From Floating Houses To Stackable Cubes, Here Are 12 Designs To Solve London's Housing Crisis

A soaring population and a lack of affordable housing has led to an overwhelming number of people needing accommodation in London. Latest figures show that 80% of all new housing built in London is only affordable for 20% of the population.A new exhibition organised by think-tank, New London Architecture, will exhibit creative solutions for London’s housing shortage.From floating houses on the Thames, to "cube" designs stacked on top of one another, ideas range from the wonderful to the bizarre, offering an insight into the true extent of London’s housing crisis and how it can be solved.The NLA competition, set up in association with the Mayor of London, saw submissions from designers, architects, planners, developers, housing associations and decision-makers across the world.

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  Floatopolis
  
  dRMM Architects propose new floating neighbourhoods in London called Waterhoods. Instead of “paving over” open water as was done with London’s lost rivers, they will create new floating facilities such as lidos, open-air cinemas, creative workspace, cafés, schools and housing. Waterhoods tackle the problem of access to and affordability of developable land, but also a future in which flooding and rising sea levels will change the cityscape.
  
• 
  Buoyant Starts
  
  This proposal, submitted by Floating Homes Ltd with Baca Architects, would create 7,500 new fixed-placed floating homes on London’s canal and river network, which the designers believe could be completed in just six to 12 months.
  
• 
  Gap Housing
  
  Akira Yamanaka Architects' submission aims to create micro-housing in the gaps between terraced and semi-detached homes. Urban typologies of terraced and semi-detached houses can be densified by utilising the gaps between houses. A 100-metre stretch of a street in Southeast London was chosen to investigate the potential. Five small houses could be added to the area of about thirty terraced/semi-detached houses. If we could add a half of this rate to London’s residential streets of these typologies, this would supply more than 100,000 new households, where no potential was previously assumed. This approach would unleash crowd-based and bottom-up initiatives.
  
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  Community Led Intensification by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBS)
  
  FCBS propose community-led development as a solution for helping deliver homes while creating a positive local impact. Community members would identify development opportunities in London via an app, helping establish ‘micro-development zones’ for housing delivery
  
• 
  Intimate Infrastructures
  
  In response to the drastic urban changes occurring in East London, Natasha Reid Design proposes an alternative to more dominant forms of volume house-building and provides solutions for both private renters in the form of purpose-built shared homes, as well as considering the needs of local communities vulnerable to displacement. By drawing upon the existing collision of domestic spaces and industrial structures found in Poplar, the study explores a toolkit approach to bringing together humanly-scaled typological components within a large scale “infrastructure” framework for delivering higher densities of homes on available land. This generates an intimate, complex and vibrant urban realm of dense, overlapping spaces, uses and people.
  
• 
  Living Arteries
  
  London’s rail transportation system is split between The London Underground, which shares land with other uses above it, and the railways, which generally do not. Benjamin Marks believes it would be possible to substantially increase the amount of land available for homes if we were to build over our overground rail network. 1% of Greater London’s land area is taken up by railways, comprising about 1,522 hectares. By building over just a quarter of this - at 140 homes per hectare - it would be possible to deliver more than 53,000 homes on land currently not considered available for use.
  
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  Terrace Upcycle
  
  This scheme by Adams + Collingwood Architects involves renovating the terraced house with altered planning legislation and government-assisted funding. This could provide one new dwelling per typical terraced house by adding a single storey, with roof terrace, and a full height extension to the back. This would be a cost-effective solution to the current housing crisis whilst retaining and reviving a valued London housing typology.
  
• 
  Ministry of Densification of Suburbia (MODS)
  
  Hal Architects seeks to address the potential for London’s suburban edges to provide well designed housing to meet growing demand. Homeowners would partner with a development company to build on existing and underutilised land in each of London’s outer boroughs.
  
• 
  The Streets
  
  A city such as London’s built area includes more than 9,000 miles of streets - over a third of the built surface area is given over to streets which is typical of most global cities. Emerging research is demonstrating that our street network must change to facilitate autonomous vehicles and future proof infrastructure. NBBJ believe this represents a fantastic untapped resource for development and future housing provision, one which can meet our housing needs for the next 40 years.
  
• 
  Y:Cube
  
  Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners are working with the YMCA London South West to develop an economical and innovative housing solution, providing self-contained and affordable starter accommodation for young people who have previously been living in hostels and other short stay housing schemes. The Y:Cube units are 26m2 one-bed studios, for single occupancy, that arrive on site as self-contained units. Each unit is constructed in the factory with all the services already incorporated. Therefore, water, heating and electricity can be easily connected to existing facilities or other Y:Cubes already on site.
  
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  [nest]
  
  Stride Treglown Limited's [nest] would quickly, affordably, and efficiently erect off-site manufactured, high quality modular housing above hundreds of existing retail surface carparks with ten year licences, providing 30% of the 6,500 annual homes. Local people would qualify for tenancies via loyalty cards by spending money in local shops. Meanwhile the most appropriate long term development solution would be found.
  
• 
  Custom Build Igloo
  
  Custom Build is normal throughout the developed world and new-build rates are much higher than in the UK, by HomeMadeTM Homes
  

Claire Bennie, architect and housing development specialist, and former development director at Peabody, said: “Scanning the literature about London from the mid-nineteenth century onwards reveals that a housing crisis, whether of supply or affordability, has dogged London since its first industry-inspired expansion.
“The causes and attempted remedies have been different over the 150 intervening years, but the ‘holy grail’ that London’s housing supply should meet its demand in both numbers and quality (including affordability) seems to have eluded all generations including our own.”

Peter Murray, chairman of NLA, added: “If necessity is the mother of invention, right now London should be experiencing a highly creative period as far as housing is concerned. But we aren’t producing enough housing of the right kind in the right places.”Richard Blakeway, deputy mayor for housing, land and property, added: “We need to build many more new homes in London.“For decades, the number of homes built has not kept pace with population growth. For many Londoners, housing availability is their greatest concern and addressing the shortage is now one of the biggest challenges facing our city.”New Ideas for Housing will run alongside an extensive set of talks, debates, site visits and seminars. A major public debate will also be hosted by the NLA in November.


http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09/14/housing-crisis-london-designs_n_8136370.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

Thanks for including all those photos, those are interesting ideas! Especially the floating neighborhood.

Hmmmm so we ARE overcrowded then?
Nice to know that this article contradicts the idea that we have "plenty of room"

eddie wrote:Hmmmm so we ARE overcrowded then?
Nice to know that this article contradicts the idea that we have "plenty of room"

Its London, which is not the whole of the UK Eddie lol

Its always good to look at new ideas within inner London where there is limited space

Don't know if I could live on a floating house though!
I'd probably get sea sick

eddie wrote:Don't know if I could live on a floating house though!
I'd probably get sea sick

I recently learned that there are a lot of people who live the vast majority of their lives on boats, and don't like to disembark because they become "land sick"

thats it pack em in closer....

and closer and closer



then when H5N1 or one of its nastier cousins gets loose perhaps those that love cities and the overcrowding will be happy to see it turned into a charnel house.....

Thousands of people on boats, where does all the sewerage go?

It's ridiculous really. It's just sardines in a tin.
And people say we are not overcrowded?
London first, then this will start happening everywhere.

mind you....yes...quick cram em in.....

20,000 places......for all those "refugees"....LONDON can have em.......and good luck to em....

Here's a novel idea... why not just put a stop to The mass immigration that is causing the problems!!!???

thats too simple Tommy......

http://raredelights.com/amazing-interlace-housing-complex-singapore/housing-complex-in-singapore-swimming-pool/



Or you could do it better (Singapore the above example), I would also suggest building in another city and trying to create some jobs outside of London.. Don't worry same complaint about Sydney

Or we could just put a stop the the huge numbers coming here and foreigners could just build up their own countries a bit better...

I knew the right-whingers would turn this into something about "foreigners" -- don't y'all ever get sick of that topic? Repetition ad nauseum

Those buildings in Singapore look like they're ready to fall down!!

Immigration of foreigners is the cause of housing crisis... stop the numbers and you stop the problem...

Ben_Reilly wrote:I knew the right-whingers would turn this into something about "foreigners" -- don't y'all ever get sick of that topic? Repetition ad nauseum

I wonder if it is only us foreigners that are getting sick and tired of the Brits whinging about having to get off their ass and contribute for ONCE

I do contribute veya....


out of the taxes I pay Mr Camergoon very kindly takes a few hundred million every year and sends it to his friends abroad ......its called foreign aid.


Now I dont have any choice in the matter....and indeed, untill all our homeless, especially ex service men and women are sorted I'd much rather that money went in sorting out thier problems, but hey ho.......

eddie wrote:Those buildings in Singapore look like they're ready to fall down!!

I quite like it - probably takes about an hour to find your flat though.

Raggamuffin wrote:

eddie wrote:Those buildings in Singapore look like they're ready to fall down!!

I quite like it - probably takes about an hour to find your flat though.

If you ever find it!

It's £12,000,000,000 a year that our govt hand away to foreign nations in aid...



And we have about 600,000 new arrivals every year!!!



We cannot cope with this huge number of foreigners arriving every year any more!!!



The systems are beyond creaking under the strain...


It is completely unsustainable!!!


If we can't take a break from it all and get a chance to breathe... we are simply going to collapse under the sheer weight of It all!!!



And Then where is that going to get anyone!!!???



Have you ever read the old story about the golden goose that laid the golden eggs...!?

@Victor
Haha I got you

and
Homelessness can probably already be solved in the UK with the currently funding if done more efficiently.
like here many of the issues around homelessness are actually based in Mental health and Drug use/laws (many avoid the shelters because they will make them stop).