HWO inside housing

CHAPTER IN ASSOCIATION WITH HWO ARCHITECTS

A capital crisis of space Nicolas Khalili, managing director, HWO Architects At a dinner party not long ago, I was asked by fellow diners about our practice’s views of London’s housing crisis. The crisis had, I replied, its roots in outdated planning policies. Take the London Plan’s dwelling space standards for example – a family of six would get more space living across two one-bedroom units than in a newly built six-person unit.

Our industry needs to focus on the pressing issue of the capital’s housing crisis. Just like my fellow diners, London’s new mayor Sadiq Khan identifies housing as his “single biggest priority”. But unlike Boris Johnson, when Sadiq means housing, he really means affordable housing. Quite typically of the great national housing debate, when the mayor unveiled plans to demand 50% affordable housing on new developments, house builders responded by urging the mayor to release underused public land. But have the mayor and house builders missed a trick?‎ Part of the issue is not just how many homes we deliver each year but what we build. Far too much of the industry’s annual output is still unaffordable or compact, as opposed to homes in which Londoners can settle in for the long-term. Dwelling space standards are minimums treated as maximums and our industry has lost the appetite to innovate and address the changing needs of Londoners.

Affordability is critical to most one-bed occupants, while twobed households are craving for flexibility. A dearth of spacious units drives families out of London while singletons in private renting spend far too much on undersized spaces.

Therefore, now is the time to shake up London’s dwelling space standards. Here are some thoughtprovoking suggestions for each type (b = bedroom, p = person): A Studios (37 sqm) – this type has become synonymous with lack of flexibility and mortgage availability.

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Verdict: abolish studio flats outside Zone 1 except for flexible co-living.

A 1b2p (50 sqm) – some providers show that it is possible to build more affordable units that are 10% smaller than standards (think Pocket – see right). Should we open the door to more innovations? Could Starter Homes be an opportunity to innovate? Verdict: lower the target area for one-bed units.

A 2b3p (61 sqm) – neither a one-bed nor a two-bed. This diabolical unit type is primarily used to deceive local authorities. Verdict: remove 2b3p from dwelling space standards.

“We need planning incentives for housing stakeholders to innovate and deliver improved unit sizes.”

A 2b4p (70 sqm) – the proportion of sharers is increasing among two bed households who want smaller bedrooms but larger living areas. In addition to a family bathroom, there should at least be one en-suite or a flexi-space which allows working from home or a play space for young children. Verdict: introduce more scope for user flexibility in the standards.

A 3b5p (86 sqm) – although this is the first of the ‘family’ unit types, the area available to children is proportionally less than other unit types. Open-plan living/kitchen/ dining areas are inflexible and undersized considering the number of occupants. Verdict: make 3b5p larger and increase space available to children.

A 4b6p (99 sqm) and over – larger family units should only come over two or more storeys. Verdict: ensure all units are multi-storey with direct access to external space.

Londoners are craving light, space, flexibility and community, so we need planning incentives for housing stakeholders to innovate and deliver improved unit sizes.

London city living

REINVENTING SPACE STANDARDS

We should be delivering housing suitable for the needs of London’s ‘city makers’, says Pocket’s Marc Vlessing

T

o any outside observer, London’s appetite for housing appears virtually insatiable. In the coming years we know the city will need to build at least 50,000 homes annually to meet the projected demand. The new mayor, Sadiq Khan, has made a bold pledge to do everything possible to develop these homes and to ensure they are affordable for people who live and work in the city. His invitation to developers, local authorities and housing associations to come together and work with him to get London building is an important sign of his intent and an acknowledgement that there is no silver bullet to solve London’s housing crisis. We need many different solutions.

However, as the mayor fires the starting gun on boosting London’s housing supply, one particular group that should be at the forefront of his mind are young working singles and couples. Many of them are currently salaried out of social housing, but priced out of the open market. At Pocket we call this group ‘city makers’. They are the ones who make our city tick and keep the economy growing. They are the teachers in our schools, the coders of the latest technology and those who staff our hospitals to ensure that local people have access to decent healthcare.

We have been designing and building these homes for city makers for more than a decade. Our schemes are based in some of London’s most desirable boroughs, including Camden, Hackney and Westminster. Pocket has been able to deliver developments in these areas by targeting smaller brownfield sites that are often ignored by larger developers and building strong and lasting partnerships with local authorities centred on our track record of delivering affordable housing.

Our one-bed flats are only sold to firsttime buyers who have lived or worked in the borough of the development for at least one year. They are priced at a

discount of at least 20% to the market rate and those purchasing a Pocket property have to earn a salary beneath the mayor’s affordable income cap.

In perpetuity All these criteria are kept in place in perpetuity to guarantee that future generations of first-time buyers can get on to the housing ladder. We have a significant loan of £26.4m from the Greater London Authority to deliver part of our pipeline and recently secured a strategic investment from the largest developer of affordable housing in the US, Related Companies, which will enable us to deliver more than 4,000 homes for city makers by 2023.

At Pocket we passionately believe that

civil society should maintain a substantial percentage of its housing for social rent at significant discounts.

In London the figure today stands at approximately 30% for this type of housing, but we also believe that once this level is maintained it is crucial that we start to address the lack of intermediate housing for city makers. Barely 2% of London’s housing stock is intermediate and that clearly is wholly insufficient given the concerns of leading employers and the increasing numbers of young people moving to the city.

This is not to say that the government is resting on its laurels and letting London’s housing crisis fester. It is taking decisive action to boost housing supply for first-time buyers, incentivise them to

begin saving for a home if they are not already, and to make owning a home in London more possible. Communities secretary Greg Clark and housing minister Brandon Lewis deserve credit for shaping policies that will directly benefit city makers including the Help to Buy equity loan (worth 40% of the value of a home in London and 20% across the UK), the Help to Buy ISA and the Starter Homes initiative.

Meeting needs However, while the financing and supply of homes are being retooled to meet the demands of city makers in London; developers, local authorities and housing associations need to bear in mind exactly what it is they need in a home. City

“The advantage of employing modular to regenerate London’s inner city estates is that developments can be built at pace.”

dwellers’ housing needs are different from previous generations. Many of them have lived in shared housing for years and tend not to have masses of possessions – they’re more likely to have a Spotify or Netflix account than a bulky CD or DVD collection. They prefer to collect experiences rather than physical things.

They want their home to be situated near to public transport, local amenities and most importantly entertainment. Consequently, the type of housing that best suits their needs is centrally located, well-designed, compact apartments that are sold or available for rent at an affordable price point.

All of our developments are designed with the needs of the city maker front and centre. Each one contains significant communal space for residents to entertain family and friends or enjoy good weather.

For instance, Marcon Place, our awardwinning development in Hackney, has a large internal courtyard, and Fermoy Road in Westminster has a spacious roof terrace. We know that city makers are more likely to cycle or use public transport than own a car so we provide them with secure cycle storage rather than car parking places.

One option for delivering more homes for this demographic is to rely more on innovative modern methods of construction (MMC), such as modular housing. At Pocket we are doing this for all our estate regeneration projects currently. The advantage of employing modular methods to regenerate London’s inner city estates is that developments can be built at pace and consequently homes can be delivered more quickly for city makers while keeping disruption to local residents to manageable levels. Modular enables us to slot new developments on to disused garages in existing estates and while estimates vary, this type of infilling could see 10,000 more homes built in London over the next 10 years if used more widely.

Pocket’s idea started off as a homes for sale model, and we will always continue to create affordable housing for sale, but it is palpably clear that for some sections of London a rental model is the only truly affordable option for housing city makers. Sadiq Khan’s London Living rent model is one that we are taking very seriously as we believe Rent to Buy solutions are an important way forward for the London housing economy. The key will be to structure this programme in such a way that institutional finance might want to join in funding it. e Marc Vlessing, chief executive, Pocket 1 July 2016 | Construction and development | 31

CHAPTER IN ASSOCIATION WITH HWO ARCHITECTS

Welcome to the space age

REINVENTING SPACE STANDARDS

As London homes are increasingly being built on smaller footprints, designs that make effective use of space are crucial 33-35 Monier Road Legacy living Location: Hackney Wick Planning granted: November 2015 Homes: 45 East London is a key area of regeneration in the capital, and is a big focus for delivering London’s Olympic Legacy. One scheme that is delivering new affordable homes is at Monier Road, Fish Island, a 45-unit scheme in the borough of Tower Hamlets.

The local area has strong industrial roots, so the landowner Aitch Group was keen to work with an architecture business capable of designing a scheme that could make the most of the available land, while at the same time still managing to meet the requirements of the London Legacy Development Corporation.

Aitch Group selected HWO Architects to deliver the design for the project. The two had previously collaborated on a number of speculative schemes, but Monier Road was the first opportunity in which they worked together from inception to completion.

“We normally work with an architect which has good connections with the local authority and then we would work from there, depending on the type of design we thought was going to be right for that location,” says Laurence Quail, planning manager at Aitch Group.

“The decision to work with them was probably a mixture of the site being close to HWO’s offices and also the style of architecture they’re very strong on.”

Many of the 45 homes in the scheme were designed to be family-sized units, which fits in line with Aitch Group’s strategy to “provide for the widest market that you can do”, according to Mr Quail.

With homes in London increasingly being built with smaller footprints, it was an important consideration for HWO to ensure that the housing for families made the most effective use of space that it could.

“I think what HWO did well was to

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focus our attention on the fact that you’ve got to provide these units, so why don’t you do it well, not try and squeeze a three-bed unit into something smaller than it should be,” says Mr Quail.

“In that respect, with HWO we’ve had that kind of management that if you’re going to create family units, then make them work and make them successful from the design stage. So, if that was having to have an extra 20, 30, 40, 50, or 100 foot of space, then so be it.”

Work on the site has started in the past three months and the scheme is due for completion in Q4 2017.

“At this stage we’re very happy with the outcome, we look forward to working with HWO and the contractor to make sure the end product is as successful as it can be and that the outcome of the whole project is positive for all,” concludes Mr Quail.

52-54 White Post Lane Design partnership Location: Hackney Wick Planning granted: January 2016 Homes: 55 The decision to tie-up with HWO Architects on a 55-apartment scheme at White Post Lane in Hackney Wick was taken owing to the work that HWO had already achieved on the Monier Road development, says Laurence Quail, planning manager at Aitch Group.

“We selected HWO because of its work on Monier Road – the firm had already started to build up relationships with the local planning authority, the other design consultants, and it obviously knew the area. We instructed the firm when this site was presented to us as well and we worked with HWO in a similar vein to the Monier site,” he says.

The building’s design takes its cue from the area’s historic warehouses, and features simple elevations of pale brick and tall windows with perforated metal screens. Sitting above a number of commercial units are the 55 one, two and three-bedroom apartments, which meet level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.

Clockwise from above: Monier Road is aimed at family-sized units; Lordship Lane focuses on functional use of space; White Post Lane takes its cue from the local area’s historic warehouses

For Mr Quail, it was important to work with an architect that was able to get Aitch Group’s original vision for design across, which was to draw upon the heavy industry and warehouses that characterised the local area.

“We had to work with the council and HWO to make sure that what we were doing wasn’t just going to be like any other brick building, that it had enough architectural interest to make it stand out,” he comments. “It is directly opposite the route to the train station, so we definitely see it as a major scheme for Hackney Wick.”

The relationship with HWO has been a key factor in the design success of the project, according to Mr Quail. “[The firm is] not an architect that bangs the drum saying it must be done this way,” he says. “[It is] open to listen to other key team member inputs,

particularly the client in terms of making sure we end up with, in effect, the right amount of development that can make it work from our financial point of view.”

180-182 Lordship Lane Considering space Location: Stoke Newington Planning granted: June 2015 Homes: 15 Lordship Lane is a 15-unit development of apartments which has been approved for development in Stoke Newington, Hackney.

When HWO Architects were drafted in to work on the project in 2013, planning consent had already been secured with the local council. Upon reviewing the plans, it was proposed that the internal

layouts should be redesigned to make them more generous in size.

This suggestion was supported by Naseem Hakim, director of NFS Investments, the firm behind the project, who realised that the initial design for the scheme could be improved. It was especially important because Mr Hakim had identified that the apartments would be best targeted at families who would need extra space.

“For me, the end user mattered,” he says. “With the first scheme, we solely satisfied planning requirements and a lot of value had been lost in terms of what the end user wanted from these units.”

In order to make the flats more spacious, the decision was made to change the design so that they were stacked intelligently floor-by-floor.

“What we looked at was how to best distribute the floor space so that each

“What we looked at was how to best distribute the floor space so that each unit was getting a functional amount.”

unit was getting a functional amount of floor space, whereas previously we found that there was a lot of wastage,” says Mr Hakim.

“An end user was actually paying per square foot more than what they needed to. They were getting less floor space and a higher price, so we wanted that distribution to be much more evenly balanced,” he adds.

Mr Hakim says that the project is due to start onsite “within the next two months”, with completion expected approximately a year thereafter. ■ Article written in partnership with:

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