen

An Institutions Revolution An Introduction Bound by Water Oskar Johanson

Rental Rebellion Sixuan Li

High Street Spectacular Hyunjun Kim

The People's Vault Serwan Saleme

A Governance Revolution An Introduction Peer-to-Peer Planning Calvin Po

New Data Parishes for London Henry Jiao

Freetown Notting Hill Karim Fouad

London B.Y. Trust Kai Hang Yau

Afterword

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The Boring Revolution An Introduction Diploma 13 is embedded in London, a London that we recognise as being at the coal face of massive change, staring into a 21st Century Great Restructuring. This restructuring will be of a speed and scale perhaps unwitnessed by any major global economy in modern history. Yet our public discourse seems either stuck on ‘tweaking’ our future into existence (blaming housing shortages, forcing energy price caps, or reducing economic development to ‘enterprise zones’) or it has become captured by economic nationalism and the deliberate undermining of our democratic norms.

Meanwhile our cities are prolonging 19th century models of development, management and decisionmaking. Too many 21st century city makers (by which we mean any urban development stakeholders) tend to ignore or deny the complexity of the ‘systemocracy’ we live in — a hyper-normalised world of

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massive interdependencies, overlapping truths, and interlocked existential risks.

We believe, as architects, we need to extend our mission.

We recognise design can play a key role in expanding our single point solutions, which, through isolating risks, have only exacerbated the challenges of our incredibly complex, interconnected and dense cities. Academic architectural discourses and practices have been inevitably complicit in the (re)production of a profession out of sync with the emergencies we see around us everyday. Instead it should be unlocking this tragic mismatch between our capabilities and the tasks at hand, through a new type of polymathic shift within and across our siloed disciplines. We must therefore equip architects, alongside other future spatial practitioners, with the tools that will enable them to

broaden their understanding of emergent complexities, while sharpening their agency, and engaging in the debates with the full spectrum of institutions and stakeholders that make and re-make the built environment.

Welcome to The Boring Revolution.

Firstly, this means engaging deeply with the ‘dark matter’ that lies underneath the physical fabric and invisible dynamics of our cities.

In order to test the next generation of ideas and tools for innovating beyond the physical, we need institutions, governance and humane revolutions.

Secondly, this aims to thoroughly question the educational protocols and invisible power structures that form our institutional, governance and human development practices in the first place. The Boring Revolution requires a radical and fundamental debate (across and

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beyond disciplines) on the ideologies we nourish, the worldviews we support, the metrics we adopt, the networks we create and the strategies we deploy.

The ‘site’ of design.

This year we have attempted to redefine the ‘site’ of architecture. No longer delineated by the red line of property ownership, it is deeply intermeshed with a ‘full stack’ of rules and regulations, flows of finance and material, landscapes of sensors and sensemaking algorithms, as well as cultural hopes, dreams and fears. Each project aims to question, unpack and renew these flows to create interwoven, systemaware approaches. This is by no means an anti-design argument — in fact, quite the reverse . It could be argued that design innovation is the highest order of innovation, as the challenge of design is the ability to comprehend

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and synthesise an emergent value higher than the discrete technological, social, economic and organisation inputs, whilst placing the citizen at the centre .

The discovery process(es).

Get out of the School! Students have been encouraged and have occasionally learned to test ideas and propositions through realworld engagements. Yet most feedback is still achieved within the walls of academia, via informal conversations and short, sharp presentations. These can unintentionally turn into moments of being ‘talked at’ and in return ‘talking at’ audiences — a performative act rather than a reciprocal learning process. While a certain degree of pride and ownership in one’s work is undeniably fundamental to fostering the right amount

of motivation and interest in ‘getting the hard work done’, are there alternatives to this feedback structure?

If students’ focus becomes ever more affected by the rising anxiety of the goal to be achieved, which over the year becomes ever more unachievable and ever harder to test, share and learn from, does this not start to defeat the purpose of the learning journey? In our experience this is exacerbated by the focus on the robustness of the argument rather than the genuine testing of a hypothesis, and the still widespread belief that architects must demonstrate their power through individual agency.

We need to shift our hyperindividualistic performative culture. We need — as architects — to admit our constraints, while transcending feedback by the ‘usual suspects’.

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Assessing success.

We live in a world where ‘anything goes’, where experts are being rejected and unreferenced ‘personal truths’ are cherished. While multiple and contrasting ideologies were able to run free under a post-modernist banner, frequently unconstrained by moralistic judgment, we must now have the confidence to honestly debate and reassess how we define success — unapologetically arguing from different viewpoints about what is a relevant investigation and what is a desirable future.

The Boring Revolution questions standalone, single-dimensional or short-term metrics of success. It asks (future) practitioners to account for individual or machine bias, to hyper-contextualise interventions through data, and to be transparent about assumed beliefs — exposing and exploring today’s complexities rather then simplifying or streamlining them.

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This compilation of essays aims to share our starting points for Diploma 13 while also critically reflecting on the explorations and strategies of our students — openly sharing the assets produced and lessons learnt.

Across the year we endlessly digested and visualised primary data, academic research and popular beliefs, in order to formulate unique queries, propose new narratives, tactics and strategies aimed at enabling London’s massive restructuring. A mixture of research and representational techniques were borrowed from other fields and reworked. From the obsessive capturing of everyday moments of the Quantified Self to the vast pools of information distilled by investigative journalism; from the video production of fashion ads to the sensing technologies of proptech or the renewed platform

aesthetics of government digital agencies. The goal was to explore tools, tactics and ways of thinking about space and agency that could put us on the path towards an economy and society appropriate for a finite and connected world, one where societal and environmental impacts are fundamentally and systemically what we design. This book shows the result of this investigation, and it shows the huge diversity of our students’ curiosity, their remarkable learning trajectories, and journeys of discovery.

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open seminar series

Recent cultural and socio-economical shifts such as Brexit, Trump, wider institutional distrust and structural discontent are questioning our existing models, practices, instruments, institutions.

And perhaps most urgently, they are questioning the social contract we supposedly operated under – equality, justice, and freedom. Increasingly, these fundamentals are being visibly undermined; growing inequality (be it gender pay or concentration of wealth); growing visible injustices (from British MPs expenses scandal, to the 2008 financial crisis); to widespread economic precariousness (where work is no longer a route out of poverty).

In this context, the upheaval of our political norms is a symptom of a much more systemic transition in our economy.

The aim is to surface near

future trends and societal shifts, and understand the structural implications for the 21st century city. These open sessions drew on leading practitioners to provide insight into how we juggle the current paradigm of complexity, the headwind of cultural change, and the rapidly accelerating technological revolution.

We need to reimagine our learning & development infrastructure to support innovation for and by all, remake our means of investing in inclusive and open automation, and prepare a transitional welfare state so we do not leave whole communities of people behind. Redesigning our process, practices and institutions of governance & regulation, and (perhaps most critically) reimagine the city for a post-managerial, post-bureaucratic world.

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HILARY COTTAM WICKED PROBLEMS — FROM TREATMENT TO PREVENTION

This session reframed some of the greatest systematic issues of today’s institutional infrastructure and their implications on our 21st century urban living. Cottam shared strategic as well as practical tools to begin reimagining multi-point and preventative interventions to solve entrenched urban challenges such as inequality and unaffordability.

Joost Beunderman from Dark Matter Labs chaired a conversation with Hilary Cottam, an internationally acclaimed social entrepreneur, who will present her work and recently published book Radical Help: How We Can Remake the Relationships Between Us & Revolutionise the Welfare State. Hilary is continuing to work with communities and government organisations in the UK and Europe, supporting others to grow and extend an approach to social change which puts capability, relationships and deep human connection at its heart.

PRESTON J. BYRNE, DOMA & EHAB TRUSTLESSNESS — DON’T DITCH DECENTRALISATION

Do traditional accountability and financing mechanisms have the capacity to manage the emerging tensions between industry and society in a digital age? As opposed to control and riskmanagement of existing models of contracting, this seminar explored how reimagined models of contracting, facilitated by new technologies, could enable a greater degree of flexibility and agency in supporting new types of urban development models and enable a more distributed, affordable & sustainable 21st century city.

Preston J. Byrne chaired a conversation with Maksym Rokmaniko from Doma, a blockchainbased, distributed ownership platform for equitable housing, and Josh Graham from Ehab, a blockchain based platform for developing sustainable homes, resilient neighbourhoods and liveable smart cities.

Preston is a well-known blockchain entrepreneur and English solicitor. After

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founding and operating London-based Monax Industries in 2014 (a pioneering "smart contract" company and the first company in the world to make a “permissioned” blockchain design), in 2017 Preston moved to America to complete a LL.M. degree in U.S. law. Preston currently runs a small technology consulting practice, Tomram LLC, that advises clients including law firms, the public sector and startups how to engage with emerging technologies, in particular blockchains and distributed systems.

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BRETT SCOTT

ALASTAIR PARVIN

VALUE PARADIGM: (RE) DEBATING WHO CREATES VALUE? WHY THAT VALUE? WHO’S VALUE?

DIGITISING DEVELOPMENT — RETHINKING THE ECONOMICS OF LAND AND HOUSING IN THE 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Our financing system, and the economic principles and value system it rests on, is influencing the cities we build, the decisions we make and the way we live.

This session interrogated those principles (their language, models and non-necessary history), questioning the harmful ways in which we noncritically employ the term — what value? why that value? who’s value? Brett Scott provided examples of interventions and innovation and critically analysed the practical, economic and philosophical issues that these changes bring. Scott outlined the impact of macro financial trends on worldwide citizens’ resilience — from decentralised production to entrenched inequalities.

Britain is one of the richest countries in the world, yet it is systematically failing to house its population. Beyond Shortage presented a discussion on how new technology is revolutionising the design and construction industry, by unlocking a new mass force for house building — the citizen sector.

Parvin discussed how technology is enabling us to design new mechanisms to democratise the housing sector, and how it changes our current economic paradigm of how and why we use our land. The talk was hosted by Alastair Parvin, a designer and entrepreneur and co-founder of Open Systems Lab, a non-profit enterprise developing digital technologies to transform housing, construction and planning in the 21st century.

He is co-inventor of the WikiHouse building system, and a leading advisor in design economics and digital innovation in the construction industry. His written work includes ‘A Right to Build’ (RIBA Award for research 2011) and white paper on ‘Scaling the Citizen Sector’ (2016).

Alastair currently sits on the Scottish Government Task force for Digital Planning.

Brett is a campaigner, former broker, and the author of The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money.

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DAN HILL

MARCO STEINBERG

TROJAN HORSES & DARK MATTER — HOW DO WE SHIFT THE CULTURES OF DECISION MAKING?

THIRD HORIZON OF GOVERNANCE

We live in an age of wicked problems; from climate change or the undermining of the welfare state, to the rise of a monopoly economy and increased polarisation — we need to radically shift how problems are solved. Dan Hill, head of Arup Digital Studio and a globally recognised leader in design, urbanism, technology, provided a thought provoking look into how design can be repurposed for this era of complexity. Hill’s seminar explored in particular how strategic design can put new working methods and new technology to work on creating new business models, regulatory and policy innovations necessarily to unlocking 21st century economy.

Dan Hill is also Associate Director at Arup, previously led Future Cities Catapult, was cofounder of Helsinki’s design lab Sitra, and pioneered projects such as the BBC iPlayer. He has taught worldwide and has published extensively, including Dark Matter & Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary (Strelka Press, 2012).

Governments the world over are in the midst of a constitutional crisis. From the role of technology in undermining liberal democracy, to our institutional failure in confronting the scale of our shared challenge; climate destruction, growing inequality, or ageing populations, the horizon of crisis is vast. Marco introduced how design and design thinking has now become a vital tool to deal with the uncertainty and complexity of our age.

Originally trained as an architect, Marco has helped to pioneer a new role for design in creating public value, and is one of the world’s leading strategic design thinkers and advises governments across the globe on how they can transform themselves to meet 21st century challenges. Previously Marco was the Strategic Design Director at Sitra, founder of the Helsinki Design Lab (HDL), and established the Design Exchange Programme — an initiative embedding designers within public sector organisations.

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ETIENNE TURPIN & KONSTANTINA KOULOURI WHAT IS ANASTROPHIC DESIGN?

According to Sadie Plant and Nick Land, catastrophe is the past coming undone, while anastrophe is the future coming together. User Group’s Co-founder and Research Coordinator, Dr. Etienne Turpin, and User Group’s Ocean Archive Project Architect, Konstantina Koulouri, presented some recent software design and development projects for crowd-sourcing disaster information (PetaBencana. id), coordinating humanitarian response (MSF REACH), promoting ocean literacy and environmental advocacy (TBA21 OceanArchive), and anticipating coastal climate migration (Harvard University’s Landscapes of Retreat).

In the context of these applied design research and software development projects, Etienne and Konstantina argued for an anastrophic methodology that renegotiates the parametrization of urban lives and livelihoods through software for the city yet to come.

04 12 ARACELI CAMARGO AND PROF. HUGO SPIERS CONSCIOUS CITIES — CAN NEUROSCIENCE INFORM THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT?

The Urban Systems & Environments Research Group is a workerowned cooperative run by a committed group of scientists, designers, geographers, engineers, and IT architects. They deliver a range of professional services regarding complex geospatial data collection and their utilization, as well as the design and development of bespoke digital platforms and related data visualization tools.

User Group works with a wide variety of organizations and research partners across various operational scales to develop thoughtful software, IT infrastructure, and related digital strategies.

We are facing a humane crisis in cities, underpinned by the adverse effects of urban living, buildings and cities on our health, wellbeing and productivity — triggered by toxins, environmental stressors, climate and social conditions. This seminar discussed how neuroscience research is improving our understanding of how we experience and are affected by the physical and social world around us — and how this could inform and innovate current urban development models. Together with Araceli Camargo and Prof.

Hugo Spiers, the session investigated the impact of new technologies on how we interact and work in cities, forcing us to redefine how we develop new capabilities & skills for 21st century living. Araceli Camargo, is a cognitive neuroscientist, co-founder of the The Centric Lab, specialising in neuroscience for the built environment and founder of the coworking space THECUBE (London) and INPUT LOFTS (New York). Prof.

Hugo Spiers is a Reader in

Neuroscience at University College London, Head of the UCL Spatial Cognition Laboratory and Director of Science at The Centric Lab. Hugo has over 20 years experience of conducting neuroscience research on how the brain represents space and published over 60 peer-reviewed research articles.

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A Humane Revolution

A Humane Revolution An Introduction A humane revolution.

New scientific insights are helping us to understand what it means to be human in the urban landscape.

Far from the individual, rational beings, germane to our understanding of the industrial age, increasing evidence shows humans as relational beings, culturally embedded ‘dividuals’, an indivisible assemblage and multitude of identities, biology and mind. We need to move away from in the words of Cecily Maller “binary distinctions between natural and urban environments which fail to account for the layered and interdependent ecologies

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that support both human and non-human wellbeing”1. We now know that healthy cities cannot but be sites of cohabitation for animals, plants, fungi, microbes, atoms and many other living and non-living beings, technologies and materials. By investigating how our environment affects us, over the year students explored alternative models of flourishing in urban environments that transcend individual, rational understanding of being human(e) in the 21st century. From new ‘affordable’ models of mixed-use development which incorporate intangible

values of human capital into architecture’s metric of success, to new models for biodiversity-rich environments which uses devices that augment the feedback loops between the invisible impacts of our environment on our health; from an uncomfortable representation of a new philanthropic London, which aims to highlight our economy’s powerasymmetries; to reimagining London’s social housing by proposing a new model that dignifies and recognises domestic labour’s social value.

Cecily Maller, “ Healthy cities are more-than-human”, Foreground, October 25, 2018 https://www.foreground.com.au/environment/healthy-cities-human/

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INSTINCTUAL FEEDBACK OF SELF & CITY reconnecting with our interoceptive instincts SADIA RAHMAN

The mobile phone was first introduced in 1983.

From then on, its underlying technology has allowed humans to augment their senses, via its feedback mechanisms. We now respond to the addictive qualities of this technology and have managed to embed it into our modern daily lives. We react to notifications through sight and sound, and self-validate through the number of likes or views per post. The self strives to self-optimise via a collection of metrics, which produce the Quantified Self. But ultimately, this is an exercise in futility.

Augmentation via the device, which exploits our

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behaviours of consumption, has allowed for a shift in our phenomenology. However, this is not for the better as it does not consider a holistic approach to our use of senses. We deserve more than to enter into a state of passiveness. The city is ultimately built for us.

It is now time to refocus our attention on our more internal, embedded senses.

The self has enormous capabilities for feedback, from the process of homeostasis in which our biological functions selfregulate and self-balance, to the feedback mechanisms where our bodily sensations could be conveying for

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our emotional states. For example, consider the skin’s memory for stress, or the substantial ecosystem within our gut (the microbiome) that conveys our state of reasoning.

By highlighting these internal senses—which we call interoception—we can realise how we have neglected them, both in our self-awareness, and as an influence on our cityscape.

human self, and how these systems and behaviours are projected onto our daily lives and our cities. By redressing this balance, where the self is once again reconnected to the physicality of the human body, holistic interoception can in turn shape our cities in ways that are more in tune with our own selves.

This revolution brings to attention the intangible, dense, and complex systems that define what it means to be an actual

SOCIAL CONSEQUENT

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Biii. The Humidity: In order to sustain the tropical plants, the rain water collected from the new roof are translated into mist. This maintains the growth of the newly appointed flora

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RE-IMAGINING RENT re-imagining the value of intangibles PRANAV VAKHARIA England’s housing crisis has arguably come as the result of the much larger socio-economical debate that has been at the heart of British politics for the better part of a century.

As a possible solution to this problem, former Prime Minister Theresa May pledged £2bn of the nation’s budget to developing “high quality” social housing, and scrapped the borrowing cap for the same.

However, this money, intended to be released over the next decade, has been granted to housing associations (HAs) all over the UK. Therefore, at a time when it seems like the UK needs more high quality council housing, the funding is going the way of “affordable/social housing”.

Social housing is largely owned by private providers such as HAs, who qualify as Registered Social Landlords and charge a rent that is

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slightly below market rents.

But these systems only function by injecting social housing into the property market, leading to their financialisation, and doing little to alleviate the crisis. cThis reflects the governing logic of today’s built environment—form follows finance—finance being, in this case, the ‘function’ of our contemporary society.

Collective or shared housing is one of the more recent forms of housing that are now being pushed into the market by the developers. With rents being unprecedentedly high, and the availability of space itself being at an all-time low, collective housing has become a popular way of maximising space and minimising rent. The irony is that the contemporary fixation on these collective models of housing is just a way of cloaking a marketdriven scarcity, perpetuated

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by a model of housing captured by finance.

Matthew Stewart’s article, The Collective Is Not A New Way Of Living – It’s An Old One, Commodified, poignantly sums up this concern. Seen in this historical context, the “The Collective Old Oak” development and other co-living developments mark a worrying shift, where not only does neoliberal urbanism hasten the erosion of the last remnants of the welfare state—in the form of council housing sell offs and redevelopments— but further hijacks and monetises the very ideas traditionally deployed to resist. Let’s be clear—The

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Collective LLP aren’t aligned with a wider movement of social reformers. They’re aligned with investors who want a return on capital.

The contract, which is drawn from property rights themselves, must be rethought, and along with them, property rights.

Only after we reimagine the contract not as something that is solid, but something far more nuanced, something that responds to different criteria at different times, will there be room to manoeuvre.

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A MODEST TYRANNY 'humanitarian' city: a new philanthropic future for London

ANUSHRI PATEL

In the best tradition of Jonathan Swift and John Gray, A Modest Tyranny is about a new philanthropic future for London, which highlights some of the spatial and psychological behaviors inherent within the philanthropic urbanism of the real world. Philanthropic urbanism has shaped many cities, albeit with a very particular worldview of what is desirable for the wealthy and the poor. In London, a significant part of the historic housing stock was built by private philanthropists for the poor. As of now, London has 3830 ultra-high net worth individuals and 2.3 million people in poverty.

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If one ultra-high net worth individual supported 600 people, could poverty be eradicated from London?

The site of speculation is Kensington and Chelsea, a totemically affluent area whose GDP is 580% the EU average, and is home to some of London’s most luxurious homes.

For ultra-high net worth individuals, the epitome of living consists of the highest possible standard of factors such as ‘Longevity’, ‘Leisure’, ‘Infrastructure’ and ‘Security’. For ultra-high net worth individuals, these luxuries are a basic need in order to live the best possible life. On the other

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hand, philanthropy can also be motivated by reasons of self-interest, such as leaving a legacy, the ‘feelgood factor’, freedom, or even moralism. Could each ultra-high net worth individual, because of these reasons of self-interest, take over vacant plots in Kensington and Chelsea to construct housing for 600 people in poverty, and also themselves? In the self-serving spirit of this kind of philanthropy,

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these speculative blocks simultaneously house spaces serving philanthropic purposes, and spaces of luxury for the ultra-high net worth individuals themselves.

Hence, a bizarre version of a future philanthropic urbanism is created, where the architectural coexistence of London’s rich and poor embody the city’s extreme inequalities.

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URBAN FAMILY CO-OP reforming the boundary between domestic labour & productive work RAVEN XIANGXUE CHEN

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Over the past four decades, the UK’s labour market has witnessed a steady increase in the employment of women.

However, the gap between the rates of employment of men and women is still considerable, indicating that the activity of a substantial number of women remain economically unrecognised.

time spent on domestic labour nevertheless needs compensation.

For example, the average commute time for women drops sharply after the birth of their first child, indicating an accompanying shift in job preference. In a smaller proportion of cases, the individual may choose to quit the job market entirely.

According to a report by the Office of National Statistics, this situation is caused by an unequal allocation of housework between men and women: in general, women still carry the heavier burden of household care and responsibility. While underrecognised by current economic metrics, the

This direct link between domestic labour and employment status is influenced by history, namely the separation between home and workplace during the Industrial Revolution. Even today, the majority of the housing units on the market are still designed for a single nuclear family, as a

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succedent of these historic shifts modes of domesticity and labour. When domestic labour stays within the boundary of the household and productive work takes place outside it, this spatial separation entrenches isolation of the provider of domestic labour from the external environment.

The separation of certain domestic tasks within the private household, such as cooking in the kitchen and washing in the laundry room, entrenches this isolation further.

The current biased and undervalued status of domestic labour and its provider can no longer be justified. Domestic labour’s economic and emotional aspects are intrinsically linked with one another, extrinsically impact the

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wider economy, and cannot be taken for granted.

The project proposes an alternative reorganisation, to be applied to a council estate in an isolated urban context as a test site.

Currently, a clear spatial boundary exists between private households and the workplace, where domestic labour and productive work are taking place respectively.

The proposed strategy includes two layers of intervention that challenge the status of domestic labour: Step One is to rerecognise the labour that is currently isolated within the private household. By opening up these tasks and collectivising them

at a neighbourhood level, the risk of social isolation is eliminated, and new community bonds can be formed among the participants.

Step Two is to redraw the boundary between productive work and domestic labour by bringing workplaces to the residential neighbourhood.

This spatial infrastructure can either be used by the local community or leased out as a collective asset, where the rental profit will be reinvested for the maintenance and further expansion of this spatial infrastructure: the urban family co-op.

The objectives of Step One and Step Two will be manifested in a common space, where they will

coexist, and be visually and psychologically connected.

As domestic labour is no longer contained within the private household, home finally becomes a nonhierarchical space and a retreat for every family member.

By redrawing the boundary between domestic labour and productive work, interventions transform spaces previously used exclusively for accommodation into an integrated cluster of diversified uses. The once hidden efforts of domestic labour are revealed and finally re-recognised, kindling a collective bond between isolated family units in the neighbourhood in the process.

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An Institutions Revolution

An Institutions Revolution An Introduction An institutions revolution. Our local authorities have not always existed in their current form. The same is true for public limited companies, yet we often take their role, responsibilities and restrictions for granted. Their power and agency has varied massively even if only in the past few decades.

Reenvisioning how we could spark, develop and structure institutions and alliances for the public good beyond traditional and inherently power-asymmetrical bodies, is paramount to renewing a distributed and just urban development system.

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Financial innovations, landscapes of sensors and sense-making algorithms could (yes, could) bring forward new disruptive civic movements, but only if we work with intent. Over the past year, students both challenged existing institutional infrastructures and developed new ones. From a new understanding of the territory (based on the flow of water, a bond mechanism, and the enfranchisement of citizens with flood data) to unlock design decisions that cumulatively begin to address diluvial justice; to

a renewed appreciation for civil disobedience, where the power of spatial (and legal) tactics empower people to disrupt the current unsustainable rental market and force a re-negotiation of the terms of dwelling.

From rethinking makingbased participatory social prescriptions to combat an alarming trend of urban social isolation; to reimagining the financial incentives structure of last mile logistics institutions for a new vision of London’s high streets as spaces or ‘microSpectacles’ and meditation.

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BOUND BY WATER an institution for diluvial justice OSKAR JOHANSON

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We have failed to take the action needed to reduce the catastrophic effects of climate change. How then will we adapt to this changed Earth system, even as we fight to redouble our efforts to stop its destabilisation further?

have a single point of failure, or the planning system and various forms of flood guidance, which, while well-intentioned, encourage the atomisation of flood risk management, pushing responsibility onto those often most vulnerable.

Of the many risks posed by climate change, flooding is among the most significant. Yet the institutions with which we have historically mitigated or adapted our cities to flood risk have reached the limit of their usefulness.

We rely either on major infrastructural interventions, which are expensive, carbon-intensive, and often

In light of this failure, Bound by Water proposes that responsibility for flood adaptation is more justly shouldered by a community, and that the impact of design decisions taken by those living upstream of flood are properly costed.

The scheme imagines a bond mechanism, by which a state-backed

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insurer issues bonds to those living upstream in order to subsidise measures to make their properties better at holding onto water. To this scaffold can be bootstrapped any number of qualifiers, promoting measures that in addition to reducing flood risk produce carbon sinks, increase biodiversity, and reduce exposure to water scarcity and heat waves.

It proposes the enfranchisement of citizens with flood data and other publicly available datasets that they might both understand their causal relationship to those downstream as well as what architectural interventions they can undertake to modulate it. This data would be communicated via a website, which, with the necessary inputs, would then make suggestions for design interventions based on the user’s elevation, neighbours’ inputs, demography, and other parameters. Such design decisions would range from the minimal, such as a rain garden, to the neighbourhood-sized, such as cooperatively managed sacrificial flood commons, to the systemic, such as the total removal of bins and vehicles from the streetscape. Collectively, these become part of an emergent, comprehensive flood adaptation strategy.

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Comprehensive public realm filtration bed and rain garden scheme

A

Perimeter rain garden

Sacrificial common

WATERSHED SUB-DIVISION

A

DOMESTIC

Flood defence

Flood door

Flood barrier, demountable

Non-return valve

VIABILITY AT SCALE (BOROUGH-WIDE)

Attenuation

Green/blue roof Sedum matting

Water butt

Rain garden

Greywater system

Extra capacity pipes DOMESTIC

Flood defence

Maintenance UPHILL

DOWNHILL Flood door

Council sheep

DOMESTIC

Flood barrier, demountable

TO DEFEND (DOWNHILL)

Non-return valve

VIABILITY AT SCALE (BOROUGH-WIDE)

Rotational Attenuation maintenance

TYPICAL SUB-DIVISION OF THE THAMES WATERSHED AT THE NEIGHBOURHOOD SCALE

COMMUNITY Green/blue roof Sedum matting

Water butt

Rain garden

Greywater system

Flood defence

Flood defence

Extra capacity pipes

Flood door

Flood barrier, demountable

Non-return valve

Flood wall

Embankment

Flood barrier,

demountable Maintenance

TO DEFEND (DOWNHILL)

Attenuation

Attenuation

Council sheep

Rotational maintenance

VIABILITY AT SCALE (BOROUGH-WIDE)

TO ATTENUATE (UPHILL)

COMMUNITY

VIABILITY AT SCALE (ONLY DOMESTIC)

Flood defence

Green/blue roof Sedum matting

Water butt

Rain garden

Greywater system

Infiltration bed Detention basin

Flood wall

Embankment

Flood barrier, demountable

Attenuation

Streetscape regime change

Extra capacity pipes

Infiltration bed Detention basin

VIABILITY AT SCALE (ONLY DOMESTIC)

Maintenance

TO DEFEND (DOWNHILL) Council sheep

Rotational maintenance

Streetscape regime change

TO ATTENUATE (UPHILL)

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COMMUNITY

FLOOD MEASURES SORTED BY EFFICACY AT LOCATION AND VIABILITY AT SCALE

Flood defence

Flood wall

Embankment

Flood barrier, demountable

FLOOD MEA

+37.00

+27.00

+17.00

Flood zone 3 Flood zone 2 Mean high water spring: +7.00 Mean high water neap: +5.90

Ordnance datum Newlyn: +3.35 Mean low water neap: +1.50 Mean low water spring: +0.50 Chart datum: +0.00

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THE RIVER

FLOOD WALL and SHEEP

CARPARK DETENTION

ELEVATION: varies

ELEVATION: +0.00 (metres above chart datum)

ELEVATION: +8.00 (metres above chart datum)

OWNERSHIP: PUBLIC

OWNERSHIP: PUBLIC

OWNERSHIP: PUBLIC or PRIVATE

As it is.

A scheme that looks to expand the intertidal habitat—a space is critical to the absorption of flood energy as well as biodiversity—currently being lost to sea level rise. A flood wall is set much further back in existing public land that abuts the river, where possible; the land is planted with a mix of reeds and turf, the latter tended to by municipal sheep (similar to Environment Agency land holdings further down the river).

A carpark that in the event of extreme precipitation can function as flood storage, releasing water afterwards. This would be an active system, requiring sumps, increasing expense. It would also require warning of flooding ahead of time, in order to remove vehicles and other at-risk possessions from the lower storeys.

GYM/FLOOD DETENTION

SACRIFICIAL COMMON CO-OP

PERIMETER RAIN GARDEN

ELEVATION: +20.00 (metres above chart datum)

ELEVATION: +27.00 (metres above chart datum)

ELEVATION: +40.00 (metres above chart datum)

OWNERSHIP: PUBLIC

OWNERSHIP: PRIVATE

OWNERSHIP: PRIVATE

A gym countersunk into the earth in a depression can function as an emergency flood detention basin, which in an extreme rainfall event can store flood waters, releasing them slowly afterwards. The released water can be filtered, to collect pollutants picked up during the flood, before return to the rest of the hydrosphere.

A number of privately owned properties can work together to produce a sacrificial common, whereby many backyards are put together to form a single flood attenuation scheme. This requires co-operation between various households, and may be frustrated by non-cooperators.

A rain garden installed along the perimeter of large expanse of turfed land attenuate water that falls on it, releasing it slowly and passively. Being at the top of the hill, the volume of water is smallest, with no input outside of precipitation; it is cheaper than the kind of active system with pumps that might be necessary further downhill.

Most of the time, the structure serves as a community amenity, with a sports hall on the lower ground floor and a green roof and garden above.

The scheme also has the benefit of producing a much larger common area, comparable to a park, and allows for a larger carbon sink and greater biodiversity than atomised lots.

SOLUTIONS FOR MAXIMUM WATER ATTENUATION NEIGHBOURHOOD SECTIONAL ISOMETRIC

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RENTAL REBELLION A city-scale movement hacking London’s broken rental market SIXUAN LI

Is your rent too damn high? You are not alone: as of 2016, there are 2,311,700 people stuck in this situation. And it’s not the individuals who are to blame for not earning enough. It collective issue that lies at the core of our housing system. It’s now time for a real change!

Rental Rebellion is creating a systematic cityscale movement. It unites all those who are suffering from the current housing system and demands change. Rental Rebellion hacks London’s rental and property market to

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transform the existing housing system for a better, more equitable future.

The key principle is to dramatically reduce the number of people in the rental market for a certain period of time, in order to forcibly suspend the current system and force all stakeholders in the system to rethink the current situation.

We, Renters, as those bearing the brunt of this failing system, are the only people who have an incentive to fight. We also are the ones with the power

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to reshape the system as we are potential mortgage buyers who contribute to the inflating house price bubble and drive this vicious cycle.

Our demands are: 1. Negotiation between government, banks and developers, to transform the current housing system.

2. Achieve affordable rents and housing prices with a better system.

Rental Rebellion will provide spatial tactics to opt out from the current system and live in the city decently. For example, you could transform a skip into a habitable space, make a billboard into a room, adding a living space to your car, and more. All these spatial tactics will be accompanied by a legal guide, assembly guide, utility guide, workshops and consultants.

This temporary alternative system will sustain us until our demands have been met and the Rental Rebellion triumphs.

3. A Renters’ Assembly for redefining fair Rental Contracts.

Step.02 Get Materials

RENT REBELLION

BUY MATERIALS & TOOLS ①

ASSEMBLE MANUAL FOR SKIP

② ③ ④ ⑤ ⑥ ⑦ ⑧ ⑨ ⑩

⑪ ⑫ ⑬

6 x SLOTTED ANGLE 39mm x 39mm x 1.8m (£9 per item) 4 x SQUARE STEEL TUBING BLACK 25mm x 25mm x 3m (£11 per item) 8 x OSB BOARDS 11mm x 1220mm x 2440mm (£20 per item) 2 x THERMAL INSULATION ROLL 100-200mm x 1200mm x 2750mm (£35 per item) 2 x INSULATION BOARD 2400 x 1200 x 100mm (£65 per item) 2 x THERMAL INSULATION FOIL ROLL 600mm x 8m (£14.5 per item) 14 x TIMBER BRACKETS (£1 per item) 1 x PACK OF SCREWS (£10) FOAM COMPACT COT MATTRES SINGLE (£20) 28 m2 PU COATED RIPSTOP NYLONS (£3.5 per m2) WATERPROOF TARPAULIN 3m x 5m (£20) 3 x CLEAR ACRYLIC PLASTIC SAFETY SHEET 3mm x 400mm x 400mm (£6 per item) HANDLEBAR (£5) METAL CHAIN FOR DOOR CONTROL (£5)

TOOLS: ① ELECTRIC SAW (£40) ② ELECTRIC SCREWDRIVER (£30)

②

①

④

③

⑤ GSEducationalVersion

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③

Fix the OSB board on top of the insulation board

B Electric System

① Fix Invertor

C Install Security Box

④

Fix the bed mattress

② Place Battery

⑤ Install the Door Handle

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HIGH STREET SPECTACULAR a radical logistics transformation HYUNJUN KIM Two competing forces are currently shaping our city. One is the decline of offline, brick-and-mortar shops mainly located in high streets. Another is the rise of online retailers such as Amazon. High streets have become a crippled institution where their primary purpose, retail, is being eroded. Meanwhile, sociability, cultural exchange, and experience economies centred around high streets are threatened because of this shift in logistical forces. Increasing demand for faster deliveries is increasing demand for non-communicative urban mega-warehouses, with robotised humans working in poor conditions. For the consumer, they are increasingly absorbed by screens and detached from the experience of products.

Physical human interaction is disappearing because of our next-day delivery culture.

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These emerging trends beg the question: if we want to rebuild our high street infrastructure with a humancentric vision, and oppose a fully globalised supply chain to our retail experience, what are the potential costs?

The idea of the project is a compromise: reinvent the high street through reinventing its logistics, at the price of accepting new technology.

The proposal attempts to create an alternative retail logistics model by dissecting the movement of goods as commodities and experiences. The proposal is divided into three parts: 1. Pure Commodity: Most of the daily consumed products just need fast delivery. Three urban friendly devices (automated

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mobile vending theatre, unmanned drone depository tower, Amazon super-Prime house) are designed with increasing efficiency in mind.

2. Spectacle Commodity: Sophisticated international products need spectacles to accompany their product launches.

By using the already deployed mobile vending theatre network, the device can create flagship retail moments and experiences.

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3. 3. Local Craft Commodity: With digital fabrication, some of the products could be locally produced.

Craft shops are introduced to rebuild sociability of high streets.

The Pure Commodity devices are deployed on roads and government collect taxes from logistics companies; these funds are used to subsidise the creation of crafts shops and semi-indoor garden spaces as ways of revitalising high streets.

The excess of 21stcentury consumption is redistributed on the road

network with a transformed efficiency. As a result, high streets are freed up and become spaces of delight and of the Spectacle.

Spatial interventions of mobile Spectacles and daily ‘micro-Spectacles’ keep up pace with our high-speed consumption.

Elsewhere, tranquility can be restored, with microgardens enlivening the new Spectacular high street.

The project attempts to explore what price we have to pay for a romanticised retail marketplace to remain viable in a 21st-century society. By accepting the technology of an automated logistics platform, we may see a new paradigm shift in our high streets.

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THE PEOPLE'S VAULT combating social isolation with participatory social prescriptions SERWAN SALEME

Since 2011, there has been a sharp increase of mental health issues and social isolation. Among the factors contributing to this uptick is the experience of living in cities; another is digital life.

The way we design our cities can either encourage or impede social interaction. Think about those awkward silence moments in a lift full of people (most of the time our neighbours). Now think of a playground, where those very same people chat away while their children play! Sounds familiar? While the built environment is never entirely responsible for these interactions, it is

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obvious that it can either encourage or limit them.

Loneliness can manifest in many forms, from a constant experience to the only circumstantially experienced, but each form is founded on the same principal of a bounded and controlled space of exclusion. Despite a preconception that loneliness affects mostly older people, it concerns all ages. Indeed, some of the highest rates of isolation are found among younger people. Currently, one in five visits to the GP are made because of isolation, low mood and anxiety. This is an alarming number.

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When we feel isolated, we desire connection.

Yet our need for a more connected society collides head on with neoliberal ideology, in which there an increasing drive for efficiency and profit maximisation in both the private and public sector atomises us. This tendency is compounded, on the one hand, by the fact that digital tools, which are (ostensibly) cheaper and faster than their face-to-face analogues, have resulted in more and more aspects of our lives becoming digitalised by default. On the other, it is compounded by the built fabric of our cities, which are riven by the structures of division (by way of example, consider the mania for fences in London).

Activities that involve making and teamwork has been proven to improve mental well-being, lifting mood and boosting selfesteem. Many existing organisations focus on traditional craft and making, tasks with which older generations in particular are familiar. But there are also more innovative places, such as Fab Labs, which are pitched to professionals. These are places that introduce cutting edge technologies such as robotics and digital fabrication toolsets to an unfamiliar audience, who

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nonetheless can learn to make use of them.

All of this begs the question: can we use architecture as part of social prescription? What if old, young, and professionals could come together, in a lab, and work together to design and create selfsupporting structures?

Instead of visiting one’s GP when one felt lonely, what if one visited a design lab, one of many established throughout the city? With a self-referral, patients could meet with a deign lab coordinator, who would spend time getting to know them, and help them connect with people and set-up teams. This team, bolstered with inhouse architects, engineers and fabricators, could set about designing temporary pavilions on designated locations.

Patients could work in a team during weekends, or for a week, a month or longer, on a project whose outcome would be to the benefit the local community.

We could imagine, for example, a scheme for a farmers market, in which several teams work together, producing adaptable, light-weight, selfsupporting structures (such as catenary arches). Teams would work on one at a

time, the design language changing every month. Or, in a step up in complexity, we could imagine teams working on music pavilions for summer festivals. Other programs could include workshops, exhibitions, exercising, meditating and entertainment like concerts or public events.

We need the collaborative commissioning of services, underpinned by a collective strategic promotion of wellbeing order reduce future healthcare costs. Social prescription, the ambition of this project, might just allow for the forging of stronger connections in the community, where traditional health models have been limited.

We have traditionally thought about creating social good through architecture and design either through the stipulation of program, or through the design of space itself. But with new design tools, a new way of thinking about organisation, and the smart deployment of existing design methodologies, we might have a shot at addressing head-on social isolation, and with it, the possibly of a new social vocation for architecture.

Characteristics & circumstances that are associated with isolation

Compared with all other age groups except the 25 to 34 years group, those aged 16 to 24 years were significantly more likely to report feeling lonely “often/always”. Those aged 16 to 24 years were also significantly more likely to report feeling lonely “some of the time” compared with all other groups except for the 25 to 34 years and 75 years and over age groups. They were also least likely of all age groups to report “never” experiencing loneliness.

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Those who were widowed were significantly more likely to report feeling lonely “some of the time” and least likely to report “never” experiencing loneliness compared with other marital groups.

Those who reported their general health to be “very bad” or “bad” were significantly more likely to report feeling lonely “often/always” and significantly less likely to say they “hardly ever” felt lonely compared with all other groups.

By contrast, people who were married or in a civil partnership were significantly less likely to report experiencing loneliness “often/always”, “some of the time” or “occasionally”. Consistent with this, those married or in a civil partnership were found to be significantly more likely to report feeling lonely “hardly ever” and “never”.

People who said their general health was “very good” or “good” were significantly less likely to report feeling lonely “often/always” or “some of the time” and significantly more likely to report “hardly ever” or “never” feeling lonely compared with all other groups

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A Governance Revolution

An Governance Revolution An Introduction A governance revolution. If we want to address our complex and increasingly interconnected social, psychological, cultural and political tensions, we must reframe how we take decisions and solve complex issues collectively in incredibly dense cities. We must review the traditional role of the state as a regulator and third party mediator between one community and another. Instead, we must test the potential of technology as machineto-machine or human-tohuman mediator. This is a transition that enables architects to (just about) catch the runaway train of a data-driven future, towards an architecture which can justify through metrics its

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impact and thereby realign itself to a new generation of outcomes and impactbased financing (what would London’s big regeneration sites look like if long term preventative health outcomes rather than commercial real estate returns were at the core of their decision-making?).

But also, or therefore, this requires an architecture which needs a twenty-first century professionalism and a new social contract in order to deeply understand the ethical implications and ambiguities of such a move, and thus legitimately support a democratic ‘everyday’, rather than seek to reify a Randian technocratic heroism.

Students across the year have experimented on

these grounds. From a decentralised system of development rights which challenges the post-war nationalisation of land development rights in the UK; to a new peopleled London vernacular development model that empowers human social processes and participatory led futures. From the reimagination of London’s parishes as local citizendriven decision-making nodes bringing the power of digital information to the lowest tier of governance; to a new approach for densifying London’s suburbia based on a new model for collective ownership which separates the financial and use value of land.

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PEER-TO-PEER PLANNING a radical market for development rights CALVIN PO

The planning system is the gatekeeper of all change in the urbanism of England. Since the modern planning system was introduced by the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, the right to develop land was centralised, and no longer intrinsic to land ownership, but granted by the state alone. With this centralisation, local, regional and national levels of government need to understand and plan for the needs and demands for all land and its use in the country, and implement this via planning policy and regulation. However, the exacerbation of the housing crisis and the ballooning

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burden of bureaucracy in the planning system begin to show that this top-down approach is no longer able to meet what is demanded of it.

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Planning revives the ancient English common law principle where property ownership confers the right to its 'free use and enjoyment', as long as it does not interfere with the 'free use and enjoyment' of others, a principle enforced by peer-to-peer mechanisms such as nuisance law, easements and covenants. Based on the work of economist Ronald Coase (the so-called

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— Polling Day —

— Annual Neighbourhood Assembly —

Over the years, Peter and Jennifer elect local councillors, London Assembly Members, and Members of Parliament, to represent their interests and set priorities at local, regional and national level.

It is time for their annual neighbourhood assembly to discuss the priorities for the neighbourhood. It is chaired by a planning officer who guides the process.

— Remote Deliberation — Peter and Jennifer are unable to attend in person and participate via the app on their tablet, where they can discuss issues with the assembly and register their planning priorities.

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— From planning policy to a marketplace of prices — Their architect runs the BIM model of their final design through the P2P system, which tests the design for its planning impact. The platform outputs an anticipated monthly compensation amount and also suggestions for optimising the planning impact of the proposed design.

Coase Theorem), where bilateral bargaining and negotiation arrives at most Pareto-efficient allocation of property rights and land use, P2P Planning combines this with nuisance law to form ‘digital development rights’ to replace planning permission. This uses bilateral smart contracts, pieces of blockchain software that self-enforce contract terms using BIM and sensory data as inputs, and monetarily compensate neighbours automatically for planning issues such as overshadowing, privacy,

change of use, etc, at prices pre-declared by their neighbours, shaped by governmental incentives.

This bilateral negotiation also occurs with nonhuman entities, such as highways, trees, the atmosphere, as a way of completing the circle of accountability of each individual's decision to develop their land. The granting of planning consent becomes instantaneous when all requisite rights are acquired, transforming planning into a responsive, time-based

system, and creating a self-regulating townscape through a free market of development rights that puts individual agency at the centre. This project explores the implementation of P2P Planning in suburban London as a test case, and speculates on the possibilities of bottom-up suburban intensification through liberalising microdevelopment of individual households. Conversely, the project also highlights the possible perverse incentives that could arise from such a system.

— An Evolving Neighbourhood — Their neighbourhood continues to evolve as their neighbours develop their land according to the prices, incentives, and priorities of their local area, all the while paying and receiving compensation from each other. The exchange of capital becomes the medium by which the urbanism of the neighbourhood self-regulates.

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NEW DATA PARISHES FOR LONDON a new village democracy HENRY JIAO

New Data Parishes for London presents a European alternative to the administration of computational analytics in community operations.

Opposed to the private and state exploitation of individuals’ data, this project aims to democratise IT by bringing the power of digital information to the lowest tier of governance.

NDP rethinks the struggling borough structure of London and establishes local nodes across the capital for citizen-driven decision-making.

This new network pools city-wide statistics, analysed to provide both real-time and predictive pictures of London. Parishes contribute

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to and extract from the LDN data lake, achieving economies of scale at a London level, while creating micro-outlets for innovation.

The NDP take the form of data storage servers symbolically encased in cloud-like structures ‘floating’ above a large public realm. Screens and temporary spaces can be lifted and deployed to spur discussion between public, private, and state entities, collectively developing data-backed applications within a constituency.

These applications would replace the actions of the siloed departments in London’s existing councils, addressing complex networks of issues and services.

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FREETOWN NOTTING HILL a critique on the regeneration processes of North Kensington KARIM FOUAD

Studies have shown that over the last century, London’s council housing schemes have had a direct impact and correlation to the health and wellbeing of its inhabitants. Even more so today, it has contributed to the perception of social and aesthetical decay in areas such as North Kensington, where there are high rates of social and income inequality, as well as a significant deterioration of health, education and employment. Councils have conventionally aimed to tackle such issues in recent years through large scale housing regeneration solutions, working in tandem with private developers. Such

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schemes have received extensive criticism regarding consequences of building failure, spatial segregation, and lack of agency.

The project aims to underline the necessity of residents’ participation in the consultation process of regeneration schemes, and the possibility of regeneration without necessarily requiring full council intervention.

Historical examples have been present in North Kensington, with the likes of the Independent Republic of Frestonia (residents of Freston Road, 1970s), and also the poor planning and management of Notting Hill in the 1960s that led to its

Step 3: Start Running on Renewable Energy and Shared Spaces with Your

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decay and subsequently the establishing of housing trusts. Notably, this history of housing trusts was led by the community and its lawmakers, and run by participatory councils and voluntary entities, laying a foundation for new interdemocracies.

Based on such examples from the 20th century, it is evident that London’s housing cycles have slowly deteriorated and its housing schemes today are beginning to show signs of history repeating itself.

The project inserts itself at a crucial juncture when this vernacular of housing we see today begins to fail, and provides an insight into a new urban renewal that urges and shifts the trend towards community-led

responses. It speculates on how residents are able to communicate common social and architectural problems for their wellbeing, be it unemployment, health, the need for more shared spaces or implementing agriculture in urban context the generate healthier consumption and income for residents.

This speculation manifests into a gradual, emerging urban vernacular overlaying the existing, but one symbolising a thriving communal future and a D.I.Y empowerment to solving urban problems.

This new regeneration becomes based on human social processes rather than square feet and contrived notions of imageability and global affordability.

House conditions: One house was able to (barely) sustain 18-20 people, roughly 4-5 families.

One room allocated to each family.

1-2 Lavatories for the whole dwelling.

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Notting Hill Housing Trust volunteer van, 1970s

+ OVERSEAS OWNERSHIP IN LONDON

Frestonia was the name adopted by the residents of Freston Road, London, when they attempted to secede from the United Kingdom in 1977 to form the Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia. The residents were squatters, many of whom eventually set up a housing co-op in negotiation with Notting Hill Housing Trust, and included artists, musicians, writers, actors and activists.Actor David Rappaport was the Foreign Minister, while playwright Heathcote Williams served as Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Application to the United Nations for membership as an independent state

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LONDON B.Y. TRUST a collective approach towards densifying London's suburbia KAI HANG YAU London is in a ‘housing crisis’. But there is no undersupply of houses—only the under-supply of affordable homes and an over-supply of cheap mortgage credits.

The current model of supply looks for expensive, large pieces of land for large-scale development after gaining planning permission. This model of supply is extremely highrisk, and therefore all but guarantees speculative developers as the only party with enough capital to bear the risk. Private developers have no intention of creating more supply to lower market house price, nor the intention of providing affordable housing, which cuts down profits. On the other hand, existing houses and garden land in London are locked up and used as purely financial investments, but not homes.

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The London Backyard Trust (LBYT) unlocks private garden land in the suburbs for community-led housing supply through the tokenisation of existing houses, divorcing the financial right from the use-right of properties. The original property owners retain the financial right to their properties in digital token form, while the LBYT has the use-right of the physical houses and land for redevelopment and densification.

In essence, the project transforms what was privately-owned land into collective use-assets, creating new affordable and sustainable housing supply in the suburbs in the process.

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Communal Space (Shared kitch

Open Air common spaces on buildings

Community tree planning programme

New built with up-to-date energy efficiency standard & renewable energy generation

Green roof recovering vegatation lost by building footprint

Households chosing not to opt in London B.Y. Trust

Optional Private Garden for original property owner

Communal infrastructure for bike storing

Raised garden for additional dwellign and communal space below

Daytime pop-up sto

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Mixed generation living

e & Facility hen)

Large scale garden facilities of the community’s choice

land rental for ore/food market

Communal Space & Facility (Greenhouse)

Front garden offset for new street tree lining

Rentable multi-functional green land for community use

New parking facilities funded by planning obligations

Unlocked garden with open access

Community-led design with a degree of customisation Rental EV car with shared ride system

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The Boring Revolution Afterword There is no such thing as a single conclusion after a year of diverse and divergent learning journeys.

But there can and should be a reflection on the trajectory itself.

First and foremost, as Diploma tutors, we were humbled by our students’ ability to transcend their individual worldview, to question their own assumptions along the way, and most of all, their eagerness during this sometimes unpredictable collective journey of discovery.

Secondly, we have hugely enjoyed and appreciated the input of many peers both outside the school and within. The discourse with other unit

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masters in panels and towards the end of the year has been stimulating, and we have been struck by the generosity and shared desire for the exchanging of ideas and pedagogical approaches.

Thirdly, it has been an immense honour to be part of this academic year at the AA — its openness of spirit is unique, as is its appetite for experimentation as well as its constant desire for (and achievement of) institutional agility and renewal.

And lastly, there’s the broader field of architectural education.

Here, our reflections are more qualified. When all is said and done, the fact remains that the world is

at a tipping point, and the scales are not stacked in favour of positive outcomes.

In this context, there is an urgency to the speed and scope of transformation of our built environment: to prevent worse outcomes, to adapt to uncertainty, and to provide hopeful perspectives of life in the future.

The question of how architectural education will respond to this urgency is at the forefront of our mind.

Gilbert & George once asked, “Are you angry or are you boring?” In architecture, we feel the question is: are we going to rebel or are we going to become extinct?

The revolution(s) now upon us will need to be boring, not just televised.

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Diploma Unit 13 2018/2019 was: Chen Xiangxue Raven, Fouad Karim, Jiao Henry, Patel Anushri, Po Calvin, Vakharia Pranav, Johanson Oskar, Kim Hyunjun, Li Sixuan, Rahman Sadia, Saleme Serwan, Yau Kai Hang.

It was supported by: Unit Master / Programme Head: Indy Johar & Joost Beunderman Supervisors / Assistant Tutors: Carlotta Conte & Jack Minchella Collaborators: Alistair Parvin, Charles Bessard, Clayton Prest, Cleo Valentine, Dan Hill, Deane Alan Simpson, Eunji Kang, Fan Sissoko, Jamiee Williams, Kevin Curran, Maksym Rokmaniko, Mykola Holovko, Rory Cahill Special Thanks: Albane Duvillier, Araceli Camargo, Brett Scott, Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, Elena Pascolo, Etienne Turpin, Eyal Amsili Giovanetti, Francesco Anselmo, Hilary Cottam, Inigo Minns, Josh Graham, Julie Hutchinson, Konstantilenia Kolouri, Lili Carr, Manijeh Verghese, Marco Steinberg, Maria Brewster, Nick Durrant, Platon Issaias, Preston Byrne, Prof. Hugo Spiers, Rory James Sherlock, Shin Egashira, Stefan Einar Laxness

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