Affordable housing is a major political issue, flamed by immigration in the Brexit debate, especially in London. The RIBA has taken the opportunity to contribute to the debate with its new exhibition “Designing the House of Tomorrow. Sadly, the exhibition falls flat; the recent exhibition on Seoul’s planning framework shows that more imagination is needed.
The RIBA exhibition looks backwards at housing types, which it suggests has three forms – the cottage, the terraced house and the flat, and has commissioned six architects to look at how these forms might be adopted for the 21st century. The problem with this thesis is that it does not allow for new housing types to emerge and, currently in London, only flats appear to be under construction. There is no land for anything else, apparently.
The architects have provided a range of proposals. Jamie Fobert Architects looks outside London at rural communities and how residential provision can be increased within the existing built environment to create new accommodation for first time buyers while Maison Edouard Francois examines how to intensify an area near Orly Airport in France.
Mae has drawn on history to develop a modern kit of parts for terraced housing while vPPR asks whether the party wall can be manipulated to create new communal spaces within a terrace.
From a London perspective, it is the flat that is key to the future. It is good to note that residential accommodation in universities is held up as an exemplar for communal flatted living that provides inspiration to Mecanoo for their proposals while Studio Weave examine the advertising images through which people are sold their dreams and what that might mean in the future.
There is nothing here about using empty spaces such as the river, flood plains or car parks to help solve the problem as suggested in Korea and by Bill Dumpster in his recent proposals. There is a real opportunity for architects to contribute new ideas, but this exhibition falls to do so in the London context. Hopefully this is just the start of a debate by the RIBA….
