044 BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
How do we improve the UK’s appalling housing provision for those who fall through the gaps? Citizens House presents a radical new model for truly affordable housing, developed by a Community Land Trust and shaped by proper, community-led design. Veronica Simpson reports
OFF A QUIET backstreet in Sydenham, set to the rear of a post-war London county council housing estate, a glowing dwelling of pale brick flats has landed, each with its own generous balcony, in sage-painted metal. Te whole block shines like a beacon even on a drizzly April day. But this is no exclusive private development targeting the affluent. Tis building was designed with the community for the community: London’s first purpose-built, standalone Community Land Trust (CLT) housing project, providing 100 percent genuinely and permanently affordable housing. I went there to meet its architect, Mellis Haward of Archio, to talk about how the project came about.
As we stand in the doorway sheltering from April showers, two of the residents stroll past. Teir faces light up when they see Haward. One comes up to us for a chat; they’re after some advice on curtains. I wonder how often that happens to an architect – or how often the residents of a new block even know what their architects look like.
But talking with people – and, more importantly, listening to them – is something that Archio set out to do when Haward and Archio co-director Kyle Buchanan first set up the practice. And these qualities, she feels, were sensed by the residents and locals when the site’s developer London CLT (one of several CLT groups operating nationwide) asked the local community stakeholder groups to pick an architect from the shortlist of three. Says Haward: ‘I think we won the vote by bringing our whole office to the workshops and being good listeners, and not bringing any models or designs. [We were] just saying: What do you think would improve this for you? How do you live here? How could it be better? What can we deliver for you as part of this development?’ Giving people more options rather than fewer has proved a winner, though it goes against normal developer (and typically bogus consultation) practices, for sure. Even London CLT and Lewisham Citizens – a campaigning group who co-steered development, having successfully secured this piece of council land to
Left The flats have been emphasised with community cohestion at their heart
Above Locals were given a say as to who should inhabit the flats, allowing modest income families to move in
be used for affordable housing – were nervous about how that would pan out in the planning application. Says Haward: ‘Because we’d been so open, I think [they] were worried that we’d have loads of letters of complaint.’ Quite the opposite: they had 107 statements in support of the project at planning stage.
What might have swung the project in the locals’ favour was that they were being given a say in who got these precious homes. And one of their criteria was to prioritise people with a strong Sydenham or Lewisham connection (at least five years working and/or living in the area). Tey also wanted to focus on those whose income currently places them in that particularly stressful gap – not low enough to qualify for social housing, but unable to afford to buy or rent on the open market. And now the 11 apartments are home to local teachers, artists, NHS workers and also people who volunteer and have family locally.
Goodwill is built into the scheme also, thanks to the lengths to which the architects went to make these homes inspiring and commodious for residents, but also knit them into the surrounding community. Community cohesion, says Haward, is embedded into the design of the building, and the landscaping around it. Te flats are broken down into three volumes to minimise visual impact, and the balconies are staggered so that people can actually chat from one balcony to the next (rather than have them stacked on top of each other as is the norm). Interior spaces are filled with light, thanks to generous windows and also pockets cut into the plan, and are connected via a spacious external staircase, linking residents along broad, open walkways, 1.8m-wide (as opposed to the regulation 1m). What this means, says Haward, is that, ‘You can mend your bike out here, chat to your neighbours, put plants out. And there are really great views from the top floor.’
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